Valentines

That’s a lot of samples!

I know! I bought the Zodiac sampler set, so I’m really excited to try those blends. I’m still trying to find my favorites and I get bored easily, so I figured a bunch of flavors in small amounts would be my best bet. ;)

Hah, you THINK they’re small amounts.. until you have hundreds of them and they’re taking over your kitchen..

Valentine’s is definitely my favorite Adagio flavored black. I, too, loathe their Ceylon base, but Valentine’s manages to overcome that beautifully.

Shanti, it takes a lot to get me bored. but since I resteep it’s always good to get a tea that morphs over time.

Bethany, don’t I know it! I buy the small tins because I have a “I have to try everything!” attitude. I can’t imagine if I bought larger sizes of everything I have…

I have yet to try this flavored tea and keep hearing how good it is. Odd that I have never picked up a sample of this considering I have their sampler tins all over my house.

@jennlea If you’re interested in a swap, I have a 4oz size of it, so I can part with some.

@Bethany oooo, will send you a message!

I agree with Bethany, fifty tea is a lot! So fifty 1oz samplers is about 500 cups of tea! That’ll last you a year! I’m almost done with all my Adagio samplers! =D

What were your steep times for this? I’ve been hesitant about trying this again after my first go with it. I think I might try this again with a three minute steep, but I’ve honestly never been fond of Adagio’s flavored black teas.

You know, I’m kind of getting a cardboard-y taste from this now…I think all of the blacks I’ve tried from Adagio (decaf and non-decaf) have that same weird taste as well. Disappointment.

Ricky, I’m not sure what time I steeped this for, since I used my handy but mysterious Zarafina this time. BTW I bought $50 worth, not 50 samples. But yeah, I still have like 250 cups left! LOL!

Yeah…they are good for 6-12 infusions depending on your strength preference and size of leaf. You’ll have fun with them!!!

You’ll get more cups from black and green than white and pu erh cuz they require less leaf.

Woaps, I associated each tin as being a dollar. My mistake! 250 cups is still a lot =D Write some reviews on Adagio and you’ll be on your way to getting a $10 certificate and then you can get more tea =]

Ricky, no- most of the samples are $2, but some are $5.

I just wanted to say that I was enjoying that third-person narration at the beginning. It made me grin.

: ) Thanks for letting me know MegWesley! It made me smile!

Haha, I liked it too! It was a like a sweet, short little story (especially with your last sentence!) :)

Very cute post, a Sunday afternoon that includes sweet tea and a girl’s best friend, could it be any better?!

That was a fun read! :)

I reelly liked your story!

I second the comments above. Fun!! :P

hAHAHAA!

…and they sipped happily ever after.

It has been a longggg time since I’ve had a chocolate covered strawberry. They look delicious, but I didn’t enjoy it at all. I love strawberries on their own, and I think the chocolate overpowers and makes them tart tasting,ruining their flavour, but that’s just me. :)

So much tea, so very little time! ;-)

@Yogini-I love chocolate covered fruit! I hate chocolate but for some reason when it’s on fruit I absolutely love it!

@Amy oh-I know right! It actually gets pretty overwhelming sometimes! (first world problems :P)

I love the part about bringing out the strawberries. I am starting to realize that part of the enjoyment of tea is that it is a participatory sport and there’s such a feeling of victory when it works the way it’s supposed to!

steep.it is really helpful. Hopefully we’ll be able to incorporate something similar on Steepster soon. There are a ton of awesome possibilities with giving recommended times/temps and such.

This is one of those teas that seem to taste different each time I try it!

This is so interesting…I never have had trouble tasting the strawberries or the chocolate? But to me, it has a very distinct “chocolate-covered-strawberry” taste rather than chocolate tea + strawberry tea…I don’t know if that makes any sense, but yeah. :) Mmm, now I’m craving Valentines….off to make a pot :)

There is definitely a little rose in this (idk if I read it on the website, just saw it in the tin, or was told it)- but it definitely needs more IMO. Do you think an extra min and a half would be adventageous? More leaf? I love adding milk/creamer to chocolate teas, but I can’t do it w/ this one. I don’t like strawberry milk lol.

Try steeping it a little less…over 5 minutes – depending on amount of loose leaf – might be the case. Was it bitter at all?

I should have mentioned how much tea I used in the review. I used about 2 1/2 heaping teaspoons for the pot, which is about 26 oz.

But my problem seems to be that I’m not getting all the flavor I expect to be getting out of the tea (especially flavored ones like this). That’s why I don’t imagine it’s an over steeping issue, I seem to be getting better at avoiding bitter tea. Maybe my problem is setting my expectations correctly…maybe I’m just more of a tea purist (unflavored tea) than I know…

Try doubling that. I usually use about one heaping tsp per 6 oz of water… it’s more than most companies recommend, but you can get an extra steep or two out of it anyway.

I don’t know why, but the image of you crying on the couch squeaking out “WHERE MY STEEPS AT?!” while your dog and your cat stare at you and 3OH! 3 blares in the background is making me giggle madly.

Could be the delirium. [Oooh…delirium. http://momentumoffailure.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/del20tremens1.jpg ]

Could also be the fact that you’re wearing a Shredder costume.

