White Grapefruit

This is part of the Adagio flavored white sampler. It sounded light and refreshing, and I’m hot and irritable, so I am giving it a try.

I’m using the Adagio-suggested time and temperature.

The dry leaf mixture smells like… um…er… something I haven’t smelled since college. (Yeah, that’s the ticket.) The leaves are big and dark with silver tips and there are chunky bits of what looks like citrus peel in among them.

The liquor is champagne colored. The aroma has a definite grapefruit note over a dewy, floral undercurrent.

I quite liked the Adagio grapefruit oolong so I was hopeful this would be a keeper as well. The jury’s still out, though. I’m not discounting it, but on this first tasting I’m not quite sure what to make of this. I’m wondering if perhaps my palate wasn’t clear enough to judge. I had the aftertaste of having chewed a fruity gum a couple of hours previously still on my tongue but I didn’t think it was strong enough to make a difference, but I forgot how shy white teas can be.

This one is quite shy. It has flavor, but the flavor is a mix of a sort of earthy white and some undefined other aspect that isn’t clearly grapefruit, though it isn’t clearly not. I recall the oolong version having a much more pronounced grapefruit flavor.

This fit the bill for a hot day, but I’m not sure it’s tremendously better than the plain Adagio white peony, which in turn wasn’t at the top of my list. I’m not averse to trying this one a few more times to see whether it grows on me, but if I had to pick now I wouldn’t run out and buy more.

It’s getting later in the day and my Adagio order just arrived. I plucked this one from the bunch and set it up in the Breville. It smells quite a bit like citrus when dry. 175/3 min. Now, it’s not so citrusy smelling, however, it’s still pleasant. The taste is very light. It’s not overwhelming and there is definitely a citrus aspect to this tea. The white tea has taken on a vegetal taste, which, with the grapefruit flavoring, isn’t my ideal cup of tea.

This is nice and delicate. You can definitely taste the white tea, but there’s also a hint of orange in addition to the grapefruit. Yes, it doesn’t taste exactly like grapefruit, but whatever it does taste like is very pleasant with a pinch of sweetener added.

I love my new Jumbo Cup and Saucer from Adagio, so I can’t resist showing it off (with some White Grapefruit inside, of course):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47736372@N04/4373803036/

I steeped this at 180f for 3 mins.

I regard Adagio as my new ‘go to’ store as a newbie – they have never upsold me and their teas have all been very drinkable – this was no exception.

A very smooth tea, with no bitter aftertaste, almost to the extent that I was thinking it would have been a little bland were it not for the citrus taste to it. It is very fragrant, I was worried it would taste a little bit like ‘lemsip’ (UK based cold and flu sufferers will get the reference), but actually I was getting more orange than grapefruit in the brew – I believe there is orange peel on the label.

Very nice clean aftertaste, my breath even felt fresh – none of that vile coffee breath.

3 good steeps from the leaves. This is the most I have ever done, and I didn’t notice any diminution in taste or aroma.

In conclusion, would buy again! A palpable hit!

Had this over at my aunt’s today. Kinda funny, we got talking about colds and teas and I had no clue before today that she even drank tea, much less loose. She got this our local tea shop, not directly from Adagio. She made this for me so I can’t tell you the perameters. All I can tell you is that I told her to steep it for 3 min instead of 7. Very good, fruity and yet you can definitely tell it’s a white tea. I can’t stand grapfruit juice because it’s way too tart, but it’s nice to drink a tea where you can actually taste the flavor w/o being turned off.

This has a really delicate grapefruit scent dry, with it being boosted slightly when steeping. It wasn’t overpowering at all. The tea was nice and mild, like I would expect a white to be, with the very faintest of grapefruit undertones that were more pronounced on cooling.