Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to buy: Adagio Teas
Tea Description:
Premium black tea from Sri Lanka flavored with pumpkin and exotic spices. Autumn festivities just wouldn’t be the same without the comforting, smooth sweetness of spiced pumpkin – and neither would your tea time. Warm and rich flavor, with lingering cozy aromatics.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I love handmade soap, and my favorite soap artisan is Rebecca, from Rebecca’s Soap Delicatessen. With my most recent order, she was nice enough to send me a sachet of this tea! Because I had not yet tried this particular flavor from Adagio Teas, I was happy to receive it, and especially thrilled because Rebecca was once one of my best tea customers (back when I sold my own blends), and it’s kind of cool that she’s now sending me tea!
Adagio Teas has a very … weird … black tea base. The first time I tried it, I wrote to them to find out what type of tea they use, and they told me a Ceylon. Well, their Ceylon is quite unlike any Ceylon I can ever remember tasting … except for in Adagio Teas’ flavored teas. It is rather harsh, to put it mildly. However, after having had some experience with Adagio Teas’ black tea base, I’ve learned a thing or two about brewing their flavored black teas so that it does not taste so abrasive.
First, don’t use boiling water. Just under boiling – between 195° and 200° F – will do the trick. Then, do not steep the tea for the five minutes that Adagio suggests. I find that a brewing time of 2 1/2 minutes – 3 minutes produces a much more favorable cup. Finally, allow the tea to cool slightly after it’s brewed. I find that letting it sit for three to four minutes before I take a sip and the cup is far less astringent than if I take a sip immediately. In this case, patience is definitely rewarded.
And this really isn’t such a bad tea after brewing it in the way I just described. The spices are nice and warm, and the black tea is rich tasting and only mildly astringent. My only real complaint about this tea would be with it’s pumpkin flavor – it tastes artificial. I’ve had quite a few pumpkin teas where the pumpkin tastes more natural than this. It just tastes kind of … off. However, it’s not so horrible that I cannot finish the cup and enjoy it!
Certainly not my favorite Adagio offering but I didn’t hate it either … and I loved that my dear friend sent it to me. That she thought of me … it meant a lot! Thank you, Rebecca!
