Alys's Tea Party Blend: Hala Kahiki

Thanks to my good friend +Michelle O'Malley, I have developed a true love for Hawaii.   I love its unique cultural blend, its food and its fascinating history.  I wanted to make a tea that spoke to me of plate lunch, shrimp trucks, plantation iced tea, scrambled eggs with mahi mahi and "two scoop rice," and the Hawaii that Joe and Michelle have let me experience.  I am glad to report that I pulled it off.

Hala kahiki is one of the Hawaiian words for "pineapple," one of the primary elements in this tea.  I've blended the flavors of coconut, pineapple and chai (cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and lemongrass) to produce a cup that puts me right onto Sans Souci beach.  It's slightly sweet without needing any extra sweetener.

When the weather warms up a bit, I'm going to try this iced, but for now it is warm and cozy and welcoming.

Tea tasting: Christmas Teas, part 1

It's that time of year, so I picked up two Christmas-themed teas that I haven't tried before.   I'm not excited about either of them.  As a result, I will be stopping by Barnes and Noble tomorrow to get proper Christmas tea from Harney & Sons (one of my personal favorites).

Teavana's Joy 2016 was deeply disappointing.  To me, it has nothing to do with the smells or tastes of Christmas.  It is a blend of black tea plus oolong plus jasmine.  While it is a perfectly fine jasmine tea, jasmine is not a flavor or smell I associate with Christmas.  The jasmine is strong without being overwhelming.  So, if jasmine fits with your winter holiday celebrations, it's probably perfect for you.  For myself, I'll be saving this for after the holidays (probably for the depths of February).


Twinnings' Christmas Tea has the right cinnamon and clove flavors to make me think of gingerbread and pfeffernusse, but it's somewhat tame.  I think I've been spoiled by Harney & Sons' more vigorous blending of flavors.  If you aren't a fan of heavily flavored teas, I'd recommend Twinnings.   It's far from bad tea, because it's based on a good quality black, but it's not what my palate is really wanting right now.

Tomorrow or Thursday there will be more Christmas teas reviewed!

Tea tasting: Teavana's Poached Pear Cider

"Poached Pear Cider" is no longer Teavana's website for some reason.   From other sources, I can tell you that it's an herbal tisane composed of apple pieces, cardamom, cinnamon, citrus peel, cloves, ginger, hibiscus, lemongrass, and licorice root.

I wanted to love Poached Pear Cider.  I love pears and a tea flavored like pear cider sounded right up my alley.  Unfortunately, this tea just doesn't work for me at all.  It smells far better than it tastes.  The flavors are weak, even when I used 2 tsps for a cup and brew it for 6+ minutes.  It's not distinctly pear -flavored -- it's just a sort of undifferentiated fruit.   To be sure, the flavor isn't actively unpleasant, but it is terribly disappointing.

This tea might be ideal for combining with actual hard pear cider, though.  Would someone like to experiment and tell me the results?

Alys' Tea Party Blend: Mackyntoich Apple Crisp

I set out to make Mackyntoich Apple Crisp taste like dessert, and I largely succeeded, although it took some experimentation to get it right.  To get the proper taste from this tea, you need to use between 1.5 and 2 teaspoons per cup brewed.   Using more than the usual amount of tea gets the right flavor blend of apple and caramel, with the slightest hint of vanilla.

The apple and caramel notes make this tea more than sweet enough for my taste.  Adding a teaspoon of honey makes it sort of cloying.  But I think someone who loves sweet tea would find it just right.

I have only tried it hot, not iced, because it is the perfect warm drink for a winter night.  It's almost as good as actual apple crisp.  Almost.  :-)

Tea tasting: Harney & Sons' Kenya Milima

Word is that Kenya is  producing some good quality teas.  Of course, it is a moral imperative that I try some and review them for my loyal readers.  

Today's tea is Harney & Sons' Kenya Milima.   The website description of the tea says: "Kenya Milima is Africa's most elegant black tea, with golden tips reminiscent of fine Assams. Produced with traditional methods at high altitude, this tea is light in body and tends toward citrus. – Overall a mellow brew."

Although some (clearly deranged) people recommend steeping this tea for 4-5 minutes, I recommend that only if one needs some sort of universal solvent.   A 3 minute steep is more than adequate to get a nice, dark brew.

The aroma is that of a strong, multi-layered black tea.  My favorite morning smell!  It tastes like the essence of black tea - that particular, wonderful taste that no other thing can duplicate.  It does, as advertised, most closely resemble an Assam, which is just fine from my point of view.  If there are citrus notes in here, however, I'm not tasting them except as the vaguest of suggestions.  All in all, it's a good quality black for people who like the taste of tea for its own sake.

Bottled Iced Teas: Some more from Teas' Tea

This weekend, I had the chance to taste some more bottled iced tea flavors from Teas' Tea.

The lightly sweetened Hibiscus Green Tea was quite nice.  I'm not a big fan of hibiscus, but this tea blended the hibiscus flavor with cane sugar and green tea to produce a nice sweet flavor.  This tea is definitely sweet, but reasonably so.   It was refreshing and hit the spot.

The lightly sweetened Peach Ginger Black Tea is very very strongly ginger-flavored.  There might have been some tea or peach in there, but it tasted more or less like drinking liquid ginger.   I can't recommend it except to people who really like ginger.

