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First of all, let me say that this tea is not nearly as fresh as the picture on the website. The tea looked like something I raked up out of my yard in the dead of winter. The leaves were brown and withered. Strange. But the smell of the leaves is fantastic! It reminds me of snowy evenings by the fire with the Christmas tree glowing in the background.

The color of the brew is much darker than I am used to for a white. Maybe because the leaves are browner than advertised? That same Christmasy smell still wafts from my cup.

But then I run into why I don’t see many white chai blends: the white teas are too delicate to put such heavy spices in. I can’t taste the base at all, I don’t think. There’s a heavy sugary flavor that COULD be the tea; the website doesn’t mention anything about having sugar in blend. But it’s sooo sweet. Not sure about that.

Spices are the usual for a chai: ginger, cinnamon, cardamom. I’m glad there’s no clove in there, as I usually find clove to be a little overwhelming no matter how little they use.

While this tea is charmingly Christmasy, I’m so distracted by the odd sweetness that I can’t enjoy it fully.

Ohh, this is lovely. Even just opening my little glass jar and smelling it—it’s all earthy and chocolatey. And the leaves! They’re so furry! I want to name them, keep them as pets, and let them sleep curled up on my shoulder.

I’d describe this tea as sweet potatoey hot chocolate. There’s chocolate and sweet potatoes, of course, but there is also an earthy kind of malty flavor and burned sugar. Sometimes there’s a hint of some bitterness, but it’s very light and comes and goes.

Loving this earthy sweet potato chocolate tea!

Everything about this tea was subtle. This tea seemed to have all the flavor profiles of a black tea with all the strength of a green or a white. Almost all the flavor was washed out after the first steep, which was disappointing. There’s quite a bit of astringency, which I’m also not a huge fan of.

There’s a bit of molasses, or maybe a dark, dirty sort of caramel? It’s faint, but pleasant. There are hints of chocolate, and more than hints of maltiness. The brew is slightly on the smoky side, though it’s a natural flavor of the tea; I don’t think the leaves were actually smoked in any way. There’s a nice hint of tobacco in there as well, which is a nice touch with the smoke and molasses.

It was nice, but the single steep of flavor doesn’t make it worth it. It reduces to watered down minerals after the first western style steep.

I was in the mood for something ricey, so I figured “Why not add some chocolate and drink it?”

The smell of the dry leaf is sooo cocoa-ey. It smells like a dark chocolate bar.

For my first impression of the brew, I was surprised to get popcorn. That roasted, toasted flavor comes through strongly, reminding me of a dark, sweet toasted bread. Below those flavors are a light sweetness and a back wash of dark chocolate.

If I had to compare this to a food, I’d say warm chocolate rice cakes. I think I’ll have the rest for breakfast.

I’ve had a couple of gyokuros now, so I at least am establishing a baseline for what these taste like. This one was a little odd. There was a bit of a metallic, tannic taste that reminded me of a black tea. It’s a bit drying on the sides of the tongue, and there’s a hint of bitterness.

For the more dominant flavors, I’m getting chestnuts, asparagus, and buttery chickpeas.

“Coffee and tea mixed together?! Yuck!” That’s what I got every time one of my coworkers asked what I was drinking. While the mix of this tea is oolong and coffee beans, and it smells like coffee and tea mixed together, it doesn’t taste at all like that.

The dominating flavor is toasty to the extreme—different kinds of toastiness from toasted wheat to toasted coffee. There’s an undercurrent of caramel that I think is coming from the coffee. Let me tell you that I have never been able to taste anything from coffee, but perhaps stripping it of the bitterness allowed the undercurrents to shine through. There’s also a soily, dirty kind of earthiness that reminds me of the smell of fresh-ground beans.

For the base, it tasted almost identical to the Beautiful Taiwan Golden Lily, that creamy, earthy, mushroomy kind of umami flavor that worked well with the notes from the coffee.

As it cools, it reminds me a bit of roasted peanut butter without sugar.

Wet soilier on the second steep.

Whew, this sucker is strong! Malty to the point of tasting like a dark beer. Still no bitterness, but much too much for me.

I had to have milk and sugar to enjoy this tea, and I’m still not really loving the flavor.

This was a nice, robust black tea: malty, mineraly, tannic, with a touch of sweetness in the later steeps.

The nicest thing about this tea is that no matter how much I steeped it, it never got bitter. The flavor was strong, but the brew stayed smooth.

This would make a nice breakfast or every-day-with-meals tea. It’s also nice for a beginner, since it seems to be difficult to ruin.

I actually had two strawberry black teas today, this one from Adagio and one from Margaret’s.

Adagio’s base makes itself more well-known with that tannic, malty flavor, so much so that the strawberry tends to take a back seat in the overall experience.

The strawberry flavor, while more realistic than Margaret’s, is slightly sour and weak. I have to say that I prefer Margaret’s. Adagio’s strawberry might benefit from some sugar. Maybe a little milk for some strawberries and cream action.

I’ve had the flavored version of this oolong several times, and it’s one of my favorites (not from Beautiful Taiwan, though). So I thought I knew what I was expecting when I brewed this.

It doesn’t taste at all like I would expect. This oolong was more like a Sencha with a meaty, buttery, umami sort of flavor. The mouthfeel was creamy, but the flavor of the liquid wasn’t at all sweet like I was expecting. Still very tasty though. There’s a hint of vegetable in there, but a heavy savory vegetable, like asparagus.

The leaves seem to lose most of their flavor after 2 steepings if you’re brewing western, which seems a little low to me.