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The last tea latte went down so well I decided to make another one, and settled on this because I needed a caffeine-free option and thought this would be a good choice. It wasn’t bad, but I think I used too much leaf (3 spoons instead of 2) and it’s already such a sweet blend that when added to so much milk it became pretty cloyingly sweet and syrupy. Still tasty, but it took me a while to get through, and the almond and hazelnut notes were overshadowed by the caramel sweetness and some cherry-like notes from the honeybush. I think I prefer my tea lattes with a bit more of a kick!

Tea latte tonight while my boyfriend and I watch Drag Race over video call (we’re separated during lockdown because he’s a key worker and still has to go in to work every day). This makes a phenomenal chai latte! I wish I had enough leaf left to make more, but sadly I probably don’t. It has a lovely blend of chai spices, with warming cinnamon dominating the sip without overpowering the other spices. The peppercorns add an interesting heat, but not too much since I think the milk tempers it quite a bit. I don’t get much in the way of coconut, but again that could be due to the milky latte overpowering it. It actually reminds me quite a bit of a chai tea I got from a traditional stove-top stand at a food festival in Sheffield once, so that’s got to be a sign that this is perfect for a latte! Mmmmm, I should make tea lattes more often.

Sipdown! I am on fire today! (181/397)

This blend is light on the green tea, which if anything is a plus for me since I’m not a big fan, but it’s worth noting for anyone wanting to pick this up because they like green tea. It’s actually pretty accurate to the name, though, with some sourness alongside the herbal lemon which is reminiscent of sherbet, and a sweetness which I didn’t expect. I checked Bird & Blend’s website to see if there was any stevia added, but it’s not listed in the ingredients (though this blend is discontinued on the main site, it’s still available on the VIP site). I was actually planning to add some sugar to make it more reminiscent of the sweet, but there was no need to! Though I wasn’t blown away by this tea, I was pleasantly surprised, and I drank my cup down in a flash. It was just what I needed after an afternoon drinking rich black teas.

Thank you KittyLovesTea (who I don’t think uses Steepster any more, sadly) for sharing this with me.

This tea is absolutely gorgeous. The twisty leaves are striped with golden tips, and the liquor when brewed is a beautiful clear amber. The scent is heavily malty, with overtones of honey and dark chocolate. The malt translates across to the sip, which is thick and bready, though I personally don’t notice the honey and chocolate comparisons translating. There’s a slight smokiness towards the end of the sip which is making this lean more towards savoury, a dark malt loaf. There’s no bitterness, the tea is very smooth, and it’s making me wonder if I could up the temperature to get a more complex flavour profile.

This is actually an unexpected sipdown, because as soon as I finished my first mug I had the urge to make another to experiment with the temperature. I used boiling water this time, and the tea is slightly more tannic with a stone fruit, almost plummy note I didn’t notice the first time around. There’s an ever-so-slight cocoa note if I squint, but the dark chocolate and honey I could smell while the tea was steeping still isn’t translating the way the scent promises. The malt is still prominent, but it’s smoother than a lot of other malt-heavy teas I’ve tried in the past, which is nice.

Thank you Sil for this sample! Sipdown 180/397.

Sipdown! 179/397

I think I’m going to miss this tea more than I thought I would. Before I started drinking loose leaf tea, I would get black tea with a shot of hazelnut syrup when I went out to a coffee shop with my friends. This is so nostalgic for me because it reminds me of that time, and not only that but once you add the tiniest drop of milk to hide the astringency from the Adagio base, it’s a really tasty cup. The hazelnut is rich and creamy, with an almost caramel-like quality to it which makes this feel like a treat. I bet this would be a lovely tea to have with pancakes on a lazy morning. Adding to my wishlist. I probably wouldn’t buy a large quantity of this, but it’s something I’d like to have in for the occasions when I want a bold, nutty cup of tea.

Sipdown! 178/397

This has gone from my cupboard to my wishlist. It’s still not available on the UK Adagio site, so I might bite the bullet and place an order with the US site, import charges be damned. That being said, the chocolate chai definitely consists of 90% of the flavour profile, so maybe I should just order that and be done with it. It really does remind me of the Mycroft blend, and I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that they don’t share even one tea in common. This tea is delicious spiced cake, heavy on the cinnamon and clove, with a warming heat from the ginger right at the end of the sip. It’s a very fitting tea for Moriarty, and a very tasty one to boot.

This blend has been hanging around my cupboard for a really long time, mostly because the lime and cola flavours aren’t prominent enough for it to make a real impression. This blend has now been retired and replaced with a similar tea using a yerba mate base instead of the guayusa, which I’d be interested to compare when I finally place another order. The scent of this one brewing was super off-putting – it smelled like a barn and that’s not something I want to drink – and while it was hot the dirty hay scent did translate to the flavour of the tea a little bit, while the lime was a whisper in the background and the cola nowhere to be found. I fully thought I was going to dump this cup, but after a few minutes as it started to cool, the hay note started to fade, and now the lime is most prominent (but still soft) and the cola is actually coming through in the aftertaste. It’s fairly pleasant, aside from the occasional sip where I can still taste the hay, but I do wish the lime cola impression was just less delicate overall. I plan on trying this one as a cold brew, as several other Steepsterites have recommended, and am pinning my hopes on trying the new blend as I do think the offputting scent and barn flavour is coming from the guayusa. I would have preferred something with a green or white tea base, though, because mate isn’t my favourite either.

VE Day 2020

I made a pitcher of this tea iced for our street party this afternoon, and as it turned out this was my last tea of the day because we ended up staying out til really late. We had a brilliant afternoon, and this went down a storm. Fantastic day all round!

ETA: I was a little bit merry when I wrote this last night, so I didn’t really add anything helpful about the tea. I had several comments that it tasted like juice, and even my iced tea hater mam enjoyed it. Heavy on the strawberry and blueberry, light on the tea. It doesn’t have that strong citric acid background that a lot of Whittard’s instant teas do, so that was a bonus. This is perfect for iced tea, I’m not sure I’ll even bother to try it hot.

VE Day 2020

Yikes, I’d forgotten just how strong this tea is! The bergamot is super powerful and as soon as the water hit the teabag I was transported back to a different time in my life. When I lived in Yorkshire, I visited a flatmate’s family in Sheffield often, and this was always the tea they had. Now I can’t drink it without being reminded of them. It’s not one I could drink often, as it is so powerful, but for a bagged black tea it really is one of the best I’ve tried. Very fitting for today – a strong English cuppa.

VE Day 2020

I’m drinking this because of the name more than any desire to actually drink it. It’s not bad, but I always struggle with deciding how to drink this one. Black, the apricot and vanilla come through beautifully and are actually quite delicious in the initial sip, but then the black tea base comes and overpowers them and sits heavy on your tongue. I find that a lot of the adagio blends suffer because of the black tea base they use. Typically, I add milk to temper the heaviness and the astringency of that base, and I did that this morning too. The problem is that the delicate apricot and vanilla don’t really put up much of a fight against the milk, and as soon as a drop is added they fade into the background. With milk, this is a very cloying cream-heavy blend, with just a hint of apricot at the end of the sip. If only the Adagio fandom blends used a higher quality black tea base – or even (gasp) offered more than one base – this could have been really, really nice.