Black Dragon Pearls

Took a sick/mental health day. Is it bad that I had been saving this tea for Saturday morning? And I was excited about it? The day off meant I could try it one day earlier, and I’m glad I did. This isn’t as complex as I was hoping; I don’t really get a lot of earthiness or any of the typical Yunnan notes, but I do get that sweet, powdery taste of cocoa powder, especially in the aftertaste. It’s expensive, so I don’t know if I would do a bigger order of this, but I might go for another sample. The cocoa taste is great.

wow, these never fail for a good cuppa. The initial scent of the pearls smell of cocoa and cinnamon, but after brewing, they smell a bit more earthy. The taste is earthy yet sweet and very satisfying. this is a definite staple in my collection.

Pre steeping it smells wonderful. Slight notes of Dark Chocolate giving a sweetness that is quite nice.

It is fun to watch the pearls break apart while steeping. My hardware is larger than one cup so I’ve typically used 4 pearls per steeping with slightly less than one and 3/4 cups water. It steeps a delightful brown/red color combination. Once steeped it still smells slightly of dark chocolate and does have a slight earthiness that is quite appealing.

Taste is a very good red tea. A smooth cup that finishes clean, I really like this tea. I burnt myself out on the red dragon blend, I hope that doesn’t happen with this one. This is lately my morning cup and I’ve just ordered a second shipment.

First off, I haven’t tried any other of these types of pearls from other companies. So I can’t make an honest comparison between Adagio’s pearls and others. That being said, this is one tea I cannot and will not live without! I love the smoky, strong flavor with the hint of cocoa. So yummy – perfect when I’m not motivated to make an executive decision on what tea to drink next, and even better as an AM wake up call. I also like to use it as a base and add peppermint or spearmint or cinnamon or other teas. The possibilities are endless!

I have the newer format, in teabags!…HUH, WHA, NOOOOOO, NOT TEABAGS! EEEGADS!…lol.

Aroma: Smooth, delicate, mild and sweet…a little caramel, a little chocolate and mild Sri Lanka tea.

Taste: It started out a little, excuse the pun, but a little “watery”…not much to it, a little too mild. The longer it steeped, the more the flavor profile shown through; it is actually really sweet with noticeable cocoa notes. Also, the region it hails from, Yunnan, China, you can detect in the flavor…a little earthiness, a little smokiness.

Aftertaste: The aftertaste is mostly the chocolate-y cocoa with a little of the earthiness lingering…different.

To me, this tea seems to be a good after dinner tea because of the prominent chocolate notes…tasty.

You can think of pearls, balls or rabbit droppings – your choice. I think I prefer the first option. The smell is wonderful: chocolate, cinnamon and even cigars – I love it. I liked the taste as well: smooth and earthy. Good morning cup!

These are really big pearls. In fact, they are much too big to be called pearls. Let’s just go with takgoti and call them balls. It’s a good name for these. They expand into beautiful brown leaves and brew up into a red-black liquor.

The fragrance is slightly fruity with a slight smoky note. It’s a strong tea with a slight astringency and a very slight bitter chocolate taste (I may have oversteeped it slightly). The smoky notes exist within the taste as well. It’s a good strong tea and better than I expected. Not as good as my favorite blacks but I wouldn’t toss these balls out of the room. They have a lot to offer.

This is a good black tea. I’m afraid that just having a sample hasn’t allowed me to get the tea/water ratio right. The first batch was too weak because I used to few pearls. This second one is better, but it still tastes like a weaker Yunnan Jig from Adagio.

I don’t know why I didn’t review this the first time I drank this. But this is good :) I got this as a sample but it lasted a while! To me the flavor is a bit weak but it’s still enjoyable. Kind of earthy and sweet. Glad I got to try it but I think I will stick to my other company :)

Brewed with the Ingenuitea with 12 oz of boiling water, 5 pearls(4g), and steeped for 3 minutes. I think I’ll try for another infusion as well…

The dry leaf has a bit of an earthy scent, but I can’t pick up much. I did a rinse on these to help open the tea up, and I think because one time I brewed these and got a bit of dustiness in the tea. It’s fun to watch the pearls slowly unfurl.

Really pretty burnt orange/brown color and nice smell. Cocoa, earth, and smoke I think.
I pick up the smokey taste, which I love, and black tea-ness. Still getting this whole tasting thing down. :) I think some astringency because it does leave my mouth a bit dry. Tasty though!

Edit: second infusion is just as good, if not better!

When I think pearls, I think of jasmine dragon phoenix pearls (or some similarly-named variation that amounts to the same thing). I was a little on the surprised side when I opened up my sample pack of this tea to find these much, much larger pearls. Not that pearls can’t be this large, of course…I’m sure my wife would love to possess a necklace of pearls this size.

In any event, these pearls make tea, and I drink tea. I drank this tea, in fact. It was pretty good, definitely earthy and with mild astringency. Nice and bold, it seems like a relatively decent bet for breakfast, for me anyway.

I don’t like many black teas, but I’ve been widening my tastes lately, and what better to start off than dragon balls – sorry – pearls.

These are huge. If you’ve had green dragon pearls before, these are about three times the diameter. They smelled good, I dropped two in a mug, and steeped. I was surprised at how floaty the leaves were. It was hard not to swallow them too, unlike green dragon pearls. I think this was due to many stems in the cup.

The flavour was rich but not overwhelming. It had something in there I can’t quite describe, sort of a subtle fullness. Definitely going to drink again, maybe purchase!

Rich and robust and complex. Liquor isn’t real dark, more of an amber. Not as strong as some black tea, say an assam, but not as overwhelming, either. And more complex. This isn’t a tea that is going to punch you in the mouth, coffee style. Its more like a wine. You have to appreciate it and its depths.

Probably worth trying just for the unique shape. The curled balls (pellets?) of the tea are interesting to look at both in the jar and during the brewing process, as water bubbles spring forth from the orbs as they slowly unfurl.

I liked the pearls. This is a good black tea I steeped it for a a couple of minutes or more. I did not taste a huge amount of cocoa notes but I only used one pearl in my cup.

Half the fun of this tea is just watching the pearls unfurl as the tea steeps. The unsteeped pearls have a very strong earthy/smoky/gun powder smell, but sadly that doesn’t all transfer into the final cup, as the tea itself is on the bland side. It does make a nice, dark tea, but I could go for a stronger, earthier taste. That said, it’s not a bad tea, I just wish it had a stronger flavor to match the appearance.

First of all, these are the infusion parameters I used this time:
4 balls, 2 cups boiling (212 degrees F) water, 5 minutes, first steep.

It was quite good. Not amazing, but good.

Quite smooth for a black tea. Everything seemed to blend well together (or I couldn’t distinguish any particular flavor, anyways). Not much in the way of bitterness either.

I didn’t really allow my cup to cool much while drinking, so I can’t say how it did as it cooled. Last time I had this with 3 balls/2 cups, I didn’t like it as it cooled down then (it was ok warm).

Will continue tweaking with parameters values as I use up my sample, but this time around it turned out quite good.

Funny, the “chocolate notes” in this tea were more enjoyable to me than the Chocolate tea from Adagio (that I only gave 15 points). Adagio recommends 2-3 pearls per cup so I tried 3. I could have used 2 and would have been perfectly happy with the flavor, which I would describe as “medium” as opposed to a weak or strong flavor. I tried it without sweetener and with, and think I could comfortably drink it either way.

Watching the pearls unfurl into a seaweed-looking mass of dark brown leaves was kinda fun- so much so that I forgot to take them out. This tea’s earthy flavor doesn’t need to be strong for me to enjoy it. Next time I’ll use 2 pearls and take the leaves out earlier.

UPDATE: I’ve discovered this to be the perfect work tea. I get involved in my work at times and have, a couple of times, steeped this tea longer than I intended to. I’ve discovered that no bitterness is caused by this.

These little pearls of tasty greeted me with the wonderful scent of cocoa when I opened the bag. Clearly off to a good start!

The directions on the bag recommended a “heaping teaspoon” for each cup, but I remembered the description on Adagio’s website advising the use of two to three pearls per cup. I chose to place three pearls in my teaspoon infuser. A heaping teaspoon seemed like it would be a bit much for one cuppa, and only using a few pearls would leave each of them some room to unfurl and steep properly. To be very specific, I chose two larger and one smaller of the pearls. I steeped them in boiling water for four and a half minutes. (The recommendation was boiling water for three to five minutes.)

The scent of cocoa is not very prominent once the tea is brewed, but the hint is still there in the taste. The farther into my cup, the more earthy the tea tasted. I did not add anything to this tea since it was my first brew, but I will likely add a bit of sugar next time. It is entirely enjoyable without the addition of sugar but my personal preference is for a sweeter taste. Another future cup might have me experimenting with half-and-half as well.

Completely unrelated to the tea itself, the name invokes a certain want all on its own. If you’re partial to dragons, that is. Why not try a cup to celebrate the Year of the Dragon? As for me, I feel a bit inspired. Perhaps I will use these pearls to create a Fire & Blood Latte for the second season premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones. And since the gaming world has confirmation on the release of Guild Wars 2 later this year, I might have something on the brew there as well.

Want to give this tea – or any of Adagio’s other teas – a taste? Let me know and I will send you a $5 gift certificate to use for your first purchase! :)

My first non-bagged tea, and I am quite delighted. I added some milk and sugar, and was so very, very pleased. I love the chocolate-y richness. Mmm.

Backlogging from this morning:

When I opened the tin, I was surprised to see how large these balls were. [I’ll just say “That’s what she said” now, so I don’t have to say it after every sentence in this note.] They were probably 2 to 3 times the size of my Jasmine #12 pearls. I threw 2 balls into my infuser, and immediately they began to unfurl.

The taste is rich and complex. I can taste woody, earthy notes with a hint of chocolate. It somehow manages to be slightly bitter at the same time as being so rich. The smell is more bitter than anything, although it’s still a nice smell. This will make a very good morning cup of tea, because it is pretty gentle in it’s assault on your tongue.