Adagio Custom Blends, Amanda

Halt all the things! The Traveling Tea Box just arrived at Baker Street! (I know you’re jealous and I’m sorry) Put down that paint brush, don’t even think about cleaning that kitchen or doing laundry today (okay so I might still do laundry) must try all the teas! Also I’m sorry to the folks who sent me tea in these last two weeks, I’m going to have to put them on hold for two days. I totally wasn’t expecting this when the postman rang the bell, I thought it was my gaiwan, then I thought its a bit odd that my gaiwan is coming from a girl with such lovely handwriting, but my last one came from a person and not a company address. But no when I opened the box there was tea! Dozens of packets of tea! Do I have a surprise admirer on Steepster? I was not expecting a swap, oh and they included a notebook! Oh, duh! Ohh, oh, oh,oh! Traveling Tea Box!

So initially I sorted the teas into two piles, interested and not so interested. The interested pile consisted mostly of oolongs, a tea called December and a tea from Whispering Pines, must try! Tea immediately cast into the pass pile were rooibos, chocolate blends, fruity blends and well everything else. But once sorted was completed I picked up the teas from the pass pile and started to open them up. This was the first one I grabbed and well apparently once I smell something I must try it.

However I knew this would now probably be the case for all of them and with the exception of a couple of the teas in the must have pile that were of a low quantity I really just wanted to try a tiny bit and save the rest for everyone else. So how to brew such a small amount? I looked at my tea ware, grabbed my brew basket, remembered it wouldn’t fit down into my narrow 8oz mugs but it does fit into my little 4 oz tasting cups which meant I could brew with less than a teaspoon of tea, not get overwhelmed with so much liquid in the next two days and still have plenty for everyone to try! Win!

So into the basket went just over half a teaspoon of dark minty goodness. I set my variable temp kettle for 200 (after which it immediately drops a few degrees) and steeped it for just around a min. I wasn’t expecting to love it but did find it quite enjoyable. I have only tried two similar teas, Teavana’s Cacao Mint Black and their Slimful Chocolate Decadence. I also meant to take home some of the mint black to my dad as it reminded me a bit of thin mints, his favorite. This reminds me a bit more of a York Peppermint Patty smushed with a Chips Ahoy cookie, only smoother and less abbrasive than the York tends to be. It is a creamy and well balanced dessert cup (though I had it before breakfast) and I did contemplate taking it and brewing it for my dad, but we’ll see. I tried a second infusion, but it was thinner, less creamy and more minty, closer to the ice cream perhaps, so it probably could have benefited from a longer infusion.

Now of course this opened up the floodgates to try all the other chocolate teas so next up David’s Choco Rocket! Many thanks to Amanda for starting and coordinating the tea box and for including this particular tea and to Sare for contributing, the next one (that I am already drinking as I write this) is one of her’s. I probably won’t be rating most of these as I’m not spending enough time with them and they are not my normal cuppa. Also amused that this is the LochTea ;)

I didn’t realize I gave so much of this away, lol well I guess I can always buy more. It comes with more chocolate chips now too.

I steeped it for 3 minutes and it’s kind of harsh. Blah. It seems more chocolatey than last time I had it though, so that’s a plus.

I let it cool and it became a bit easier to drink. And now that it’s been melding for a bit, I like it a lot! Definitely a good mint chocolate blend after all. Just need to work again on not getting grossed out by the bitterness of Adagio’s black base and tweak the prep just right. JEAH.

If you are familiar with Ryan Lochte, you know he says some …interesting things on Twitter. Well when I saw a screenshot for a tweet complaining about too many chocolate chips in mint chocolate chip ice cream, I was inspired to make a tea….a Lochtea, if you will. Feel free to roll your eyes at any time as I continue.

I had no intention of ordering this or the other one I made (an orange mint mate) but Adagio was like “hey here’s 20% off if you buy one!” so I did it. And it came in yesterday, and I have to admit, in the bag it actually smells a lot like ice cream.

But how does it taste? Even with a 2 1/2 minute steep it’s pretty minty so I guess I might have to lower the amount of mint. It really annoys me that you have to buy 3 oz of a custom blend when I think they should offer a sample if you created it so you can get it right. Anyway, underneath the mint there is a definite cream flavor. Unlike in the bag, I’m not picking up much in the way of chocolate.

I don’t think this tea gets a jeah from me just yet.

Smells AWESOME in pouch/container, then brews up into a nice calming cup of minty tea with a little sweetness—but not overwhelmingly so—as a good aftertaste. JEAH JEAH JEAH