Argo Tea

Hmm. Not sure if it was the change to temperature (~90°C) or brew time (~2.5mins) or both that caused a weak brew here. Lacking the flavour past cups have had. Only one or two cups left, let’s see if I can get the shine back.

What other tea does this tea remind me of? Seriously, can somebody please tell me? I’m going out of my mind. It’s delicious and I love it but my poor memory is driving me insane. What other delicious white teas have existed in my life?

I have about two cups of this left in my sampler and I am already bereft thinking about having none of this tea in my life any more.

Omgosh omgosh omgosh wait. What. What is happening in this tea!!! What does this remind me of!? I can’t even work it out and I’m going slightly crazy but this is DELICIOUS and I was not expecting that!!! GOING BACK FOR MORE

As we head toward winter in the great southern land I am finally letting myself crack out the trio of wintry tea samplers I picked up from Argo Tea in the Flatiron building in NYC.

Looking at the trio closely, this one is the one I was most drawn to. It has a lot of similar ingredients/flavour indicators as one of my favourite tisanes ever, T2’s Cinnamon Somersault.

I am getting slightly bitter notes from the amount of cinnamon in this, but though I’m not getting a lot of orange, the almond is just nice without being "essence"y. Not bad. It’s no Cinnamon Somersault, but it’s not bad. I might try splicing it with some Cocoa Loco Orange and see if that’s closer to my sweet spot.

Less intense flavor for a sencha/matcha blend. Slightly sweet, mild grassy scent. It reminds me an improved, run-of-the-mill green tea. Maybe the blend is what ruins it for me.

Only 1 steep

Sipdown (108)! OK, so I know I was supposed to try this hot at some point, and I had plenty of leaf to do so, but the weather got warmer and blah blah excuses blah blah. I used it all up on cold brews, but I feel okay with that because it made a very refreshing cold brew. This time around, there was less rice and more green tea because it was the bottom of the bag, so it’s not quite as roasty as other times, but still good. I won’t be repurchasing this one just because there are so many other genmaichas out there to try and love. One more out of the sipdown drawer successfully sipped down! Woohoo!

Ok, I’ve cold brewed this one as usual, but today it is not tasting so good. I’ve noticed lately in my new apartment that my teas don’t taste as good as I remember them to be. I think that the tap water in Boston is just tastier than the tap water in Cambridge, even though I filter my water in both cities. The Cambridge water just tastes more like chlorine (I think?), which is off-putting. So the usual roasty toasty goodness of this genmaicha is competing in flavor with the chlorine, which makes me sad. I guess I’m gonna have to start making my tea differently!

Yes, I did cold brew this one again. I have a feeling it might be all used up in cold brews before I get a chance to have it hot. But I’m okay with that because it makes such a deliciously toasty, refreshing cold brew.

I couldn’t help but to cold brew this one again because I really enjoyed it last time. It’s definitely heavy on the toasted rice flavor when I prepare it this way. Still waiting to rate this until I have it hot as well, so let’s hope I get around to doing that before I use it all up on cold brewing!

I realized that I never tried this tea that’s been sitting in my shelf for a bit now. So I continued my cold brewing obsession with this genmaicha. First off, there were quite a few popped rice bits in the tea. I think that translated into the ultimate taste. I was tasting a lot more of the toasted rice flavor than the green tea base. I actually really like this one as a cold brew, but I will reserve my rating for when I can try it out hot to more directly compare to other genmaichas I’ve had.

I guess I don’t know much about Argo tea and there don’t seem to be a lot of reviews for their blends, despite me coming across them in NYC. Any insight, anyone?

This blend is one of three jarred blends I bought on a below-freezing day that I voyaged through the flatiron district. Is it a district? Argo tea was literally nestled in the base of the flatiron building itself, and I stopped in to ward off the cold with a hot beverage. The teas along the wall looked pretty good and in my freezing stupor I assumed they were just what they said on their labels (in this case: oolong and coconut), not more complex blends.

Darn you, licorice root. You curse everything good in this world.

It had been a while since I had any of this, as its running low and is tied to precious NYC memories, so I kind of never want it to end. And yet, nothing is more important to me right now than sipdowns. Not even memories. HARSH.

And finally, tea #3 served in the pot at girls’ CAH day yesterday.

I’m really going to miss this one.

Why oh why did I serve a whole pot of it!? Hahahaha.

(Because it’s delicious and a surefire hit.)

Had some of this cold brewed, wow. Ginger winner! With this cold virus there would be a different winning flavour with each sip, between the ginger and fruit, but I think I can call ginger the winner. Pow.

I think I actually prefer this one hot, funnily enough. Cold brewed is still super awesome but I think it’s better balanced hot!

I forgot that I’d almost cleaned up my work tea stocks last week—only two choices! Preposterous. Lucky this one’s a good’un.

I continue to enjoy this one, enough so that I threw some of it into a jar to take into work. Lovely mellow black with just a touch of peach sweetness and just a touch of ginger bite. Yum.

This is a delicious medium black tea. Steeping for around 5-6 minutes brings out a great amount of ginger, with sweet peach more on the nose than the tongue. I imagine this would be a real treat iced with a touch of honey or sugar as well!