Adagio Custom Blends, Cara McGee

Craving this all yesterday, so I decided to make a small cup this ‘morning’. Wish I’d remembered I need to steep this for only two minutes… just a touch of bitterness. :(

This is delicious, and I’m so glad that JustJames grabbed some in the Huge Black Friday Tea Buyout of 2013 (seriously, it was almost $500 in tea from fourteen different companies spread over six people)!

Smells strongly of an Earl Grey, but tamed down a bit with something dessert-like. Vanilla, I’m assuming, even though my brain says caramel… know JustJames would avoid something caramel unless it’s from Stacy at Butiki.

Steeped, it smells the same. The edges of a normal Earl Grey are smoothed out by the vanilla and something faintly berry-ish. Sweetened I get more of a creamy anise flavor, which is weird since there’s zero licorice anything in here. Regardless, it’s delicious, and I’m so glad I decided to go in on this bag!

Restocked on this when I placed my last order, and so glad I did because now I have a full tin and can just enjoy this whenever I want again! Kind of crazy how ten(ish) years later it’s still my favourite tea from Adagio. Bold and smoky in a more savory sort of way with brothy but also whiskey like notes, balanced out by crisp red cherry and the sultriest touch of vanilla. I recently got a cherry and chipotle hot sauce that’s so smoky and delicious and when I had this cup I kind of felt like this was similar in some ways. It’s just so good!

I had such a strong craving for this tea when I got home from work yesterday, and then when I popped open the tea I practically had a panic attack because I have SO MUCH LESS of this tea left than I thought I did. I’m trying so, so hard not to order tea right now but this is my all time favourite blend from Adagio and has been for almost a decade now…

Anyway, it was incredible. Smoky and savory with an almost brothy sort of cozy quality, but also sultry with a really smooth red cherry note. I’ve always really, really appreciated Adagio’s cherry flavouring and this tea is no exception to that. There’s an almost boozy or whisky-like quality to this blend as well. The flavours are very different (aside from the shared smokiness from the lapsang) but it gives me the exact same vibes as Murchie’s Parlor Room blend – which is another pretty recent love of mine.

Yeah, an order of this to stock back up might be in the cards sooner than I thought.

From the weekend – a cupboard staple of mine for years now.

Tiny, tiny medicinal cherry note in this cup from a combination of age and extended steep time but it leans into the thick, coating note of the savory and smoky LS in the tea that I love so much and the nutty, mineral and woody flavours of the honeybush. To this day, I think it’s both one of the best representations of its namesake character and one of the most balanced/unique/interesting fandom blends on the Adagio site – and I’ve had a lot of those fandom blends at this point, y’all…

Like liquid smoke, wood, and cherries.

I brought this one with me to work to share with some coworkers because I just love it so much. Of course, they all hated it – found the smoke and fruit combo very off putting and harsh. That just means more for me though, I guess.

Lapsang is a very polarizing flavour, after all.

I think this is my first time cold brewing this tea!?

I was a little scared about what it might taste like – I mean it does have Lapsang in it and I struggle a little bit to see that as a flavoured geared towards being served cold. However, it was actually really bloody tasty, and also quite interesting as a combination of flavours. It’s actually been a long while since I last had this tea, so in some ways it was a little bit like rediscovering it all over again. Smooth, full bodied profile though with dominant notes of wet pine wood, petrichor, perfectly ripe cherries, and smoke. It all comes together to create this sort of imagery of a log cabin surrounded by cherry trees; smoke billowing out of the fireplace, and heavy rain outdoors.

For me, at least, that’s a very relaxing scenario to imagine. I mean, I find a borderline extreme level of peace in that kind of imagery. So, drinking a mix of flavours that evokes it!? YES PLEASE. Sign me right the fuck up. Of course, mind vanilla undertones to the profile are also a big win for me, and the light note of honey from the base tea.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvDY9oUCv_Q&list=WL&index=2

Not feeling awesome today; I’m especially stuffy nosed and my throat is pretty scratchy and soar. Plus, I’m just freezing despite being covered in many layers of blankets. This was a solid choice for my first TOTD though because it’s got a bold enough flavour to cut through the ‘sick haze’ I’m experiencing, and the smooth smoke and woody elements and hot liquid in general are actually feeling very nice on my throat. It’s very, very comforting. Sadly I’m almost done the mug now, so it’ll be time for a new tea soon.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/BeGc8VxFeQr/?taken-by=ros_strange

Commute tea from this morning.

Mostly, it just tasted like it normally does but for some reason it had a very, very black pepper tasting finish and I could not, for the life of myself, put my finger on what was causing it. It was very distracting though, and I DO NOT think it worked well with the flavour profile.

Definitely something I’m going to be watching in future infusions.

Remember when these fandom blends were fucking everywhere? I kind of wish that was still the case; even though they usually weren’t the best quality there was something super fun about them and really engaging within the community here on Steepster. They just died off here so quickly, too.