The lightly sweetened Pomegranate Blueberry Green Tea was deeply odd.  I can't decide whether I liked it or not.  It tasted far more like some sort of juice drink than anything tea-related.  I'm going to need to try this one again before I can opine for or against it.

Tea tasting: Harney & Sons' Cherry Blossom Green Tea

Harney & Sons' Cherry Blossom tea is a nice quality green tea infused with the aroma of cherry blossoms but not very much in the way of cherry flavor.   It smells marvelous, like a warm April day when the cherry blossoms are blooming.  To the extent it is there at all, the cherry flavor is a light, gentle underlayer beneath the green tea's natural flavors.  I recommend Cherry Blossom to green tea fans who want just that extra hint of something without losing the essential taste of tea.

Tea tasting: Harney & Sons' Cranberry Autumn

Harney & Sons' Cranberry Autumn is a good quality black tea lightly flavored with cranberry and orange.  The flavoring is not strong at all, and it blends nicely with the natural qualities of black tea.  The aroma is great for fall; it is a nice alternative to the ubiquity of pumpkin.

I can recommend this without reservation to people who like unflavored blacks.

Tea-rrific Ice Cream: Chunky London Mist

While wondering in the grocery store in a cold-mediation-induced mental haze, I found Tea-rrific Ice Cream's Chunky London Mist.   Tea and ice cream are two of my favorite things.  It billed itself as "The malty and citrusy notes of Earl Grey tea with a hint of vanilla, rich semi-sweet Belgian chocolate flakes and buttery roasted pecan chunks."  I love vanilla, semi-sweet chocolate and pecans!  This should be great, right?

Um . . . . nope.

Chunky London Mist tasted horrible.   The Earl Grey tea "notes" dominated, and they were overly citrusy, like being mugged by bergamot.  I never found or tasted the alleged roasted pecans.  There was no vanilla to speak of.  It was as if poor quality Early Grey tea with too much milk had been frozen and then had some semi-sweet chocolate chips mixed in.  

This ought to have been great.  I'm deeply disappointed.

In which bad diner tea achieves a whole new low

After teaching classes at the Heralds and Scribes event out in Rome, NY, a group of us went out to dinner at DiCastro's in Rome.   Tasty food, really nice wait staff, all in all an excellent place.  The iced tea was perfectly adequate as a caffeine delivery system to stave off my headache.

But.

There's always a "but" in these stories, isn't there?

+Juliean Galak ordered hot tea.  What he received was a cup of hot water with a tea bag from a company I had never heard of (a coffee company, to boot).   This tea was so far "off brand" that it was recognizable as tea only by the fact that it came in the classic bag-shaped form with paper wrapper.  It produced a bitter brown water with a disturbingly mineral-ish tang, rather as if someone had distilled the essence of Cooper's Lake's rock-hard orange water into tisane form.  Really, only the fact that the bag produced a brown brew rather than an orange one disproved this theory.   It was wretched and vile, and not even sheer desperation would have driven me to do more than taste it.  I tasted it only to provide this necessary warning to others.   Beware the off-off-off-brand Lipton knock-off.

Because I drink bad tea, so you don't have to.

You owe me.   :-)

Alys's Tea Party Blend: Elizabeth's Caramel Apple Moxie

 Elizabeth's Caramel Apple Moxie is one of the specialty blends that I created through Adagio; it was designed as a blend of chai, caramel and apple.  Now that the weather is turning colder (and wetter), and hot tea finally sounds appetizing, I decided it was time for a tasting.

I don't like milk in my tea, so I am going to have to recruit some other tea drinker to drink this as "proper" chai.  I'm sure someone will take that bullet for the team.

In leaf/chunk form, this tea smells sweet and spicy, like a tin full of autumn.  Brewed, that scent lovely scent remains, with the apple becoming a distinct note amid the chai spices.

This tea tastes best with a teaspoon of clover honey -- the sweetness of the honey brings out the full flavors of the caramel and apple without eliminating the spicy chai.  Otherwise, the apple gets overwhelmed by the spices of the chai and can be found only in the scent.  The unsweetened version isn't bad by any means.  It's a lovely slightly sweet chai.  The cloves and the cinnamon are just strong enough.  But, adding honey or Sugar in the Raw lets the blend sing all of its notes.

I look forward to enjoying this throughout the fall season.

Bottled Iced Tea: Alexander's Real Teas

Alexander's Real Tea is a small company located in New Brunswick, NJ.  Its products can be found on store shelves in NJ and NY at this point.  Of course, I had to sample their wares.

I've tried their Peach, Raspberry, Green Tea and Pomegranate Green.  Of these, I like the Pomegranate Green the best.

The Peach and Raspberry are your basic fruit-flavored sweetened black teas.  They taste better than, say, Snapple, because they use cane sugar rather than HCF.  While perfectly drinkable if you like that sort of thing, they are far too sweet for my taste.  There's at least some tea flavor underneath all that sweet, but not much.   Still, I've had worse.

Their Green tea is likewise perfectly adequate, but not much more.  Once again, the sweetener kills any character the green tea base might have had.  That the sweetener is real sugar makes this marginally acceptable.  I've definitely had worse green teas in bottled form, though.  I've been spoiled by making my own green iced teas all summer.

Of the four options, the Pomegranate Green achieves the best balance between sweet and tea.  It's not amazing, but a good off the shelf option when thirsty.  I'll continue to pick it up every now and then.

So, if you are one of those who like sweet tea -- and I know you're out there -- Alexander's Real Tea is definitely a tasty option.  Plus, supporting NJ small businesses makes me happy.  Maybe I can encourage them to make something unsweetened?


NOTE: Alexander's Real Tea should not be confused with Alexander's Gourmet Tea, an entirely different company that sells actual tea.

Tea tasting: Mighty Leaf's Wild Berry Hibiscus

Ignore the weird sickly rotting fruit scent of the tea bags as they come out of the box.  Mighty Leaf's Wild Berry Hibiscus tea makes some mighty fine iced tea.  It's strong and flavorful without being cloying or overly sweet.  There's a nice tartness to the finish that makes it particularly refreshing, the way an iced tea should be.

The berry flavors are supposed to be elderberry, blueberry and strawberry, but I honestly can't parse out the individual berry elements.  On the other hand, I also don't get a strong hibiscus flavor, which is all to the good as far as I'm concerned.  

Tea Grotto's Fig and Lavender Black Tea

On my recent trip out to Salt Lake City, I picked up Fig and Lavender Black tea from the local tea house, the Tea Grotto.  This tea is one of the ones the Tea Grotto has available for on line purchase.

For various reasons, it's taken since early May for me to get around to tasting this tea.  It's . . . I suppose the best word is interesting.  

I definitely like the flavor, but it is not going to be for everyone.  The fig flavor predominates, leaving the lavender to come out in the aftertaste and in the aroma.  On top of that, there's also a mineral-like quality that lingers.  I find this mineral water flavor in other black teas -- predominantly the black teas from the Fujian area of China -- so it may come from the base tea used to create the blend.

This is a rich tea, but not really a sweet one, much like actual figs rather than Fig Newtons.  The brew is brisk and palate-cleansing.  It ices extremely well.   It sweetens best with a buckwheat honey.

Tea tasting: Mango Coconut Water Iced Tea

Republic of Tea's Mango Coconut Water Iced Tea pouches produce perhaps the most mediocre cup of iced tea I have ever consumed.  It was not bad enough to spit across the room in disgust, but wow, it wasn't remotely satisfying.  It tastes of coconut water, but there is barely any hint of mango involved.  It's as though an anemic coconut browsed a mango's profile on Facebook.   Drinking this iced tea is marginally better than drinking straight water, but only marginally.

Revisiting Adagio's Red Bloom

I was disappointed in Adagio's Red Bloom tea at first.  While blooming teas are always fun, this one was sort of bland.  So, I decided to try some experiments.  I'm sharing the best of these experiments with you.

2 cups water + 1 adagio Red Bloom + 1 bag of Republic of Tea's Downton Abbey English Rose

Steep for about 10 minutes, which is longer than the usual recommendation.

Adding the English Rose brings a light raspberry flavor to the Red Bloom, which is precisely what the tea needed.  It's not sweet, just flavorful.  If you like your tea sweet, I recommend using a raspberry flavored sugar or a tiny bit of agave nectar.

Tea tasting: Koalas in the Rain specialty blend

One of the Adagio specialty blends I designed is Koalas in the Rain, named after a little NSFW ditty from zefrank's True Facts About Marsupials video.  If you watch it, be sure to wait until the end for the song. 

This decaf tea was inspired by the Peach Melba dessert -- it blends raspberry, peach and vanilla flavors, all tastes that I find summery and soothing.

I discovered something interesting about this blend since I received it in the mail a few weeks ago.  It has gotten noticeably better tasting and smelling the longer I have let it sit in the tin.   The first batch brewed right out of the tin, the same day I received it (so within maybe 3 days of its being blended) was unimpressive.   I was deeply disappointed, because I thought the flavor blend was a good one.

However, when I went back to this tea a few days ago, I found that time since blending had drastically improved it.   Now it has the fruity tone I was looking for, with a rich vanilla over-layer.  I prepared it for icing, and steeped some fresh raspberries in the brew as well.   It made for a fun, summery tea that was tasty without being overly sweet.

Tea tasting: Three Black Teas from Adagio

Adagio's Yunan Noir is a black tea grown in the Yunan province of China.  The leaves are hand-rolled, curled in to what is called a "black snail" shape.  It's a lovely black tea for people who like their blacks unflavored, complex and deep.  It's a black tea and tastes like a black tea, but there are so many different hints of flavor worked in under that.  There's a bit of honey and cinnamon in the finish, with a couple of other layers I haven't yet pieced out.   This is a tea worth spending time on, drinking slowly and appreciating.


Adgaio's Blackberry black tea is pretty much precisely what is says on the tin:  A good quality black tea flavored with blackberry.  It's not heavily fruity.  The blackberry is an underlayer to the black tea, providing a little bit of sweetness and a little bit of tartness.  It's not spectacular, but it's a great basic drinking tea for the mornings when I need the caffeine but I want some flavor.


