Ripe For Romance

Uhhhh, call me a teenager, but I have a huuuuuuuge band crush on Hedley right now. Huge! So ridiculous.

So this tea. Another sample from the wonderful Alphakitty! Have I mentioned yet that my goal for today is to try drink one tea from each person that has swapped with me so far? Preferably a new one, but the cute little tuochas Amy Oh sent are a bit intimidating yet, so I might just go with a different tea from her :D

I keep getting off track… this tea, dry and steeped, and even the bag it came in(!) smell like delicious chocolatey raspberry goodness. (And apparently that is making me sneeze?? Oh boy.) And WOW does this ever come through in the flavour! This may be the most strongly-flavoured black I’ve had – the raspberry pops immediately, followed by a full-bodied dark chocolatey flavour, and then the two combine deliciously like I just ate an expensive dark chocolate raspberry truffle. I say expensive, because this raspberry flavour is no cheap pink cream crap, it’s more jam-like. Amazing.

I’m very impressed with this cup. And glad I was sent enough of this one for at least 3, maybe more additional cups! It’s not a tea I would buy (I said the same about Butiki’s Raspberry Truffle tea, which is a similar flavour combo) because although I enjoy it, there are too many other flavoured blacks I’d be likely to go for first, given the choice. Namely caramel/vanilla/creamy blacks.

Oh, and CHAroma, I have hiccups again. And this time it could very well be caused by drinking tea too quickly… looks at empty mug

ETA: Second infusion for 4 minutes still has a fair bit of flavour, but a bit of astringency. I’m drinking it cold but I imagine it would be quite a bit better warm.

Sipdown!

(While I’m drinking Verdant’s Autumn Harvest Laoshan Green in my other tumbler, I’m trying to use this one for sipdowns so I can alternate between trying a new tea, and finishing off the last of some old!)

This was really enjoyable. It’s so sweet and chocolatey and mmmmm. I love raspberry chocolate. It makes me think of these fancy Godiva chocolate bars we used to buy when I worked at Chapters and had a 30% discount. (Those days were great, but I didn’t make a lot of money as a lot went back to Chapters every week…)

I probably shouldn’t be drinking sweet teas like this before I’ve had anything to eat, but the baby got me up at 6, and everyone else will probalby sleep in until 11 or so, and I don’t want to make more noise than I can help while in the kitchen. Priorities = tea. Food later?

I have so many loose samples everywhere – I’m going to copy Sil and spend some time reorganizing it all today! I packed up so many samples to Courtney yesterday and it made room in some of my boxes, so maybe it won’t look so chaotic!

Additional notes: ICED! Holy crikey! I thought this would be a cold steep loser, that the chocolate wouldn’t translate at all. Not show its face. But it is the most noticeable thing here. It’s almost like tasting chocolate syrup, two teaspoons after a few days in the fridge. I don’t think it was this present hot. There is a hint of sweetness and flavor from the raspberry but I love the chocolate flavor here and will probably use the rest of this cold steeped (though I love the Adagio black tea base hot too much). And I can’t wait to try other chocolate teas cold steeped!

I think this one was from Fiddling. Thanks for sending this my way; it’s not easy to get Adagio teas over here!

I’m drinking this in my mug while listening to (maybe too much) Queen, when I should be studying for two midterms tomorrow. Call me sad and indulgent.. All I need to do is turn around and look down- and voilà! There’s the textbook and studying would happen.. After I finish this cup.

this cup is full of low fat raspberry truffles. It’s much more satisfying than reading handwritten notes and goes well with milk.

The other tea I have been drinking today. 3 or 4 cups, I think. It’s a pleasant enough chocolate-raspberry flavoured black. I won’t be too sad when it’s gone, but it’s easy enough to drink. More variety required tomorrow, though! I must stop reaching for the same teas and drink something else from my languishing shelf at work!

This one came from KallieBoo! and smells so good.

It definitely smells like dark chocolate and raspberries — lovely jammy candy-like raspberries.

Taste-wise, the chocolate is more of an unsweetened cocoa note which I might prefer more as it’s less cloying and waxy that way. The raspberry doesn’t immediately come though until the tail of the sip and it’s definitely jammy and sweet raspberry.

