Adagio Custom Blends, Cara McGee

I’ve had this before. Going through my stash of samples and this one smelled good.. and a plus side, it’s a sipdown. Shortly after I arrived here on Steepster MissB was so generous to send me samples to try… This was one of them. I have so much trouble drinking the last cup of something that I think I like when I know I won’t likely reorder soon.

I remember enjoying this one, but didn’t have refined tea taste buds when I first tried it. I have to say it tastes very different to me now. I didn’t taste the complexities of it before. I get bergamot, and orange peel mostly (of which the orange peel comes as a kind of bitterness at the end of the sip), maybe a bit of vanilla, and if I really think about it, maybe some nutty dryness at the end of the sip. As I near the end of the cup I get more nutty flavor, and maybe that caramel, maybe. Kind of strange to get both bergamot and orange peel in the same cup and being able to detect them both. Trying to decide if they compete with each other.. Hmm..

I think

Backlog from yesterday morning. I was looking for a black tea again in the morning and this one caught my eye. I looked it up and saw it was an EG blend with additional flavors and was a bit concerned about how strong the bergamot would be.

I was pleasantly surprised, I must say. I enjoyed this cup more than I expected to. It is a nice blend of flavors, nutty, caramel, a bit creamy, and with just a hint of bergamot…but not too much. A pleasant cup. Not something I would reach for every day, but something I could enjoy.

Thanks MissB for sharing this with me.

Also brewed up yesterday and drinking it today – and it’s like a soft, creamy ginger molasses cookie – the best you’ve ever had. Really. Now this is a must-order for me, because cold this is just divine.

This, as well as my last tea, are now so obviously from Cavocorax, I feel silly that I questioned who I got them from. So sorry, Cavo! Still really grateful for the opportunity to try these lovely teas. :)

When I first heard of the title for this tea, I thought, “No way, is that a Sherlock reference? I must have it if it is..” Of course, it is, however I’ll refrain from sharing any spoilers as to why this is so awesome. ;)

This tastes as I would expect it to, considering the character it’s modeled after: soft ginger cookies with a hint of molasses, some clove and cinnamon, a touch of black tea, and then… oh yeah!… more ginger. It’s complex and ginger-y, and while I really do love it, I may be okay with having just this sample from Cavocorax for now. Thank you again for sharing with me your precious Adagio order! (I mean that truly, kindly… it’s hard to get Adagio here in Canada for a decent price due to the ridiculous shipping costs).

So, I’m not a huge Teen Wolf fan; I watch it from time to time, but I don’t necessarily keep up on it. Still! Shmiracles was nice enough to send an unexpected package of samples and this was one of them, so I was happy drink up.

Initially this smells a little bit like cherry cough syrup, like most cherry things kind of seem to, but it’s far more subtle once it brews up. It’s a mild cherry, and the almond is separately recognizable, but also mild. As fair as cherry blends go, this one is pretty satisfying.

Thanks Shmiracles!

The Sherlock 10 tea sampler were the first teas I ever bought when I was getting into loose leaf, and they were what made me want to try loose tea in the first place since I’m a huge Sherlock fan. They weren’t available in the UK where I live when I first heard about them, and so I did get a couple of bags of tea from Whittard to experiment with originally, but I didn’t really get excited about tea until Adagio made these available from their UK site. In the two years since then, I’ve accumulated a huuuge collection of around 500 teas, and I’m trying to downsize to (hopefully) around 100 teas eventually so it’s more manageable. Since these are my oldest teas, I thought it was about time I tried to sip them down before they lose their flavour. I have maybe one more cup of this before I’m done with it.

I do prefer this tea iced, but I didn’t have enough left in my sampler tin to cold brew it so I had this cup hot. I actually got more of the grapefruit flavouring this time around, and the blood orange was distinguishable too. The Ceylon base melds with the flavourings really well – the citrussy notes make the fruit flavouring seem more naturally a part of the tea. Half way through drinking this my brother came into the room and I offered him a sip. He usually tries them and then hands them straight back, looking fairly neutral and unimpressed, but with this one he actually said ‘Ooh I like that one’ and had another two sips before handing the mug back. I ended up letting him finish the rest of the mug – I’m on a mission to turn everyone in my life into tea people! He drank it all really quickly, and I’m actually surprised by how much he loved it. I think I’m going to up the rating a little from 70.

YES. I like this.

I had been craving a fruity iced tea all day, so around 11 this morning I put a few spoons of this in some iced water to cold brew. Warm, I couldn’t taste any of the fruity flavours in this and it just seemed like a decent enough black tea, so I wasn’t too hopeful for the results of my cold brew.

I am pleased to report, however, that the cold brew really lets the flavours shine, and I am really impressed with the results. Predominantly grapefruit with a suggestion of blood orange and the black tea base complement the citrus flavour, this is SO much better iced! This will be perfect for the summer, I can imagine it will be perfectly refreshing.

Sipdown! (157)
I drank 3 whole oz of this! :O Now I can open up another of my Adagio teas and rotate them through. :D

I spent the last few days reading this awesome domestic!Dean fic that is so slow burn that it takes about 10 hours of reading before you get a kiss, but it’s still warm and fuzzy and full of happily ever afters. (http://miss-annthropic.livejournal.com/85169.html) Spoilers? :P Whatever. The Winchesters deserve happiness.

I drank this tea to celebrate how happy I was with that story, and it brewed up pretty decently today. I mostly taste caramel today!

I read two different Destiel stories today called "Shut Up (Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is) which is sorta an odd thing. but maybe they were both based on a prompt because they were both stories about Dean & Cas waking up in Vegas married. The first was short, predicatable and boring, while the second was supposed to be PWP but turned out to be 99% fluff. It was so adorable.

