Tangerine Tuxedo

I have been eyeing this and other similar teas for a few years now. I adore orange and similar citrus fruits (not including bergamot), but I never seem to be making orders with companies that have them.

I had also tried Adagio many years ago very early in my journey and found everything was just way too bitter and harsh for my tastes. And then I went and developed a taste for bitter. So one night of absolute madness I decided to try Adagio again. And this was one of them.

For today I have put half of one of these little tangerines, including peel, in my little pot and steeped in boiling water for about 1-2 minutes. I am honestly surprised on how much I enjoy this. The tangerine flavor is pronounced of the peel, which I adore (though I am les fond of tangerine than I am orange). The tangerine peel gives everything a nice sweetness without things being too sweet, which I am enjoying.

Using my steeping parameters, the flavor is every bit as pronounced on the second steep as it was on the first. I plan to drink on this all day and I am curious how long the flavor will last until it fades away.

-update-

I got 5 solid steeps from this over the course of the day. The last two were 2-3 minutes long. The flavor was still staying pretty steady and I likely could have kept going

On the down side, the sweetness of this got to me after a while and by the time I was on my way home, I was actually feeling a little queasy. Not something I can drink much of, or often really, but its certainly something I will enjoy once in a while.

Gongfu!

This morning a coworker reached out to me to ask my thoughts on tea stuffed citrus (I love them) like tangerine/mandarin, and that was my inspiration for digging through my tea stash to find this to drink over my lunch break today!

I find this tea so enjoyable with it’s bright, sweet and fresh citrus/tangerine notes and the almost honeyed malt and fruit notes from the black tea based. With these stuffed citrus fruits, there’s a spectrum that exists between really sweet and lively citrus/chenpi and the much more medicinal aged chenpi that lingers on the palate and coats the throat. Both are really good, but such drastically different experiences – you can tell that the citrus used here really isn’t that old/hasn’t aged.

Five solid steeps, one less solid one at the end – long steep times are key IMO because you get such a rich orange flavour, but the black tea also isn’t lost. It’s pretty forgiving to harsher brewing conditions. As with all of these types of stuffed citrus fruits, I broke the peel up and used it with my brewing – around a 1/2 orange for my little glass pot.

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHyIvZ4gb_U/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeukjhDekRg