Valentines

I received this one from Madeline Alyce
I’m sipping this one as I cannot get the smile of the firefighter I met yesterday out of my head (I guess my sipping this- Valentines- is appropriate) even typing about this guy my stomach is flip flopping.
The dry notes smell of chocolate and strawberries. Once steeped the chcocolate comes out at the forefront and I’m not really getting any strawberry flavour. As it cooled a bit and I added a bit of honey I got a bit of strawberry flavour, it’s more of a candied version of chocolate covered strawberries. Overall it’s a good tea, but probably not one I would keep stocked.

It smells so good but it tastes so blah. You can’t deny that the dry leaf smell is most definitely chocolate covered strawberries, but that’s not the part most worth enjoying.

The strawberry just isn’t there. It tastes like cheap, watery hot chocolate. The black tea gives the chocolate this bitterness that makes me think of the hot chocolate I had at Petit Le Mans a couple years ago in an attempt to stay warm. It was not good, and its job became just keeping my hands warm.

This tea reminds me of that hot chocolate. And that was not a happy day, sitting out in the second coming of floods hoping for a 10 hour endurance race to actually happen. So I do not think I will try drinking this again.

But it does suck less with a bit of milk and sugar. I don’t like to have to add stuff to tea though, but it becomes a lot less bitter with a splash of milk.

Valentines was yesterday, but it happened to be on Sunday so I had to wait till the next day for my Adagio package. I am just starting to try flavored teas, and I have to say, at first I was intimidated by the strong scent. It did smell like chocolate covered strawberries, sweet with a slight sour tang, it smelled like. It was screaming dessert, so I added milk and a sugar cube. With the additions you can taste the flavors pretty well, and it makes a nice dessert cup. I don’t know if I’ll try this straight, because I liked how milk rounded things out… and to drink this straight wasn’t my original intention.

It is tradition to take your Christmas Tree down the Sunday after Valentines, right? I’ve had all the ornaments and decoration put away since around New Years but I keep making excuses as to why I should leave the tree up. I never followed through with my pretend holiday plans so we finally took it down. I already miss it, half jokingly I told my husband we should put it back up.

I was excited to have a holiday tea for Valentines and my husband even shared a cup with me. Within the last few days I’ve tried it hot with and without sugar and milk and iced with nothing added. I enjoyed it more iced but it just mostly tasted like lightly sweetened iced tea, i got a little chocolate taste at room temperature. I was a little disappointed it did not taste like a chocolate covered strawberry but, I most likely would not like it then. Although I did not seem impressed while drinking it I always wanted more just moments later.
Thanks moraiwa for letting me try this. It was fun!

Wohoo! Thanks to Moraiwe for this lovely sample! I really like this. The black base does not seem bitter, as has happened before with Adagio. The strawberry is definitely there for me, but not overpowering, and not much too sweet. The chocolate is also present, but not overwhelmingly, and it’s definitely deep, I think due to the cocoa nibs in the mix. This is a gorgeous tea because of the rose petals, and I have enjoyed my cup.

In other news, here’s a poem for you, on a related subject:

At Last the Secret Is Out, by W.H. Auden
At last the secret is out,
as it always must come in the end,
the delicious story is ripe to tell
to tell to the intimate friend;
over the tea-cups and into the square
the tongues has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear,
there’s never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir,
behind the ghost on the links,
behind the lady who dances
and the man who madly drinks,
under the look of fatigue
the attack of migraine and the sigh
there is always another story,
there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing,
high up in the convent wall,
the scent of the elder bushes,
the sporting prints in the hall,
the croquet matches in summer,
the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
there is always a wicked secret,
a private reason for this.

This was one of my free samples recently. I like their strawberry, not so much the chocolate. It smelled more like chocolate, and tastes more like strawberries. Not sure what I was expecting, but hopefully it’ll be good cold.

This is really quite nice, a lovely warming brew with enough sweetness. That actually tastes like berries and chocolate. Not up to my favourite (Della Terra’s Chocolate Covered Strawberries) but still really nice. Plus the black base is helping to keep me awake today. Damn wind.

Thanks for including this in my swap Michelle.

First cup of the day. I purchased a sample pack of this, didn’t think much of it, and it got moved to the bottom of my tea drawer. Maybe I’ll like it better today? The dry leaves and tea do smell very enticing – warm milk chocolate with just a hint of sweet fruit. I’m such a sucker for anything that smells even remotely like chocolate! Ugh, this is horribly bitter! I steeped it for exactly three minutes, but it tastes like it’s been steeped for an hour. I can taste a little of the chocolate flavor, but absolutely none of the strawberry or rose. Adding milk and sweetener covered up some of the bitterness and brought out a little more of the sweet chocolate, but it’s still not that great. To it’s credit, it does become less bitter as it cools, but saying it tastes like chocolate-covered strawberries is a huge stretch. I could try playing with the steeping times but I don’t think it’s really worth it when there’s so many better teas out there, you know? I don’t like fighting with my teas. Haha, oh now I remember why I don’t care for this tea! :)

-Dry blend has medium black tea leaves with pink and yellow rose petals.
-Dry leaves smell like milk chocolate and black tea. Tea liquor aroma is of warm chocolate with a hint of sweet fruit.
-Tea liquor is a clear dark brown color.
-Slightly bitter and malty flavor with a wispy chocolate finish.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Fair tea. Somewhat bitter chocolate tea. Little strawberry or rose flavors noticeable.

“You can’t drink this in July,” shouted the fluttering cupids in my imagination. “Hot tea is out of season!”

“Silence, you cupids,” I shouted back. “Chocolate-covered strawberries have no season! And put some clothes on! This isn’t Rococo town, where anything goes as long as it’s associated with slightly-naughty shepherding and pastels!”

Temperamental conversations with imaginary cherubs aside, Adagio’s Valentines tea is, hands down, one of the most called-upon teas inside my cupboard. Even now, at the height of summer, Valentines calls to me in the cool of night: drink me (it seems to siren-sing), for I involve the merest of calories and the maximum of soft confectionery flavors.

Delicately strawberry-flavored, lightly chocolatey, and with the scent and underlying “taste halo” of rose, this is an appropriately-classified dessert tea that can actually quiet my cravings for far more fattening fare. One could say it’s a little too light in flavor, but I kind of like that. It seems smoother, somehow; I’d call this one a more cost-effective version of Teavana’s Azteca Fire. Add sugar-free sweetener and a little skim milk, and you are in calorie-watching dessert tea business. Well, I am. I don’t know about those cupids, though, who are always more rotund than any babies should be. Four words, cupids: early-onset childhood diabetes.

(I fear I’m running the risk of looking like a hopeless Adagio-phile, what with all the thusly-branded reviews I’ve posted so far. Then again, again, I do own a lot of their teas, not only because I was easily bitten by the personal tea-blending bug, but also because this brand tends to be affordable and easily-procurable. Color me poor, indolent, and introspective, I guess.)

Tea satisfaction + gentle snark = two tea-haikus for this one:

Sweet chocolate-covered
strawberry Moses! And it’s
constantly plural!

Be mine, valentine,
and drink some dessert with me.
Pass the cherub spray.

So I’ve had 3 enormous 16oz mugs of this today. This is an effort to not eat every piece of chocolate in my house (yes, it’s that time – cough – ladies, ya know). Even though this is black tea, this hasn’t made me crazy and up-the-wall caffeinated like 48oz worth of coffee would have done. Also, it tastes like chocolate covered strawberries. The first time I had a cup, I was regretting purchasing 3oz of it. I no longer have that thought!