Adagio's Red Bloom is a black tea rolled into a ball around a red flower.  It unfurls as it is brewed in hot water revealing either a lovely floral display or a mini-Lovecraftian tentacle monster, depending on how your brain works.   I just finished the latest Laundry Files book, so no points for guessing which one occurred to me this morning.   Unfortunately, while these blooming teas are amazingly fun, the taste of Adagio's Red Bloom is just good, not great.  It's a high quality black tea, but all of the complexity seems to have gone into the visuals, not the flavor.   Make no mistake, this is still vastly better tea than, say, Lipton or Tetley, but it's nothing incredibly special.   I've been spoiled by some of Adagio's other spectacular blacks (see Yunan Noir above).

So here's a request for Adagio -- find a way to use your Peach Oolong to create a Yellow Bloom, or incorporate a slightly "red"-flavored tea into the Red Bloom (raspberry, strawberry, etc.).

Tea tasting: Adagio's Peach Oolong

Oh what a lovely tea!  Out of the package, the aroma of Adagio's Peach Oolong is pure, unadulterated summer, and that sensation persists through the entire tea-drinking experience.  Overlaying the rich, slightly floral quality of the oolong is a beautiful sweet peach.  It is not the sickly sweet of commercial "peach iced tea."   It's a gentle honey-like sweetness with a fruity overlay.  The brew is golden in color and golden going down.

Hot, this tea feels indulgent and decadent.  Iced, it's breezy and summery.  This is definitely a new favorite of mine.

Flavorful Summer Iced Teas

Iced tea is the essential summer drink.  Specialty teas make for fun, flavorful iced teas.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Teavana's Blackberry Mojito:  This green tea is far more blackberry than mojito, but it ices up superbly, both fruity and slightly minty.  Add a sprig of mint to enhance the flavor.

Tea Forte's Lychee Coconut:  A white tea, with low caffeine, suitable for drinking late in the day.  Coconut is the predominant aroma and flavor, but the sweetness of the lychee can be found below it, even when it's on ice.  A taste of the tropics on a hot day.

Boardwalk Creamsicle:  Not to blow my own horn too much, but my specialty blend via Adagio is wonderful when made as iced tea.  It's designed to taste like the orange sherbet/vanilla frozen custard swirls available on the NJ Shore boardwalks.  A little splash of orange juice or very little bit of True Orange sweetener is far better than sugar for those who like sweetened tea.

Tea Forte's Coconut Mango Colada  The tang of the green tea prevents the coconut, mango and vanilla notes from becoming overly sweet.   Tea Forte claims there's also some lime in this mix, but I can't taste it.   For those who like their iced tea on the boozy side, this tea is spectacular mixed with some sweet moscato.

Adagio's White Cucumber:  This tea may be too fussy for those who like their iced tea done quickly.  Unless this tea is brewed at more or less precisely 185 degrees, it loses any meaningful flavor. But if brewed properly, and then iced, it's a palate-cleansing and refreshing drink, excellent with a sprig of mint.

Adagio Specialty Blends: Mercedes and Frasier (Guest Review)

+Jody Livingston provides her take on Frasier's Mustache (version 1.0) and Mercedes' Citrus de Califia.  As a result of her taste-testing, Frasier's Mustache has been reblended to add lemongrass on a permanent basis.  Now they both have lemongrass in their blends.  How cute.   :-)  


Frasier's Mustache v1.0: Tasty in an earthy, smokey way, but with a sharp bitter note at the end. It felt like there was a note missing so I tried adding a fruit note (cranberry), a floral note (lavender), and a lemongrass stick. The lemongrass stick smoothed out the bitter note without taking away the earthy smokiness. Good both hot and cold but I think this will make a nice tea for a winter night. 


Mercedes Citrus de Calafia: Lovely, fresh, and light when hot. Better slightly sweet which makes the flavors pop. Over ice, it's like a refined Arnold Palmer. The tea is clean and bright and the citrus is soothing rather than sharp. I can't wait to try it on a really hot day. I suspect it will be gone quickly.

Tea tasting: my Maggie's Chocolate Chip Mint specialty blend

This blend is inspired by Maggie the Dog and her white and black-spotted coat, which always reminds me of chocolate chip mint ice cream.

To make Maggie's Chocolate Chip Mint, I combined Adagio's Cocomint Green Tea with spearmint tea, peppermint tea, and chocolate chips.

The aroma of out of the bag and when brewing is delightful.  The chocolate insinuates itself in and around the predominantly mint aroma.  I quite like how the teas all blend together to make a mint that is neither entirely peppermint nor entirely spearmint.

The taste is wholly minty at first, then the chocolate sneaks up in the aftertaste.  As a hot tea, it has all of the soothing, relaxing qualities of a good mint tea with that extra hint of chocolate to make it interesting.  It's got green tea in the blend, so it's not completely caffeine free.  Even so, it's definitely a nice evening tea.  I've got to try it hot with honey to see what that does to the flavor profile.

It's also quite splendid as an iced tea, needing no sugar from my point of view.  Again, the minty flavor blend predominates, with the chocolate elements sort of sneaking their way in and around the mint.

As there are now many chocolate-based blends in Alys's Tea Party, I'm not going to tinker around with the chocolate vs. mint proportions on this one.  It's mint with chocolate chips, and that works just fine for me.   

