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So I have decided to renew my quarterly subscription for 52 teas. I have really enjoyed what I have gotten so far and I think 15 g for me is enough to enjoy a tea but also not be struggling to keep up and sip it down. :) Plus, lots of variety and delicious blends.

Preparation: Western
Tasting note: First opening the bag of the tea, it smelled very lemonade-y which was a nice surprise. Sipping it after it has cooled down, it is a pretty mild green. It has a light bit of citrus but not enough to be considered strongly tart or pithy.

Ordered this a few months ago with some other hella teas and have liked most of them so far. Humptea Hump would be my favorite as it is delightfully banana bready.

Preparation: Western
Tasting note: So there is some smokiness which is to be expected from a lapsang, also some sweetness. I havent had straight bourbon in a while so i am not sure if it is that complex but it definitely gives me some savory sweet honey bourbon bbq sauce notes. Not in the way of drinking bbq sauce but just some of the flavors are reminiscent. It is good!

I have been putting off drinking my Adagio teas that I ordered this past fall/winter since I have been been introduced to so many good blended tea companies and straight teas. I will say that may tastes have definitely changed over the past year. Despite that, I still have a soft spot for companies who have fan blend themes and Adagio has fan blends galore. Starting to notice that I am not as big of a fan of many Adagio base blends as I used to be but that is probably just because my tastes have changed.

Preparation: Western (no additives)
Tasting Note: I remember when I first bought a sample tin of this blend 5 or 6 years ago, I was pretty new to tea at that point but the thought that tea fans could customize their own blends and add adorable nerdy fanart blew my mind. This tea was in my top 5 favorites at the time and though I never bought a 3 oz bag of it, I thought about it a lot. Well, fast forward to 2021 and I did get the bag.

Actual tasting note: This is my second cup of this tea since opening the bag awhile back, so I doesn’t seem to be as fresh anymore. The tea has a good body but the flavorings mild and muddled at this point. I don’t get a lot of blueberry but there is a little creaminess. The oolong doesn’t have a lot of nuance but it does provide body to the tea and a richness. The tea tastes a little artificial and I am wishing they leaned more on the real ingredients and less on the artificial flavorings.

I have quite a bit left of this tea in the bag and am thinking at this point it isn’t worth finishing. I don’t think it is a very strong contender to be shared either as it isn’t unique or high quality. Bummer.

Just going through some of the Friday Afternoon tea blends today and I haven’t been overly impressed so far. So far I have had the Pomegrante black, Star dust and now A-L’s for teas. I have had a few herbal blends in the past that I have tried as well. Overall, so far I haven’t been really enjoyed anything enough from them to hold on to them or finish them which makes me sort of sad. I still have a few black blends and an oolong and hojicha blend left to try but hopefully I find one that clicks with me.

Prep: Western
Tasting Note: Oolong has some roasted notes but not very strong. There is some light amount of cinnamon and citrus. But mostly tastes pretty thin. I put probably 3 tsps in 12 oz so i just dont think its my cup of tea.

Not in alphabetical order of company to try unopened tea but my second cup of the day always seems to be a green tea. Plus, I have accrued a small stash of 52 tea bags over the last few months from the subscription box and need to catch up on.

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: Yummm! This is a delight. The maple hits just right with this tea and it reminds me of french toast and maple syrup but I could see a Maple Rice coconut pudding too. No additional sweeteners or milks needed, I like this one exactly as it comes. :) I will be sad to see this one go, I think.

Trying to taste more of the teas that are unopened in my cabinet, to determine whether I should keep, toss or share. So I guess I am going through my cabinet alphabetically by company for the first tea of the day now. :)

Preparation: Western and then with a little barista Oatly (which is essentially whole fat oatly in a smaller container)
Tasting note: The dry leaf smelt of hershey’s chocolate syrup, so I definitely decided at that point this was going to be an unsweetened latte. Brewed up straight it was pretty brisk with some chocolate syrup notes and sweetness. I pretty much immediately after that sip added the oatly. After that, it tasted kind of like chocolate milk. I liked it less I think than Adagio’s Irish stout because it didn’t have that malty, richness to make it even more chocolatey. Also, Irish stout has sprinkles so yeah… it’s cute and gimmicky. I would say that this is a pretty decent chocolate black tea but not my favorite from Adagio.

This will go in the share pile as I know that I still quite a bit of Irish stout left from St. Patrick’s Day and they are in the same family as taste goes.

Sipdown theme: A Rose tea

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note:
So I was ready to write off all rose teas because they seemed to be mostly pungent and perfume-y which usually causes me to take two sips and dump the cup (with a few exceptions in certain fruit blends). Then I came across crimson rose and I feel a lot more comfortable drinking rose teas again. This tea has more of an alpine taste and the rose flavor is there very, very lightly which I think is what I finally needed from a rose tea. I actually enjoy drinking this from time to time and fun fact, it is another fun color changing tea. If the tea is brewed with an acid (lemon juice etc) the tea becomes more red-pink, if the tea is brewed neutral to basic it has (yellow, green, even pale blue colors). It is a really great tea to brew in a glass tea pot or mug.

Last caffeinated tea of the day.

Prep: Western (no additives)
Tasting note: This is a waaaay nicer black tea than the tea bag I had this morning. It is brisk and creamy. I don’t get a strong banana taste from this and I had a lot of banana chunks in my scoop but I have yet to try sweeteners yet. Been on a banana kick lately and so I wish it was a little more banana-y without adding anything though.

I really, really like lemon glazed loaf, its close to one of my tea bagged teas which is nice because I can buy at the Target really close to me. So because of that I wanted to try the other teas in the tazo dessert delight collection.

Prep: Western
Tasting note: Its pretty bland in my opinion, the licorice root is kind of there and there is some vanilla notes but the black tea is not very good or interesting in my opinion. Will do my best to sip this down but it is not a priority.