I think that’s probably because some people fell out of fandom, and others shifted into new fandoms and the more quality blenders on Adagio (like Cara McGee) just didn’t keep up or follow. Personally, I know if there were more quality blends/collections for some of the fandoms I’m currently in (The 100, How To Get Away With Murder) or favourite shows of mine/ones I’m rewatching like Buffy or Legend of Korra I’d be hella tempted to get myself a new fandom sampler…

Anyway; all that to say that SHERLOCK SEASON FOUR HAS A RELEASE DATE!!! So of course, in anticipation, I pulled out the only Sherlock tea I have a made a cup for my commute to work. I’m hyped. So hyped. And I had to express my excitement through my deep love of tea, of course. It was the only way.

And of course a song pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q74TyTUrTo&index=9&list=LL1M1wDjmJD4SJr_CwzXAGuQ

The pairing is less for the tea itself and more for the character; though I guess since the tea is based on the character it all connects in the end, anyway. I doubt we’ll see the lovely Irene Adler again in Sherlock (or at least in this season) but that doesn’t stop her from being a favourite character of mine. What a babe.

This is a queued tasting note.

Made a large pot of this which I then shared with my roommate Trey while we watched the rain from our balcony. I picked this for us because he’s a pretty heavy smoker so I know he has a deeper appreciation for smokier teas (more so than a lot of regular tea drinkers that I know). And, thankfully, the smoke flavour delivered, although it was accompanied by some lovely vanilla and cherry notes.

Yeah, the other day when I brewed up August Uncommon’s Low Country I totally should have made this one instead: it’s definitely what I was craving. Thankfully I figured that out though and I was able to make a late night mug of it for myself yesterday to finally sate that craving…

As per usual, this was faint whisps of tobacco smoke throughout with bright, sweet cherry top notes and a more woody background note with silky vanilla running throughout the sip like a vein of gold. There’s something magical and exotic about this tea, while still feeling kind of quaint and comforting.

TEA EGGS!

So, I’ve made more tea eggs before – with soy sauce and oolong tea, for my Sommelier courses (the cooking with tea module) but that’s not so much what I did today, and that’s for a variety of reasons. The main one is that half of my tea/teaware has already been packed into boxes so I didn’t have the full range of tea to select for the recipe that I’d have liked. Another factor was that I didn’t realize until after I’d started boiling the eggs that we were out of soy sauce…

So my make shift/unconventional tea egg recipe was basically this:

- Six hard boiled eggs
- Six tbsp of cooking wine (marbling should still occur but with a different tasting profile)
- Three tbsp of loose leaf (of this blend… duh)
- A whole cinnamon stick
- 2 tsp of cloves
- A splash of maple syrup
- And then enough water to fill the rest of the pot so it was just over the top of the eggs

After the eggs were boiled and I’d cracked the shell with a wooden spoon I just mixed everything together and left it to simmer for around two hours. Some recipes recommend leaving the eggs to sit in the mix overnight but I’m impatient and wanted my eggs now. They turned out nice, too!

The marbling is really pretty, though a little lighter than it would have been with soy sauce. I wish I’d taken pictures; by the time I’d thought of it there weren’t any eggs left. And no, I didn’t eat six hard boiled eggs in one sitting: I ate two and the rest of the fam ate the rest. They’re a little sweet/fruity from the wine and cherry in the tea with a light smoky finish from the Lapsang in this blend! Sadly, you can’t taste the spices so much. Very interesting, and all in all tasty!

I don’t know that I’d make them this way again though: both flavours that come through are a little, I guess, half assed? I’d either try the wine in place of soy sauce again but with a different tea (Keemun?) OR soy sauce with a straight up Lapsang Souchong instead of this, which is a blend that incorporates LS as one of many ingredients.

This is a queued tasting note.

Since I’ve been drinking a lot more Lapsang lately the LS blended into this tea came off a much more light than it normally does to me. I still really enjoyed the tea, but because I’m much more used to LS in general now I found I had a better appreciation for the cherry and vanilla notes.

Notes of cherry, vanilla, leather, ash, and smoke! Perfect for a dominatrix, no?

I guess my mom could smell the tea steeping though because she came out of her room and started complaining the neighbors were smoking by the windows again. Their backyard basically shares the wall our kitchen is along so when the window is open I guess my mom can smell them smoking tobacco and… other stuff.

I had to explain that the smell was from the tea, not someone smoking. Just wait until I get my Lapsang Souchong yixing; the smell of smoke is gonna fill our kitchen! But in a good way, I hope.

Sweet, savory, scrumptious.

Simple.

Hooray for having the day off! Too bad Tre has the day off too and is in an awful mood.

This is what I’m starting my morning with; and normally I can’t get enough of this tea but something about it today is making my stomach do cartwheels. I thought that maybe it was because I started drinking it on an empty stomach, but I’ve now had a cup of yogurt, two bagels (mmm!), and a mixed berry smoothie and I’m sipping on the now cold mug of this and it’s still too much…

I was feeling slightly nauseous yesterday morning too; maybe I’m getting sick? Bleck!