Tea tasting: my Boardwalk Creamsicle speciality blend

As a New Jerseyan for pretty much my entire life, I have, of course, visited the Jersey Shore quite a lot.  One of the flavors I associate most strongly with my trips down the Shore is the blend of vanilla frozen custard and orange sherbet that is the Kohr's creamsicle, found on every boardwalk from Cape May to Sandy Hook.

Using Adagio's custom blends, I tried to make a tea that captured the flavor and feel vanilla custard and orange sherbet swirl, without those pesky calories.  Boardwalk Creamsicle is a low caffeine blend so that it can be consumed as iced tea throughout the day during the summer.   It consists of decaf black tea, orange peels, safflower, natural creme flavor, natural vanilla flavor, and natural orange flavor.

The aroma of the tea in the tin is perfect -- creamy and citrus blended in a way that fills me with nostalgia.  As a hot tea, it is just okay.  The vanilla and cream overwhelm the orange.  It's not unpleasant at all, and I would certainly drink this tea hot, but it's not what I intended.

As an iced tea, perhaps fittingly, it is much better and far closer to what I had in mind. Vanilla and cream still predominate, but the orange flavor comes out as an aftertaste that lightens up the flavor.  I think a little bit of orange sugar or orange extract would make it perfect.  It's refreshing and gentle at the same time.  I recommend it highly.

Also, a portion of the proceeds from the purchase of this tea go to the American Red Cross, who provided such invaluable assistance to the Jersey Shore after Hurricane Sandy destroyed so many of my childhood memories.

Guest Review: "Firefly" Fandom Tea Blends

Adagio Teas allows customers to create custom "fandom" blends to celebrate, well, pretty much anything.   Not surprisingly, several customers have created a series of blends celebrating the characters of Joss Whedon's beloved Sci-Fi Western Firefly.   +Kay White reviews for us some of the Firefly character blends created by Amy Zen.



Captain Mal blend
Blended with black tea, oolong tea, orange peels, rose hips inclusion loose, hibiscus inclusion loose, natural chocolate flavor, dark chocolate chips, cocoa nibs, natural almond flavor, natural orange flavor.
Teas: blood orange, chocolate chip, almond oolong.
Accented with orange peels, chocolate chips and cocoa nibs.

Mal smells like blood orange, black tea, and... stuff. I do get a hint of cocoa now and then, but this blend mainly has other things going on, some of which are hard to tease apart. He is fruity and floral and a bit almondy (without seeming nutty at all, if that may make sense), with a whiff of chocolate here and there. But Mal is not at all bitter, even though I let him steep for 4 minutes instead of 3. 

So, I like this. But I wonder if maybe a little less going on would have been better, because I feel like some flavors are just crowding others, making the blend indistinct without adding much to it. When you add too many colors, you just get brown no matter which colors are involved, and Mal is a browncoat.

Except for the orange. That's pretty clear.

When I'm able to test him with anything added, I'll add to this.


Mal is listed as high caffeine.

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Zoe blend
Masala chai and caramel, with extra cinnamon-ny goodness blended in. This blend is not for the faint of heart, but will definitely wake you up something fierce on cold mornings. Sweeten this tea with a bit of milk and sugar, and it's absolutely divine.

With nothing added, Zoe is still tasty. The caramel is like the chocolate in Garrus in that it seems to bridge other flavors and smooth them out, rather than trying to take over. There was a whole clove sitting in the tin that I included in this steeping, and I can certainly taste it and the cinnamon, but this is balanced. I get a little more bitterness from this than from Garrus, but it's still a comparison of small amounts. 


With almond milk and a little sugar, Zoe's caramel is filled out. The milk overwrites the trace bitterness; unfortunately I lose some of the spice taste as well. Still, a good cup.


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River Tam blend
Blended with black tea, green tea, rose petals, rose flavor, natural vanilla flavor, orange peels, natural bergamot flavor, blue cornflowers.
Teas: earl grey green, summer rose, vanilla.

In the tin, River smells like roses, with other flowers behind it that together remind me of a slightly spicy carnation oil. I try to grab my first scent impression before reading the notes -- the notes say roses, marigold and cornflower. After the flowers, I get its vanilla and a little bergamot accent.

It happens that I'm testing Alice from BPAL today, too, which is showing well its milk, honey, rose, carnation and bergamot. Alice and River go together wonderfully, being clearly not the same, but sharing qualities. I added a little white sugar to River since the creator mentions doing so, but a little cream (not almond milk) and honey would be my next choice to try, and would probably bring out even more in common.

A little sugar is good, though, and I inhale with every sip because the flowers are so warmly pretty. I get no bitterness at all. I'm drinking it hot, but this is one to try iced as well.


I'm probably going to get more of this, especially for when I'm wearing a rose fragrance. And/or wearing some shade of red, because really, that's where this goes, and it's lovely.

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Jayne Cobb blend
Blended with: black tea, lapsang souchong, natural caramel flavor, cocoa nibs inclusion loose, natural chocolate flavor, natural vanilla flavor, candy cane pieces, natural candy cane flavor, peppermint teas.
Teas: candy cane, lapsang souchong, tiger eye
Accents: cocoa nibs, apple pieces

Jayne smells like a campfire and starts out all acrid smoke. He's on the bitter side, but I may have let him steep too long while doing other things. I get a touch of green apple, and some mint in the aftertaste, but no other flavors in the plain hot-water cup. Once fully cooled, he is sweeter and mintier, and the bitterness is gone. He might also do well with some sweetness added to help bring the non-smoke flavors out.

