Full disclosure, this is one of the blends I made on Adagio Teas.  Their create-a-blend tools are just too much fun, and their fandom tea community is active and engaging.  I wanted to review my Sabriel blend because I had been stewing over the idea for a long time, and it was so satisfying to have it finally come together.

Sabriel is one of the main characters from the Old Kingdom book series by Garth Nix.  I won’t go into too much detail about the books, except to say that the series essentially follows the lives of “good” necromancers who help fight dead creatures or put the dead to rest.  The stories are beautiful, imaginative, and just a little spooky.

For my Sabriel tea blend I wanted something impactful but nuanced; her work managing the magic of the dead takes steadiness and subtlety.  The body of the tea is made up of two types of green tea. The gunpowder tea is robust without being astringent, and adds a whiff of smokiness that compliments the crackling, toasted notes of the hojicha tea.

The rest of the ingredients are all fragrant and sensory-inspiring.  Peppermint brings a cooling creepiness, like fog in a graveyard, or a settling peacefulness like still water.  Rose and lavender can have the morbid interpretation of flowers at a funeral, but can also being nostalgic, like remembering a favorite bouquet or garden memory.  Cardamom adds some spirit and peppery spice, and feels a bit unexpected without its usual partners of cinnamon and ginger. The scent of cardamom always makes me think of opening the kitchen spice cabinet, and all the cooking possibilities within.

I have not come across a blend quite like this in my tea drinking experience, so I was more than happy to have the opportunity to make it myself.  It was also great fun to honor one of my favorite characters and book series in tea form.

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Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green

Where to Buy: Adagio Teas

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