Adagio Custom Blends, Aun-Juli Riddle

Ah, found this tea entry, finally. This one was a little light, and I wanted to like it more, but I am a fan of the cinnamony flavors with green tea, especially these Hobbity blends from Adagio. I had it with some Trader Joe’s milk & honey biscuits, and poured boiling water on my hand, but it doesn’t hurt.

Today is also lame (migraine day #4 + work + everything), but Sterek gets me out of bed, and a surprise Tyler Hoechlin or Martin Freeman radio show on my iPhone can definitely make my morning bearable. I love imaginary people, and internet people, and fantasy people. Sometimes actors. I just have to make it to lunch, then yoga, then baseball & Hannibal. Think I can make it? IDK, maybe!

Appropriate for today, because last night I decided to run away from work as fast as possible to go running in the sun, make goat cheese pasta and bleu cheese/potato tarts, & then finish S1 of Hannibal. Good call, I say to myself. Then I got my caramel fix from this tea this morning (I’m trying to save some for Shmiracles, I swear). I’m also trying to convince her to watch Hannibal too, though it’s hard because, TV. Though I was all, Oh look there’s swiggity swag the nightmare stag again… Ooh vomit & body parts…

I really wanted to like this tea, since today is all about migraines, disappointment, depression, rain, and Monday… and I got caramel, yay! The caramel and hazelnut overpowers the chocolate and vanilla that I am less fond of, and it’s sweet without being too sweet. So I’m a fan of this tea, thanks, Cavocorax, for sharing! I’m still only halfway through S1, but I get the antlers reference at least.

I drank a cup of this today, but I darnk it while watching SPN fanvids and sorta wasn’t paying enough attention. I remember a black tea that was sweet and creamy? It was good?

Sorry I don’t have more. Now it’s Sil’s turn. (190)

And the distracting vids:
The Perks of Being a Winchester (funny summary of the brothers)

Castiel is an Angel With a shotgun (awesome video about BAMF!Castiel, but the music is a little cheezy)

Steeped up my last bit of this, and was having problems identifying the lingering toasted/charred flavour. Almost like roasted chestnuts, but without the sweet creamy nuttiness that makes the flavour delicious.

Oh. Oolong. But definitely not a green oolong at all.

If it weren’t for this aftertaste, I’d really like the tea. It tastes cake- or pastry- like, and was really good with a little milk.

Thank you for sharing, Shmiracles! :)

(1.5 tsp in 12 oz)

Thanks, Shmiracles!!

Oooh, it tastes like a vanilla chai cake. Yummy!

I’m having it with (surprise) almond milk. It goes well.

Yum yum yum.

(FYI to everyone with my address, I’m going to be moving May 15. Yes, this is lots of warning, I’m doing this on purpose! I just got a surprise package today!)

I have done so many swaps this month and have so many teas to try. I thought today would be a Schmiracles day!

This one didn’t do it for me. I wasn’t getting a lot of flavour out of it, I couldn’t even tell you what flavour it’s supposed to be if I didn’t already know. And the base wasn’t anything special, not enough to make up for the lack of flavour. It’s not bad, just not something I would care to order myself. I will try this again with milk and agave on a cheat day and see if it improves.

shmiracles tea fest! another one from that package. This is a nice enough cup of tea, but in this cup there is just too much cinnamon. it’s not that the cinnamon is overpowering or anything, but i feel like it’s hiding all the other wonderful things in this tea…like GINGER! :) i did enjoying drinking this one, but i also felt like there wasn’t much point to the other ingredients since they weren’t coming through like the cinnamon. Ah well, still another happy tea to have tried (and that gets me to 150 at least…10 more to go in 2 days heh)

yes! this one is a really nice cup of tea. Thank you shmiracles for showing me what adagio can do when they get it right (or maybe i should thank aun -juli) :) This was a really nice cup of fruity, vanilla delicious tea.

It’s ok. It wasn’t memorable. What a shame.
Maybe Sil and Terri will enjoy it more!

And another one to pass to Sil (217)

Hmmm… Not my favourite. Sorry. Nope. Ginger and chai are ok together in small doses but I feel like I need to be brave to get to the bottom of this cup.

Sorry Sil for throwing bad tea at good friends. :P

How appropriate!

I’m reviewing this tea while I read the revised script for the last episode of Hannibal S2. (no spoilers – I’m not allowed to say anything, but I WISH I COULD. :O)

I’m in a total Hannibal mood right now – listening to this awesome music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WP6_m9rRlI&feature=youtu.be) inspired by the show. NBC heard the song and asked to collaborate with the artist to make a official music video and the final product is quite lovely and haunting! Some spoilers for Season 1 there. I don’t think anything important from S2 is in it. Just, give it a listen!

Also, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that we made a ravenstag at the shop. I helped glue the fur and feathers on. Pretty neat!