I can't help thinking that if Adam Baldwin smelled like a campfire and nothing else, that would be ... just fine. Sorry, got lost for a second 
there.

("Sweet, sweet Jayne" -- Cowboy Junkies) 
Jayne as a cool tea with sugar turns into smoked apple candy canes. Woops. This is less than awesome.

Sorry, sweet Jayne!

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Inara blend
Blended with black tea, assam melody, cinnamon bark, ginger root, cardamom inclusion loose, natural spice flavor, dried coconut, lemon grass, orange peels, cloves inclusion loose, natural coconut flavor.
Teas: thai chai, assam melody, oriental spice.
Accented with rose hips, safflower and raspberry pieces.

With nothing added, Inara is a spicy black tea that leans toward oranges and something almost like rose (rose hips?) in the aftertaste. 

Vanilla almond milk (no sweetening) overwrites some of Inara's spice, but the impression is basically a soothing chai. Ginger and coconut notes still come through for me, with the rest as a background. It's a tiny bit peppery.


This is a fine blend, but out of the spicy chai-type teas sampled so far, I think I prefer Garrus and Zoe.

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Serenitea
Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Love makes Serenity a home, and love also so happens to make her a tasty cup of tea, with mint, hazelnut, and slightly smoky gunpowder.

Spearmint, gunpowder, black tea, natural hazelnut flavor.

As with the previous tastings, I've sampled this twice so far: first plain and then with unsweetened vanilla almond milk.

In the plain test, I didn't know what to think of this for the first few sips. Mostly, I thought "dirty water." It didn't quite rate as "hot leaf juice." Then, suddenly my taste buds cleared and the mint, smoke and nut locked arm in arm and walked in together.

This is tasty. The elements seem balanced -- maybe more balanced than I like best in a mint tea? I feel like I want it to either be more minty, or a little floral, but I don't know how well the latter would work with the hazelnut.

I really like the steam aroma of Serenitea when it's been steeped in hot almond milk instead of water: a creamy and smoky mint. The hazelnut is also there as a woody presence; it intrigues before it stands out. I've smelled fig playing a role like this in a couple perfume oils I like a lot, like The Apothecary. However, when I sip the almond milk version, the hazelnut stands out a lot. The almond brings it forward. I didn't have this happen with the hazelnut in Garrus, so maybe this is a fluke cup, or maybe it's not, but there it is. For me, it's a little overpowering. This brew is perhaps better plain.

Other reviewers for this blend mention Moroccan mint. I like Numi's Moroccan mint, which doesn't list gunpowder in its ingredients, but I guess "Moroccan mint" is supposed to be mint and gunpowder? So say a couple sites on the Internets. It might be correct anyway. ;-)

Tea tasting: Alys's Red Bear Blend

Three of my favorite flavors in the world are vanilla, almond and raspberry.  So, when I discovered that Adagio offered the opportunity blend my own teas, the very first blend I decided to make combined these three flavors:  Red Bear Blend, named after some of my heraldry in the Society for Creative Anachronism.

The first taste test of Red Bear Blend happened Sunday and I can report that it was a success, although not entirely what I had intended.   The almond and the vanilla (plus some Assam for body) combine superbly, creating a rich, rounded vanilla flavor more complex than the normal straight up Adagio vanilla.  The raspberry pieces in the blend didn't assert themselves, however.  There was only a faint hint of raspberry in the after taste.

The tea holds up well for serving as iced tea.  When cold, the vanilla takes over almost completely, leaving the almond only as an aftertaste and pretty much eliminating the raspberry entirely.

I had hoped for a combination that integrated all three flavors, but the vanilla and almond work together so very very well that I can't give this tea a bad rating at all.  "Author intent" aside, it's an excellent brew.

Custom Blends at Adagio: Alys's Tea Party collection

Adagio, one of my favorite tea websites, allows you to create custom tea blends, combining up to three of their standard teas and up to two "inclusions" such as fruit pieces or chocolate chips.

I've started an Alys's Tea Party collection (called a "fandom" by Adagio) featuring teas inspired by SCAdians and other random things as they strike me.  These teas are available for sale to public, including sample tins for $5.00.  Right now, the artwork on the tins is all personal photographs of mine or public domain images.  My Mom is in the process of designing a watercolor "wrapper" to identify all the teas in party.

If you're a regular (or even occasional) reader of the blog and would like a custom blend added to Alys's Tea Party, let me know.  Suggestions for blends are welcome, even if you don't  necessarily want one named after you.

In which Alys finds a way to make rooibos even more vile-tasting.

Sunday was a day of tea-tasting and experimentation, including one epic failure.

Because I cannot make myself like the smell and flavor of rooibos, so matter how hard I try, I got someone else to try Tea Forte's Apricot Amaretto rooibos tisane.   My taster, the redoubtable +Lynda Brooks, approved of it generally, although she noted a certain resemblance to the flavor of Fisherman's Friend Cough Drops.

Our key mistake was thinking that an Amaretto-flavored rooibos brew might improve with the addition of almond milk.  Amaretto is almondy, right?  From thoughts like that are great mistakes made.

