14 Tasting Notes
I’m not going to make a recommendation on this one, as it’s my own blend and that would be cheating. I merely want to set out a bit more detail in the creation process than Adagio’s fields have room for. My whole Chrono Trigger fandom came about in early 2014 when I tried Amy Zen’s Firefly fandom and found nearly all blends to be overpowering and almost undifferentiable chocolate-chai variants. I wanted to try a set of my own, based on characters I knew and loved, and embracing the range of leaves and subtler accents available to create blends which were truly differentiated without heavy flavorants.
Frog and green earl grey are such an obvious pairing that I was completely unsurprised to find Adagio’s other Chrono fandom (hi, TheFontBandit!) was using it as well. Still, this one took a few iterations before I was satisfied. I wanted to divert the bergamot in a decidedly earthier/grassier/naturier/swampier direction because, well, Frog. Sencha was originally just a placeholder- a green that could stand up to other strong flavors, and which I happened to have the dregs of a tin of from my days of Harney allegiance. Poking around the local Adagio outlet, I experimented with kukicha (enough of a failure to stick in my mind, and the first true apology I owed the staff for being Guinea pigs) and maybe one other green, as well as my own stashes of e.g. jasmine green or dragon pearl. Nothing quite fit like sencha, however, particularly after I added Soba. Ah, yes. Soba. 2 ingredients does not make a very satisfying blend, so my various other green experiments were in part searching for other compatible elements. I only found soba at the bottom of a bag of boxes, dating back from shortly after my semester in Japan, as a gift from my parents who insist I introduced them to it. It had been opened perhaps once in an early attempt to mix my own genmaicha, and then left to sit. Sprinkled into the going Frog blend, it immediately tied everything together. Nutty, toasty, unusual… I made multiple attempts to capture the flavor with other Adagio-source ingredients, but nothing came remotely close. So. Frog remains my least complicated blend, but I don’t think I’d change it. Definitely a go-to for my various and sundry (but mostly programming…) all-day weekend side-projects.
I’m not going to make a recommendation on this one, as it’s my own blend and that would be cheating. I merely want to set out a bit more detail in the creation process than Adagio’s fields have room for. My whole Chrono Trigger fandom came about in early 2014 when I tried Amy Zen’s Firefly fandom and found nearly all blends to be overpowering and almost undifferentiable chocolate-chai variants. I wanted to try a set of my own, based on characters I knew and loved, and embracing the range of leaves and subtler accents available to create blends which were truly differentiated without heavy flavorants.
Lucca came together remarkably cleanly and has become my absolute favorite of the set, despite having ingredients I normally don’t love, and notwithstanding the fact that I had no idea where to even begin when I set out. How does one even define Lucca? I wanted something maybe “sciencey” and a bit obscure. I toyed with notions of a chai, but Lavos and Magus were already headed in that direction and the whole point of the Chrono fandom was to not be a chai pit. So. I. Got. Creative. Pu ehr was just obscure and dense enough to be a candidate base, even though I’d recently tried Adagio’s then-new pu ehr blends and decided it didn’t blend well with anything strong enough to stand up to it. I’d only ever tried pu ehr poe, but the helpful store staff (hi, Karla) pointed me at dante, which was a bit smoother and less… fishy. I wanted to cut the pu ehr with something of quality, and ali shan jumped to my memory as a good, distinctive oolong favorite. I only realized later how much of a crime I was committing using it in a blend, but experiments to swap it out late in development all ended with a distinctly less satisfying cup. Lucca needed some odd accents, so I went raiding the store’s blending spice tins for things that were not sweet (which would have clashed) and not spicy (might have fit with the fire thing, but again, ixnay on the aichay) but were still ingredients I’d tasted before and could envision. I came up with cardamom (an instant fit), licorice (which I usually hate, but somehow had a weirdly good feeling about) and lavender (which was a total craps shoot, but just the sort of complexifying unknown mask I like to throw in). I completely cooked the ratios on my first go, with the lavender dominating everything. Inverting the order yielded the current blend, which I have never been able to deviate from. This one joins me pretty much every other weekend of indie game coding, challenged only by Frog and Magus in my overall satisfaction.
Edit: for a sweetener, try 1/4-1/2tsp per cup Seva Berry / VG Commerce Pine-Elixir (http://www.seva-berry.com/products_en.php#eliksir). The pine notes are a strangely good compliment to the cardamom and lavender.
I’m not going to make a recommendation on this one, as it’s my own blend and that would be cheating. I merely want to set out a bit more detail in the creation process than Adagio’s fields have room for. My whole Chrono Trigger fandom came about in early 2014 when I tried Amy Zen’s Firefly fandom and found nearly all blends to be overpowering and almost undifferentiable chocolate-chai variants. I wanted to try a set of my own, based on characters I knew and loved, and embracing the range of leaves and subtler accents available to create blends which were truly differentiated without heavy flavorants.
Marle… I had a strong notion of the sensibility I wanted, but few hard notions for ingredients. Something very light, slightly fresh, fruity, and/or relaxing. Basically, the party healer. But what I didn’t want was anything perfumey or sickly-sweet. After a bit of agonizing, I finally decided to pair white tea with some berry flavor, blue would be appropriate. I went to the local Adagio outlet to browse for ingredients, and was offered a prefab blueberry white that was basically everything I was going for in the final Marle blend. Which was reassuring, but also meant I was going to need to be even more creative if I wanted to make a proper blend. More agonizing over details and raiding my stash, which by now included the tail end of a berry herbal mix I’d forgotten to refill, and a rooibos blend I’d picked up when Adagio was out of Key West. The berry mix (dominated, as is Adagio’s wont, by hibiscus) kicked up the fruit aspect nicely, and Lemon Cloud brought a slight vanilla mellowness which added some needed complexity. The blend might have done without the chamomile, and indeed I had to cut it WAY back so it wasn’t overpowering, but it was on my mind all throughout as a staple of relaxing herbals, and in small quantities, it does add some of that magic obscuring note that makes the blend a blend and not an obvious conglomeration of parts. While there is some tea in the base, I still file this one with my herbals and have not noticed any ill effects drinking it late at night.
I’m not going to make a recommendation on this one, as it’s my own blend and that would be cheating. I merely want to set out a bit more detail in the creation process than Adagio’s fields have room for. My whole Chrono Trigger fandom came about in early 2014 when I tried Amy Zen’s Firefly fandom and found nearly all blends to be overpowering and almost undifferentiable chocolate-chai variants. I wanted to try a set of my own, based on characters I knew and loved, and embracing the range of leaves and subtler accents available to create blends which were truly differentiated without heavy flavorants.
Crono was one of the first few I pinned down. He isn’t a very personality-strong character; more the reliable, vaguely-Japanese fits-in-anywhere balanced type. Jasmine and oolong were on my mind as bases, but those were almost too bland. Rummaging through my stash, I tripped over hojicha, a toasty Japanese green tea treatment that fit the bill perfectly and brought in a hint of Crono’s thunder magic. Fujian Rain, another favorite, played off similar flavors and mixed quite well (unfortunately, Adagio can’t seem to get it in stock anymore, despite high demand). I brought the jasmine back in as a supporting role to complicate the flavors enough that the base ingredients wouldn’t be patently obvious, but a trio of mild greens still left it lacking that extra pixie dust to really stand out. I experimented with a few other flavorants and visited Adagio’s local brick & mortar a few times to mix other blends and finally tripped over lemongrass as the perfect light final touch. Crono is probably the mildest blend in my set, but I’m still quite satisfied, and enjoy brewing up a pot now and again when I’m in the mood for something light.