On a nearly unrelated note, does the lead singer of 3OH! 3 make anyone else feel like they’re listening to a Hellogoodbye song when Don’t Trust Me starts? That’s the only song of theirs I’m familiar with.

Jason, try 2.25g for every 6oz steeped for exactly 5 min.

I think a LOT of us were too busy being on steepster to drink tea today… but not me of course… LOL ok, I’m a bad liar. :)

takgoti, you crack me up. You’re my poster of the week, fo sho. I just had to say that. And I agree with the 33 observation. Except that Hellogoodbye is superior!

P.S. Delirium is super strong, y0.

@teaplz Aw, shucks. Thanks, friend!

I like Hellogoodbye, too. Something about Two Weeks in Hawaii makes me feel like I’m in high school again. Strangely Weezer-esque for them.

P.S. Delirium Tremens is the only beer that I can claim to actively enjoy. Being that I have the tolerance for alcohol of a fourth-grader, it takes a little more than half of one for me to start breaking out the WHOOOOOs!

@jack: I’ll give that a try.

@cofftea: I’m having a hard time figuring out the conversions there. Maybe because I’m tired. Maybe because I don’t have a scale and its hard to convert grams (weight) into teaspons (volume). But assuming I can figure it out, I’ll also give that a try :)

@takgoti: That’s ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.
For one, I would NEVER sit on the couch and cry. I sit in my chair while working and do all of my crying there. Secondly, apparently I’m wearing a Shredder costume just because of my avatar?!?! That’s crazy! It’s friday, my costume is in the wash. I can’t work in it 5 days straight, that’s just gross! Mon-Thurs is the only reasonable limit. Stop being ridiculous.

I will stop being ridiculous when you reveal to us which one of your cohorts is Bebop and which one is Rocksteady. [I’d throw Krang in there but he’s gross and I always hated his voice.]

It’s the dog. His name is “Dexter Bebop”. I always wanted to get a dog and name them either Bebop or Rocksteady, but when it actually came time, Rocksteady was just so impractical and would probably just end up becoming Rocky or Rock. Casey Jones was mentioned at one point, along with basically every other turtle character. We did seriously consider Bebop though. But in the end he just looked more like a Dexter so we made Bebop his middle name.

The cat’s name is Hermes, but he’s so fat we just call him Fatty (I didn’t name him, he’s my gf’s cat).

Hey, a post with a setting is a post with character! :D Even better if you can throw some little background anecdotes in there as well.

As for the conversions, Jason, grams happen to be a standard measuring unit around these parts, so I pulled out me scales and a teaspoon and Adagio’s apricot tea which I guesstimated must have roughly the same leaf size. One teaspoon with as much top on it as I could without spilling was 3 g. One teaspoon with a tiny little bit of top was 2 g. I would say that I have pretty standard sized teaspoons but my scales only deal with one decimal, so it’s not terribly accurate, though. I could take it to work and measure there with five or six decimals, but considering the kinds of things that are normally measured there, I wouldn’t be prepared to drink it afterwards. :)

Um, that’s kind of awesome.

TMNT was the only thing my brother and I could agree to play when we were little before we discovered Captain Planet and the big momma, X-Men. He was not down with the My Little Pony and I wasn’t a big fan of G.I. Joe. My only issue was that they always wanted me to be April and I wanted to be a turtle. So then they made me be Donatello because “He’s purple and you’re a girl.” Those were bitter, bitter years.

A friend and I also once went through two entire rolls of quarters to beat the TMNT arcade game at Fuddruckers.

Go big or go home.

@angrboda: Thanks for the little exploration in conversions, that’s awesome. So it looks like if I go with Cofftea’s recommendation, that would be a single teaspoon (slightly more than “a tiny little bit of top”) for every 6 oz of water. That’s really helpful, I appreciate you doing that! Will try.

TMNT FTW!

No problem, Jason. Turns out it came in handy again when someone over at LJ asked how many cups they could get out of 100 g :)

I read somewhere once that it’s generally a good idea to do that in order to dose tea correctly, but I’ve never got around to it before. Most of my teas are brewed by guess and learning by doing.

I am sorry to say it and forgive me all Adagio lovers but yeah I soon learned Adagio is not that awesome. A few here and there yes pretty good but for the most part I had a hard time finding them and gave up.

I agree with Azzrian. I started my loose leaf journey with them and (quickly) found other more enjoyable teas from other vendors… Steepster was really catalyst in showing me what else there was out there. ;)

Some things aren’t bad, but the ones that are bad are REALLY BAD.

It may also be that one of the first places i ordered from in terms of flavoured tea was Butiki haha Love the way they blend their flavours.

this is definitely a love or hate it tea! as are most of Adagios, sadly

Yeah, never ordered from Adagio, but it’s more hit or miss than DavidsTea, even, in terms of what I have tried.

Kittena….yeah I think I’ll keep my adagio teas to things I swap just to try them out. Though I kinda feel that way about most of David’s tea too lol

That’s fair. I’ve had a couple very bad Adagio experiences though, and at least all the DavidsTeas have been palatable (except the ones that are too floral for me, but some people like that).