Adagio Custom Blends, Cara McGee

30/01/2013
I’m Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only consulting detective.
I’m not going to go into detail about how I do what I do because chances are you wouldn’t understand. If you’ve got a problem that you want me to solve, then contact me. Interesting cases only please.
This is what I do:
1. I observe everything.
2. From what I observe, I deduce everything.
3. When I’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how mad it might seem, must be the truth.

20/12/2012
i brewed this in my timolino to take to the movies.
we were gonna see Lincolin and i felt like the Lapsang was properly oldtimey and candlelight toned to match.
but at the last minute we changed our mind and saw The Hobbit!!
and i’m so glad i did!
honestly had i known, i probably would have brewed my Watson tea for Martin Freeman of course.
or maybe i would have chosen Love Tea #7 for Bilbo’s endlessly endearing honesty.
but in the end, the assam gently softens the lapsang in this deeply grounding tea, and the earthiness of this blend always tastes like home to me.
i had a great evening.

03/12/2012
omg.
this tea is exactly like it’s described. exotic and mysterious and i’m not even exaggerating.

it smells and tastes like thoughts and sensations. like the air pressure dropping in the weather. or your legs hitting a pocket of cold current while swimming in a warm ocean.

this is a tea for when i am in a serious mood. which is often.
this tea is goth.

appropriately drinking this tea as i read this http://archiveofourown.org/works/324584?view_full_work=true
the scent of this tea is very strange to me, sweet but ‘off’. and it intrigues me over and over.
i think i like it?
i’ll have to get back to you on that.

This was one of my favorite blends from this Adagio fandom series. It has great sturdy flavor and stands up well to multiple brewings. It’s smooth. I can’t detect hazelnut as a separate note.

What am I doing with my life right now.
So I moved to Florida because of an internship and I only managed to bring like half my teas with me and I’ve already drank them all so now I’m blending them together and tonight is LESTRADE WITH CARAMEL AND IRISH BREAKFAST. It’s okay. But I just want the rest of my tea now. And I know I can’t buy more because I’ll have to bring them back home when my internship ends.
THE STRUGGLE THAT IS MY LIFE.

I LIKE LESTRADE.
THIS HAS BEEN A TASTING NOTE BY KYRA.

Because Lestrade is my faaaaave.
I needed some waking up to do and the last time I drank him, I couldn’t sleep till 3 or 4 in the morning. It’s noon right now so I’ll be fiiineeee.
I really like Lestrade. Smoky and musky gooood.

SO GOOD.
It’s a green/pu erh/black tea blend so don’t drink at night or else you’ll be up at 3am wondering why you thought it would be a good idea.

First time I drank this tea, I was testing Cara (the one who made this blend) AND SHE PASSED. Lestrade definitely would taste like this if he was turned into tea. Seriously. The second you open the pouch, it’s screaming Lestrade.
Slightly smoky and musky flavour, but oh it was good.

I’d been pretty disappointed by some of the custom blends I’d had, but this one is the perfect blend of sweet/classic black. The almond really comes through. It is nice and smooth. Will definitely have a few more cups. Sweet and strong, just like Captain Jack.

SIPDOWN! (228) Bumping the rating up a bit on this one. Today this is a much nicer blend,though it’s still largely a cinnamon blend with a bit of substance to it with the addition of the sweet potatoes.

Another adgio tea from my swap with terri. She was kind enough to toss a bunch of these into my swap with her as i won’t willingly touch the stuff myself because of a bunch of bad experiences with adagio previously.

I’m not sure how i feel about this tea..it’s sort of like a sweet black tea with a dash of cinnamon. My brain can’t figure this one out this morning. It’s not bad, though i’m still not a fan of adagios tea bases apparently. Interesting tea for now :)

It’s sipdown Saturday! I’m not quite ready to sipdown anything else but I’m getting oh so close with a lot of these.

I think I’ve got one cuppa left for this one!