Milk and sugar (or the simple syrup I had around) go a long way in making this decadant and more chocolatey. Unfortunately, I can’t get the raspberry to pop to a degree I’d like it and have better chocolate raspberry truffle teas floating around.

(’Sides, I like mine with a hint of Brandy)

I’m baaaaaack. What a trip. Beyond my Habs pulling off a ridiculous 4-3 comeback after being down 3-1, the highlight has to be when one of them, a rookie, and one of my faves right now for sure (even scored the game winning goal) was walking down the street to the arena. I see him. He sees me. I’m wearing a Canadiens shirt. I turn around and face away from him.

He obviously notices this and my boyfriend said he got this huge grin on his face (though he’s already always smiling I’m pretty sure). And when he passed us he says, “Afternoon!” to me. And my boyfriend claims he pointed me out to another player when they were warming up. Oh my god. I laughed for 20 minutes after. It was terrible.

Continuing now into the traveling tea box, I’m trying this one out. I had to add milk and agave because it didn’t have a very pronounced flavor, as usual for me and Adagio flavored teas. The chocolate comes out a lot more obviously as chocolate now, previously it was like kind of chocolate, but bitter. Now it’s a lot more like dark chocolate.

The raspberry isn’t there at all. I already have plenty of raspberry truffle-ish teas too so this one isn’t remarkable enough to stand up to the others.

This is a fun tea – tastes just like raspberry and dark chocolate, two of my favorite things. (I can’t do milk chocolate, allergic. But luckily NOT allergic to dark chocolate.) I purchased the V-day set to share with my husband…OK, I just bought it for myself. But he can enjoy some of it, if he wants.

My only issue with this tea is that you can’t really steep/infuse it more than once. It’s a great, hearty and delish cuppa, just once. I have that issue with many Adagio teas, but since they are inexpensive I don’t worry about it too much.

Sipdown, 168, another from the Traveling Tea Box. I wasn’t going to pull this one at first, because Adagio. I’ve actually never had an Adagio black flavored tea because I kind of skipped over them when I was starting my tea journey (but only just, because I remember thinking of ordering samples from them), and then became uninterested because everyone seems to complain about the quality of their black base for blends. Being quite picky about my base teas, especially now, I wasn’t going to go for it, but this tea actually has decent ratings, plus I needed to free up some weight in the box for the teas I included, heh.

When this was brewing I caught a whiff of it and it smelled almost dead up like Land’o’Lakes Raspberry Hot Chocolate. We always buy those LoL individual serving hot chocolate packs, and they come in a lot of flavors. It’s not the most authentic raspberry in the world, but it is tasty anyway. Fully steeped it does smell quite a bit like that hot chocolate, although the tea is making it smell like a slightly darker chocolate.

Having just had quite a nice very dark (so, slightly bitter) chocolate tea, this is a bit of a letdown. Yes, it’s chocolatey, and the raspberry is definitely there, reasonably tasty, but man if this isn’t bitter! I could really use some milk and sugar, and then I’m sure it would quite quite tasty, but plain? Blech. So bitter. Ah well, I kind of expected it anyway!

A little cliche, but how could I not drink some Ripe for Romance tea on Valentine’s Day?! Truth be told, I was a little worried when I decided to drink it since I loved this tea so very much last year. I have heard so many people commenting lately that Adagio’s teas have become weak or bitter to them, and since I’ve not had it in awhile I thought “Nooooo, not my beloved Ripe for Romance!” Luckily that wasn’t the case and this tea was exactly as I remembered. This is one of the few teas that I can enjoy without added sweetener, and it’s a cup of rich, dark chocolatey goodness. Once you add the sweetener it definitely brings out the juicy raspberry flavors, and a little milk makes it so nice and creamy. Ohhhh it tastes just like taking a bite of a lovely piece of chocolate with raspberry filling! So happy to have this tea to enjoy today, I wish everyone else a wonderful day full of love and tea!

-Dry blend has medium black tea leaves with pieces of green raspberry leaves, raspberries and cocoa nibs.
-Dry leaves smell chocolatey and of sweet raspberry. Tea liquor aroma is malty and of rich chocolate.
-Tea liquor is a thick dark brown color.
-Strong dark chocolate flavor with a juicy raspberry finish.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Excellent tea. Perfect cup of creamy chocolate and raspberry!