Anyway, on to the tea review: I think Aun-Juli nailed it. This is show that takes subject matter that churns the stomach and makes it antithetically pleasing. Never has cannibalism looked this good, right? The show is sophisticated and treats it’s audience intelligently, and turns the victims into art… This tea does the same. (See I was going somewhere with this…)

you know. I wanted to really love this tea. I did. But it’s just sort of ok. The pomegranate adds a bit of a fruity feel to this, but the dominant taste is the oriental spice. I was hoping for more of the spice mixing with the cocoa and the caramel but mostly this comes across as a slightly fruit chai sort of spice tea. I don’t hate it..but i wanted more. Thanks for sharing though Cavo! :)

And that’s it for this tea! (231)

I made a giant mug of it so I could get ALL THE FLAVOUR, and then I threw the rest in my new box for Sil. (This one will take longer to fill though since I have nothing coming in…. yet)

It smells interesting! Chai spices make me think warm, by the fire thoughts, while the peppermint is a blast of ice. And this tea is part of the A Song of Ice and Fire fandom – OIC what you did there Aun-Juli!!!

The verdict? I really actually like it. The two contrasting flavours never quite mix – they dance around each other and taste great. The base may be a little weak but the flavours and scent more than make up for it. Let’s see what Sil thinks!

I love that this series of tea are all inspired by the many deaths of Sean Bean. :P I can get behind this. So far they’re great.

ETA I’m thinking if I can reduce my cupboard by July, then I may place a birthday order at Adagio! If I can’t mule it through Sil I may just end up paying the min charge because laslt time I ordered so much that shipping worked out to be buttloads anyway… Yikes. But yay! Time to sip! But after drinking all these Aun-Juli blends I am getting ideas on restocks. It’s great that she lets you buy samples from her website!

mmm thanks cavocorax! I am a fan of this blend. It’s not an over the top must have in my cupboard sort of tea, but it IS a tasty cup of spices. Somehow everything in this just works together to make a nice cup of delicious. My only complaint, as always is the base that tends to be used in adagio’s blends. It’s just not my favourite, though in this case it doesn’t makes things worse :) Thanks for sharing cavo! (also i love the design for this one..)

bad steepster! bad! it make me click on the review button a bunch but never popped open the windo to make a note..and then i had to go and delete 1092382109382 blank entries for this tea.

I think i’m a little spzy right now because i saw the name of this tea and the first thing that popped into my head was that song… “comet, it makes your mouth turn green….comet…it tastes like gasoline… comet,…..da da da da…<words i don’t remember> so try comet, and vomit today….”

thankfully this tea? it’s tasty and has a pretty design and cavo gave it to me…so that’s a lot of YES to this tea :)

YUMMY! BLUUUUUUUUUE BERRY! I’m taking 5 mins in between my work calls to try and catch up with the teas i had tonight before work decided to be stupid. I want this week to be over damnit! Plus my cupboard was exploded by everyone this week (shmiracles, variaTEA, Keychange, Cavocorax…) so i’m not going to make my goal of 140 this month, but i also did NOT make any purchases this month (so haaard!!!) so i’m still doing well…

i like this tea. id even purchase it again because it’s dr who…and blueberry and tasty. so there.

Grrrrrr computer make me mad. I’ll fix this review, but mostly it was a fairly bland cup for me, which made me a sad panda. :(

Thank you cavo! My internet is having issues driving me nuts. I’ve lost the tasting note on a few things now. This one probably needed to steep a little longer to bring out more of the flavours. Over all still a tasty cup, but not my favourite.

mmm this was a tasty cup! Thank you Cavo! I quite enjoyed this earlier today. This was a cherry vanilla tea to me, which i guess is good since that’s what it’s trying to be, along with some cinnamon. I didn’t get much in the way of the cinnamon, but the cherry and vanilla left a juicy impression in my mouth that made for an enjoyable cup of tea today!

thanks cavo! this one was sort of meh for me. The ingredients sort of blended into a cremy non distinct sort of flavour. The apple came out a little more as it cooled off, but hot this was not something i was dying to drink. Also, my poor poor cupboard is so exploded right now….

This blend is odd. So odd.

But the 11th Doctor was quite odd too so I think this is a good fit.

It’s supposed to be black teas, white tea, blueberry and cinnamon but my mouth keeps telling me I’m drinking blueberry gingerbread. Blueberry gingerbread is not a combination I would have immediately thought was amazing, but it does work.

It’s a little bready, the blueberry is light and sweet (and brilliant) and finishes each sip. The cinnamon and nutmeg hold everything together. It’s very comforting.

Cavocorax graciously offered me some of this in our last swap, and I immediately wanted to try it. Okay, so I’ve yet to watch anything Hannibal, it’s just those darn ingredients (chocolate? hazelnut? I’m sold!) and the specific tea blender that got me excited.

Brewed up, this is surprisingly mellow – for some reason I was expecting a kick, a twist, a…. you expected something different, why would you, of course you did… kind of tea. That’s what I think of when I think of Hannibal – although admittedly I have zero idea as to who Will is. Yes, I will fix this. :)

So, think mild chai with a light caramel/chocolate finish, and maybe the dryness of a nut in there — and you have Save Will. Tasty!