This looks like a crazy mix of ingredients, but it’s pretty tasty. I can smell apple, cinnamon and various spices. I really shouldn’t drink this now – every sip makes me think of fall! I like it, but the base doesn’t seem to be too pronounced.

Mmmmm. Apple Chai.

Thanks Shadowfall for the sample!

Not bad. It’s very spice chai-y and I get the apple coming through. I tried it with both brown sugar and my regular Truvia. I liked it better with the brown sugar ‘cause it seemed to bring out the apple a little better.
I’m coming to the realization that I’m not really a chai person ‘cause every chai blend I try, I don’t really like. I don’t think I’ll ever drink this again but it wasn’t bad to try. Lol.

I probably shouldn’t have steeped this the same time as Mycroft as they have similar ingredients. I was worried I’d mix them up but the almonds in this gave it away.

I can taste the almond/marzipan goodness over a basic black base. Some people don’t like Adagio’s black bases, but I find that if I steep it for 2.5 minutes at slightly less than boiling, they taste quite nice.

I can take or leave this tea. Sadly, the same can be said for the namesake character too. He had some good moments in Doctor Who, but not enough to get me to try Torchwood.

Thanks for the sample Shadowfall

Farewell my other doctor :) A nice accompaniment to the breakfast i made myself…no it wasn’t pancakes but it was a delicious omelet!

I likely won’t reorder this one but it was one of my favourites from the 10 pack sampler that i picked up. :)

having a cup of this – it’s nearly my last before i say good by to the doctor, probably forever heh

So i’d forgotten that I’d had this one before courtesy of Terri. What’s more fun still, is that this is a MUCH tastier cup this time around. Apparently the last time i tried it via terri, i got all the coconute flavouring in the tea she sent. This time, it’s a much more balanced cup with both the vanilla and coconut coming through. Bumping the rating up, since it’s in this tin, it’s quite nice. It makes me curious though as to how consistent Adagio is with their creations. it’s possible it was the sample terri sent me, but sinceit’s not coconut bits, it’s the flavouring, how consistent are the varying incarnations of their blends? :) Anyway, i like this one much more this time around!

sipdown backlog on this one as well. Still a very coconutty blend, which just doesn’t scream “eleven” to me but hey, to each their own :)

sooo this is pretty much a coconut tea. There might be a hint of vanilla hanging around to cut the edge of the coconut but i am not picking up any of the apple bits. It’s not a bad tea but i was hoping for so much more from a “eleven” tea. Actually, stick dr who on anything and i want it to the best damn thing in this world. :) not bad, but not as wonderful as i hoped that it would be.

thanks again Terri!

You know, when I first tried this, it was my favorite tea in the world. It smelled so intriguing and sexy. I recently got a bag of this which had too much Lapsang in it, and it put me off the blend, even after they sent me a correctly-mixed replacement bag. (Adagio really is awesome.) I will have to leave this one alone for a while.

It tastes like drinking a hug. This is a much better comfort tea (in my opinion) than Reichenbach Recovery. It smells like a snickerdoodle and tastes like heaven. Milk and sugar definitely required and highly recommended.

backlog! Sipdown!

bumped the rating up on this one a little since i enjoyed my last cup of this a little better. Still nothing to write home about but i wouldn’t turn my nose up at it immediately :) thanks again terri!

The first of many adagio teas that Terriharplady was kind enough to send my way. I had terrible luck the first few times i tried adagio teas, which soured me against them. Since terri had a bunch in her cupboard i asked if she’d be kind enough to send me some in case there were SOME adagio blends out there that were nice enough for them to redeem themselves.

This one? It tastes pretty bland. I suspect i could have brewed it for a bit longer but i’m always wary of getting that bitter taste from adagio blacks. If i concentrate i can taste the puerh and the chocolate notes. But over all, it’s a fairly lackluster tea. Once again, happy to have the chance to try so many teas :)