And so, with that in mind, I had to drink Destiel tea!

I’m not going to lie. I chose this tea because I was thinking about Dean, and then realized I had a SPN tea for Dean! (Well for Destiel, but… but… what’s Dean without Cas? :O Let’s hope I never find out).

Anyway, I watched Catching Fire on Monday and it made me think that about how Dean and Katniss are both stubborn pigheaded dicks who are determined to die so that their siblings can live. Or others who work their way into that ‘honoroured’ position like Peeta did. (And probably Cas). Anyway, could you imagine if Dean and Katniss existed in an AU and were each others codependent weakness?

They’d be pushing each other out of the way so they could jump directly into whatever possible danger there was. They’d probably do more damage to each other with all the pushing than the actual thread could have.

And that’s my tea note for today. :P (so far at least)

I had this last night and it was tasty, and I told a friend about it and asked if she’d like to try a cup, and she said she’s not sure she’s brave enough to taste their love juice and … well… seriously when you put it like that???? Yikes!

(Unless that’s your thing)

Hahah

I should probably talk about this tea but I don’t want to. I’m just obsessed with Destiel atm. I finished reading Epilogue by Jayne L (http://archiveofourown.org/works/386546) last night and it was so amazing and sad and it stuck in my head and I woke up dreaming of Mischa Collins. I love the pairing of Dean and Castiel. The falling angel, and the man who doesn’t feel he deserves anything good in his life…

And this story had THE saddest Castiel I’ve ever encountered.

I remember people fangirling about Destiel years ago and I just ignored it and wow, what a fool am I! These guys, these poor sad guys…

Sipdown!

I was hoping I’d like this as much as I do the Sherlock blend, since this is currant and lapsang while Sherlock is oriental spice and lapsang, but for some reason, I couldn’t really taste the currant. So it pretty much tasted like an okay lapsang souchong. Hm.

I’m enjoying a pot of Tardis while I watch the Doctor Who marathon on BBCA. The new season of DW starts in a couple days and I’m in my all-Doctor Who-all the time mode. Tomorrow I’m having lunch at the Blue Box Cafe (a local DW themed restaurant).

This tea is quite tasty. A nice fruity black. A little bergamot which makes it a bit Earl Grayish.

I wanted to love this but some how I can’t. This is the second time I’ve had it and it just not what I expected from other people’s notes. Maybe under leafed? I taste the EG but I’m not getting the berry taste. However, I maybe having a bad tea day. I’ve had several tea samples today that just didn’t hit the right note.

Yea for Tardis! I think I would love anything named Tardis but this exceeds my expectations. The Earl Grey is lovely with a nice amount of bergamot and a hit of vanilla. I don’t really taste the berries but that’s okay. I can enjoy this while I sit and dream of DW starting up again in August. That is waaaaay too long to wait. :( The tea is good and I would keep it stocked after I have used up more of my EG’s.

I like this one; I do. I’m just not sure if I’d restock it or not. I ‘ll put it down as a maybe because it’s nice to have teas that aren’t just black all the time, but there are others that I prefer more.

Only two more Night Vale teas to try this weekend and my mini-goal has been met! :D

This tastes good but I think part of that is because I just ate a blue whale candy and that’s adding a lot of sweetness to it

Ok, several sips later this is good but not mindblowingly amazing. Sorry Cecil. I love you, I truly do, but your tea does not speak to me as cleverly and beautifully as you do.

Poor, poor Cecil. Poor Night Vale. You guys – things are getting pretty intense! And dangerous.

I taste creamy lemongrass, and a little bit of ginger. I’m not even sure if lemongrass is in this, but that’s what I get.

Strange! I thought this was a white, instead of a green. It’s an odd green. I’m not sure what I think. I taste ginger, and I keep thinking there’s grapefruit lurking somewhere along…

This tea is starting to grow on me though.
It will grow on everyone, and then soon it will grow on everyone. Everywhere.

But seriously, I had expected this tea to draw me in with velvet notes, and wrap around me and hypnotize me … I suppose it makes sense that it doesn’t because that’s Cecil’s radio persona. His off-air persona wears his best tunic and furry pants on a date. ;p

So I actually didn’t premeasure Tony Stark, I premeasured this one.
Okay just the weirdo spicy bits smelled similar! I though this had the same smell as the Lapsang used in Natasha and Tony but this one was a bit more toned down. It was actually the Pu Erh Spice that I smelled!
Well, yes. I am nervous for this blend. Tea Queen Cara blended it but… oh dang. Some of her blends are just a bit too adventurous for me.
The second I poured the water in, it started smelling like chai. But then after like 15ish seconds, the pu erh spice scent came back! Dude this blend just smells so weird.
After a couple minutes, the smell started to fade a bit.
Oh it’s weird. it’s reeeally weird. Not like Lapsang weird with how I felt with Natasha, but definitely a different class of weird. It’s not necessarily terrible, but it’s not the kind of the that I enjoy. I don’t even know what’s going on with this blend, so many different flavours in a small cup!

I’m clearing fic from other fandoms off my kindle, so reading some Bilbo/Thorin, Cecil/Carlos, and even Dean/Castiel, going way back (but not waaaaaaay back – though I’m sure I have a Batman/Robin on there somewhere). I figure Night Vale tea is appropriate, and I am 3 episodes behind, so.

This Dean/Cas is pretty clever: http://archiveofourown.org/works/968916
Short and sweet Sterek: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1347190
some Night Vale: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1254298?view_full_work=true

I’m still looking for the elusive, good, lovechild!Frodo fic… Does it exist??? I swore I saw it once on AO3.