If there is anything more vile than straight up rooibos, it would be rooibos with almond milk.   The almond milk did nothing to detract from the Robitussin-like smell of the brew.  On tasting, there was no almond flavor, just a cloying, repulsive, creamy and slightly nutty slime.  Even worse, adding almond milk managed to make the flavor sort of sticky and hard to get off of my tongue.   Edven Lynda, who had not objected to the Apricot Amaretto straight up, found that the addition of the milk made it nearly undrinkable.

After the squamous horror of the tisane with milk, none of us were inclined to drink any more of the tea, even without milk.  I'm really going to have to hire myself a full-time rooibos reviewer.

Tea tasting: Tea Forte's Lychee Coconut

Tea Forte can be counted on for some interesting flavor combinations, and its Lychee Coconut White tea is no exception.  The aroma is almost entirely coconut with just a background hint of something sweet.  It puts me in mind of a coconut limeade drink at Cafe Pesto in Hilo, Hawaii.  There's less coconut in the flavor, however.

The predominant flavor is of white tea, with the sweetness of the lychee coming out after the initial taste.  The coconut makes the lychee's sweetness rounder and gentler, creating a smooth ending.  The two flavors mesh extraordinarily well.  This is a bright, slightly sweet tea that feels like summer.

Adagio's Fujian Baroque Black

Adagio describes its Fujian Baroque black tea thusly:  "Fujian Baroque is a black tea from the Fujian province of China. Its general attributes are similar to the Golden Monkey, but the leaf is finer and the aroma even more pronounced. The exquisite tapestry of naturally sweet cocoa notes, fruitiness and glimmers of spice are unmatched by any other tea. Softly sweet and velvety, with leafy autumn notes and soft, mineral aftertaste. Fujian Baroque can be brewed light or strong; the taste will remain smooth with very delicate astringency."

I can't give a much better description than this one.  I'm not tasting cocoa notes, but otherwise this description is spot on.  I do get both a slight fruitiness and slight spiciness among the initial flavors.  The mouth feel of the tea is smooth and welcoming.  I really like what Adagio calls the "mineral aftertaste" -- it has a great palate-cleansing quality.

This is a black tea that rewards a knowledgeable and patient drinker.  I would never befoul it with regular white sugar, both both honey and a high quality amber sugar (more on that another day) work nicely with the natural flavors of the tea.

You can get 15 tea bags of Fujian Baroque for only $9.00, or a sample for $2.00, and I highly recommend it as a proper indulgence for black tea lovers.

Bottled iced tea: Republic of Tea's Passion Fruit Green

How about that!  Another unsweetened bottled iced tea that also happens to taste like actual tea.  Republic of Tea has a line of iced tea bottled in glass bottles that is a cut above the usual swill on the market.  Today I tried their Passion Fruit Green (unsweetened) bottled iced tea and found it quite nice.  It's very light on the fruit flavor, with only some hints of sweetness laying over its essential green-ness.    The green tea leans towards the fruity end of greens too, but it is perfectly palatable for someone who does not like sweet tea.  

At $3.00 a bottle, however, I don't know if this is going to be a regular purchase.  I own both tea and ice, and I can make just as good a fruity green iced tea at home.

Tea tasting: Adagio's Ceylon Sonata

"Ceylon" tea refers to tea that is grown in the mountains of Sri Lanka.  Adagio's Ceylon Sonata is a simple, basic medium-bodied black tea.  Nothing too fancy or complicated. Ceylons are supposed to have inherent citrus notes, but haven't noticed any.   I made a mistake with the proportions with the last batch I made and brewed it far too strong, which may have killed off any delicacy of flavor.  However, even brewed to "take the paint off your car" levels, it didn't have the intense bitterness of a lesser quality black.  

This is a fine "utility tea" for the necessary morning caffeine, or a good starter tea for weaning someone off of Lipton or Tetley.  It handles sweeteners and icing well.  And milk, I suppose, if that's your thing.

Bottled iced tea: Teas' Teas

Teas' Tea is producing some very nice unsweetened bottle tea that tastes like tea, not like chemicals that miraculously simulate tea.

In particular, I quite like their Golden Oolong.   It has caffeine and no sugar, which always makes me happy.  It tastes exactly like a good oolong should, slightly smoky with honey tones.

The Green and White tea blend is also unsweetened, with that necessary slight touch of bitterness that says "tea."  I like it less than the Golden Oolong, but not substantially less.  It's just not quite as interesting as the smokey-honey flavor of the oolong.

Tea tasting: David's Tea's Main Squeeze

Yerba mate is an herb related to holly that is used to make a brew that tastes like green tea.  It's supposed to be energizing without being caffeinated.

On Saturday, I sampled David's Teas' Main Squeeze, a yerba mate tea with flavors of orange, papaya and pineapple.  This brew tastes more or less like a tropical green tea, although slightly sweet, probably because it uses candied papaya and pineapple made with cane sugar as part of the tisane.  A little honey emphasized both the sweetness and the fruitiness.  The tea iced up well without losing the fruit flavors.  There was none of the bitterness that can sometimes be associated with yerba mate brews.

Tea shop review: Tea Grotto in Salt Lake City Utah

Being out in Salt Lake City, UT for a conference, I gathered up a bunch of like-minded tea fans and hit the Tea Grotto.   We had a truly superb time.

