161 Tasting Notes
ICK! One more time. ICK! Where’s the peach? The ginger is so overwhelming and artificial tasting. If the tea wasn’t labled “Ginger Peach” I would have sworn it was just a Ginger flavored black tea. Adagio offers a flavored ginger tea, so I can’t imagine how much stronger and intense that tea would be. Yikes! I love ginger but this is just too much. I found myself grimacing and scrunching up my nose trying to finish the cup. And one cup was enough for me. The taste is lingering…and it’s not the most pleasant.
This one is going into the drawer of misfit teas in hope to be swapped at a later date.
Preparation
Oh Ceylon Sonata, I like you. I’m 4 for 4 in regards to liking all of my new teas from my last Adagio order. Of course, I haven’t opened my savory sampler yet.
Anyway, this tea is basic and simple in the best of ways. Strong and mellow with a nice aftertaste. Almost any flavor would blend well with this tea…which is why Adagio uses this tea as the base of all of their flavored teas. It’s a perfect no-frills everyday tea. It can meld with anyone’s drinking habits. Milk and sugar, straight up, with honey, etc. Ceylon Sonata can hold its own. In the summer I would love this iced with some of my peppermint blended in. YUM!
Preparation
So, this is one of Adagio’s highest ranked teas. I didn’t end that sentence with a question mark…I’m still forming an opinion as I type this.
For my 1st cup I added milk and sugar. It was a highly enjoyable cup…much stronger than English Breakfast, by far. The second cup I tried plain, nothing added. It was a little too “AHHH” in your face, so I added sugar. It has a bold taste. Very malty, a tad smokey, maybe a bit earthy? The smell is not that great.
It seems to me that if you can drink this tea plain, or even with sugar only, that you would like plain rooibos. I know there are some rooibos haters out there. For some reason these two strike me as similar…minus the malty taste in Irish Breakfast. Where rooibos lacks “malty” it makes up in “earthy”. I don’t know…I’m rambling.
Ok, with milk and sugar, I can see why this tea would rank so high. I’m a fan. Off to make another cup.
Preparation
I liked your rooibos comparison in there. It helped clarify something DH said yesterday… he had some of the pu-ehr I was trying to figure out if I liked and he said it reminded him of honeybush. I thought it was a pretty off the wall comparison, but your note made me think… honeybush is very similar to rooibos and rooibos and pu-ehr are both earthy, so maybe it wasn’t as off the wall as I thought! Thank you for connecting the dots for me!
HA! No problem. Tell him that he’s not crazy! Did you decide if you like the pu-erh or not? Did DH think it was fishy too?
He only had half of the 4th steep but he picked up on the fishy right away (fourth steep went away from hay and back to fish). I have enough for probably 2 more cups so one day DH and I will have to sit down and figure out if the tea is any good.
Actually, I do think it is good… good as in quality. It’s the good as in taste bit that I STILL haven’t figured out! It might end up being one of those teas I can appreciate but never again drink. Or I might decide I love it. It’s just so weird!
Haha, I think your on point here. I enjoyed this tea a lot more with milk and sugar. Drinking it plan is a bit bland, but I can tolerate it. And I do enjoy plain rooibos.
Well hello White Peach! We are gonna be friends.
Refreshing is the key word. Light, clean and naturally peachy. The flavor is delicate and the peach taste is not artificial tasting at all. Maybe it’s just me, but I love flavored white teas iced more than hot. I’m positive that this white peach will be the bee’s knees when iced. Mmmm…can’t wait.
Preparation
First off, I’m sorry for blowing up everyone’s dashboard page. Ya’ll drank a lot of tea this weekend!!! Just trying not to miss anything.
The latest order from Adagio is in…lots of new teas to try and post about. My Monday morning is starting off with a cup of Assam Melody. I’m very happy with the cup despite being unable to identify one of the smells/notes. The closest I can guess is an ever so slight pine taste? It hits my tongue right before the aftertaste kicks in. I like it. It’s probably not pine. Maybe it smells like clean tea. Like a fresh out of the shower tea? Anyone else have a guess?
I’m not blown away by this tea, but it is quite nice. A couple of seconds after swallowing (after the cup cooled down), my mouth is devoid of moisture. Is Assam known for giving a dry-mouth effect? I did not notice this when the cup was still very hot.
Saving the savory teas until I’ve tried all of my other tins…..
Preparation
I’ve definitely gotten some pine-y tastes from black teas before. Sometimes I actually get it on Jackee Muntz, but to me that means that I didn’t brew it right. Blacks can be deceptively tough to peg down for me in terms of the brew temperature/steep time for unknown reasons. I can get a great degree of variance from cup to cup, which isn’t necessarily a good thing [because when I nail it, they can be SO DAMN GOOD].
Oh, and also, I haven’t tried a ton of assam, but I don’t think I’ve had a lot of that dry-mouth from them in the past. The drying effect is something that I’ve had vary on the same kind of tea from different companies before, though, if that helps?
I’ve always thought that the astringent, dry-mouth feel was more a feature of Darjeeling teas. shrugs
I’m with both Jillian and takgoti – Darjeelings are pretty consistent for me with the dry-mouth thing and I’ve had mixed results on some Assams or Assam blends doing it. It’s probably just personal preference but I tend to think the Darjeelings that give me that dry-mouth feeling are better than the ones that don’t but on Assams I prefer the ones that don’t give it to me over ones that do. If that makes any sort of sense.
Ok, take two.
Smell of leaves dry…amazing.
Smell of leaves wet…still pretty fantastic.
The tea steeps up all nice and dark…still smellin’ fab.
The taste is just not there! I can taste the angel food cake and bavarian cream flavors just fine…but that’s it. NO STRAWBERRY! And I see big ole hunks of strawberry floating around! If this tea was labled as “White Angel Food Cake” it would be spot on and I would be fairly impressed. Also, this go round, I steeped the heck out of it. Like 10+ minutes while I walked around the office making sure everyone knew it was Friday. Which it is. Which means that I will have a box full of tea at the foot of my door when I get home from work. Which is SWEET!
Hope everyone has a lovely weekend full of tasty teas!
Preparation
Finishing up the last of my sample from Auggy. This one still doesn’t taste like an oolong to me but I’m a little sad to see it go. It brews up super dark for an oolong, but the taste is mellow and not bitter at all.
Anyone else in the US up for a tea swap? I have several greens and a few others that need a happy new home.
This is such a good oolong. Really, it’s just Mmmm. I want all my oolongs like this. Simple, smooth, mellow, rich. Sooo good AND it holds up to multiple steeps very well. I believe one can only drink this tea hot…to ice it would cheapen it. (But it would probably still be delicious.) I’m raising my initial rating. Damn good.
Preparation
Ending the work week on an almond-y note. I love this tea. It smells so good. This tea makes me want to bake goodies and fill my house with this smell. There are so many almond slivers in this tea that when it’s super hot, you can see little oil globules on the surface. Mmmm…globules.
Oh yeah, if anyone is interested in a tea swap, let me know. I have several greens that I’d like to give to a good home.
I’d love to trade, although I’m not sure I have anything worth swapping. My email is [email protected] so feel free to drop me a line. :)