As a testament to how tired I am, when I was searching this I typed in “The Tea” and for a good five minutes couldn’t figure out why nothing even close was coming up. Ergh.

So, I think I my tea line up might be incorporating more Lapsang blends in it, not particularly because I like Lapsang (although this one is always nice; has a perfect balance of smoke and sweet) but more because I made this in a timolino for work and holy shit did it slap me awake.

I guess that means that I can probably justify getting a little of Butiki’s Taiwanese Lapsang Souchong which I foolishly really want to buy despite not liking Lapsang…

Just reaffirming my decision to pick up another 3 oz. of this with my most recent order by having a hot delicious cuppa! Like always, this was its usual intriguing and mystifying self with such a unique and hard to describe flavour palate.

I stand by my opinion that, of all the Adagio blends I’ve ever had, this is the most accurate to the character it was inspired by. Also, probably just the best Adagio blend I’ve ever had in general – and at this point I’ve had my fare share (though this was one of, is not “the” first). Also probably the only Lapsang blend for me. I just can’t handle it in anything else.

Savory and sweet.

Later into the evening I offered to make Tyrell a cup of one of my teas and after playing the same question game as earlier in the day this one was the one we settled on. I was a little worried about the choice because of the Lapsang Souchong in it, but turns out I didn’t need to be terribly worried.

He had a cup and so did I; my impression was that it came off as more thin than usual but I think I may have inadvertently under leafed both of our cups in an attempt to not have him drowning in Lapsang. Regardless, I still think this is one of the most solid and bang on Adagio fan blends I’ve ever had and I’ll probably find a way to restock once I’m out.

To my surprise, he didn’t hate this one. He admitted to liking the Blueberry Jam a lot more but he said that once he got used to the smokiness in the cup this one was more enjoyable. I think part of the fun of this blend may have been lost on him though because he’s never seen Sherlock. We’ll work on that…

Midnight breakfast!

I made scrambled eggs with shredded apple as a topping , toast with pineapple cream cheese, and three cups of tea to eat/drink while rewatching my favourite Malcolm in The Middle episodes! Also, I shut all the vents that were spewing hot air into the apartment – and I’m feeling a lot better now. It’s a nice way to spend the evening/early morning!

This one was really good; as always, hard to describe – but really good. I think this cup leaned a little more towards the Lapsang part of the blend, but it worked as something to offset my very sweet breakfast. That is, it worked right up until the last swig of tea which was just an overwhelming amount of tobacco-esque smokiness. Ick.

At least I have more tea to wash the taste away, though ;)

Also, I think this is my first time reviewing this since the new “flavours” list was added to tasting notes, and I have to say that I had a lot of fun picking out the flavours in this blend – this one is so complicated and has so many layers that there were a ton of applicable flavours – some of which were ones I hardly ever get to include in tasting notes.

Had a timolino full of this and it was good. still hard to put into words, but really good. I recently rewatched the Irene Adler episode, and it was pretty phenomenal, though in hindsight I think I should have seized to opportunity to drink this one along with it. Sadly I didn’t.

I recently packaged some of this up for VariaTEA which is why it was out, so it’d kind of been taunting me for a while – seducing me into having it again ;)

I’m increasing my rating slightly though, because it’s grown on me a fair bit and it really enjoyable, albeit weird.

Last time I had this I was really sick, so I left it unrated in case my sense of taste way really off. I have to say though it tastes exactly the same, which is to say it takes nearly indescribable.

It’s odd because it’s smokey and savoury from the lapsang and then sweet from the vanilla/cherry. Ultimately, it’s really quite perfect as Irene Adler’s blend, though.

This was the other one I drank while watching Sherlock (HOLY SHIT SO GOOD)! Special thanks to MissB who helped me to acquire my package of this! Even though this episode didn’t have Irene in it at all, it still felt appropriate to be drinking this one…

The dry leaf visually looks to be composed primarily of the rooibos with black tea leaves scattered throughout as well as bits of fruit and the like. The smell is strongly smokey (because of the Lapsang Souchong) with a very subtle background fruitiness – maybe cherry, but not in a pronounced way – and an equally subtle sweet, creaminess to it. It smells complex and intriguing; much like Mrs. Adler, no?

For my preparation I steeped a heaping 1/2 tbsp. measurement of leaf in my 12 oz. timolino using boiling water for somewhere over four minutes and before seven. I was still steeping when the livestream started and I got rather distracted by the show and lost track of my steeping time. The steeped smell is a fair bit more balanced.

Taste wise, it’s perplexing – again quite akin to Irene. There’s a definite smokey quality and taste but it’s not quite as dominating as one would think based purely on the dry smell. The cherry comes through very well and is fairly distinctive “cherry” and not just generically fruity. The vanilla presents as a smooth creamyness that I think is tempering the Lapsang Souchong and tying all the aspects together.

It’s good, sweet and kinda savoury, a complex mystery; the perfect blend for The Woman. Not sure how I feel about it though – I’ll have to revisit and ponder once I’m not sick. After the somewhat complicated process to get here, I am tickled pink that I don’t hate it though!