The decor is funky, Asian-inspired, not British tea shop.  There are a number of small tables with pillow-topped stools plus an alcove with a table and pillow-strewn benches.  The group of 20+ of us invaded the place around about 6:30 p.m. and pretty much took it over with only a little room to spare.   Despite there being only one person on duty, he managed to juggle all of us and our orders and questions extremely well.

The Tea Grotto is not really a place for sit down food.  There are some light snacks on the menu, things like a hummus platter and pot stickers, as well as a few different types of pastries.  But, the Tea Grotto has a relationship with the restaurant next door, the Pig and Jelly Jar.  We ordered from the restaurant and they brought us over food while we camped out in the Tea Grotto.  This worked out exceptionally well, for all that it seems like a logistical nightmare.

(By the way, the Pig and Jelly Jar serves some of the best strawberry shortcake I've ever had.  But that's not why we're here.)

The Tea Grotto has a large tea menu featuring a remarkable breadth of tea, including bubble teas and chais.  Many of the loose-leaf teas are also available in its on-line store.   All of the individual orders were brewed right there in the cup or the pot (as is right and proper).

I sampled two of the teas: Sweet Amber Oolong and the Melon Passion.

The Sweet Amber Oolong was a strong, smoky and slightly sweet tea, with nice layered flavor.  I liked it enough that I picked up a package to bring home.  I will likely steep it for slightly less time, and maybe add a tiny touch of honey.   I certainly had no problem with the very strong brew last night, after having gotten to the airport at 4 a.m. Eastern time.

The Melon Passion (which I also purchased to bring home) was a light, bright, only slightly sweet fruity tea.  I definitely got "passionfruit" out of it.  Somewhat less so melon.  But by that point I was also eating dinner and strawberry shortcake, so my palate had other things on its mind.

I also purchased the Fig and Lavender black for trying at home.

I'm going to ask some of the folks who joined me to chime in with reviews of the teas that they tried.

Samples of nearly all of the loose teas (in dry form) were available for smelling while I was trying to decide what to taste.  Our host (whose name I have unforgivably forgotten) was very knowledgeable and able to advise me about what I might like based on my stated preferences.

I highly recommend the Tea Grotto to anyone who finds herself in Salt Lake City.  It was fun and friendly, with a great selection of truly interesting teas.

Bottled Iced Tea: Pure Leaf's "Tea House Collection"

During this weekend's road trip, I discovered a new brand of bottled iced tea.  Pure Leaf (otherwise known for its perfectly adequate commercial iced tea) has a "Tea House Collection" in heavy glass bottles.  Intrigued, I picked up the Black Tea with Wild Blackberry and Sage and the Green Tea with Fuji Apple and Ginger.  I must say, both were pretty darn good.

The Black Tea was definitely the better of the two.  It had flavor and character without being sweet.   It's a rare bottled iced tea that is worth tasting, rather than simply chugging for caffeine content, but this one tasted like it was decent quality tea.

The Green Tea with Fuji Apple and Ginger was interesting.  The mix of ginger and tea was odd, and the apple tone kept fighting the ginger and tea flavors for dominance.   But I want to drink it again when I'm not also focused on driving so that I can take the time to analyze the taste more closely.  It was definitely a vast improvement over 90% of bottled tea choices, however.

I definitely approve of the "Tea House Collection" and of the easily recyclable glass bottles.

Tea tasting: Adagio Black Teas

I ordered some Adagio samples again: This time I bought some very basic black teas as a change of pace from the more exotic blends.

The Irish Breakfast was everything I could want out of an Irish Breakfast tea.  It was strong, black, hardy, basic and an excellent caffeine delivery system.   It was still the tea equivalent of a punch in the face after two brewings.

The Assam Melody had more subtlety without losing its essential tea-ness.   A good Assam is still my favorite way to start the morning.  Adagio bills this as a "friendly" Assam for people still new to drinking good tea with layered flavors.  I tend to think of all Assams that way -- they are the tea for people who like black tea for its own sake -- and the Assam Melody did not disappoint.

Commercial iced tea: Wendy's Green Tea

I drink bad tea so that you don't have to.

While on a recent road trip, I stopped at Wendy's in need of something to drink.  Wendy's black iced tea is a perfectly acceptable caffeine delivery system.   Given that I had few other choices while in the middle of gorram nowhere, it seemed like a reasonable stop to make.

But -- and there is always a "but" isn't there? -- I didn't want too much more caffeine that particular day, because the insomnia has been kicking my butt of late.  So I ordered Wendy's iced green tea.

Don't.  Just Don't.   Learn from my mistakes and never let this swill pass your lips.

To begin with, it was way too sweet, in that artificial bug juice sort of way that stops being appealing about the time one hits puberty.   After the sweetness smacked around my palate for a bit, the cloying, almost chemical, aftertaste kicked in.  I wanted to scrape the roof of my mouth to get that taste out of it.  There was nothing natural about this concoction and certainly nothing remotely connected to tea.

Tea tasting: Tea Forte's Blueberry Merlot

After some deeply disappointing tastings of late, Tea Forte's Blueberry Merlot herbal tea is a nice return to form.   It's got a rich, rounded blueberry flavor, quite fruity.   Adding honey brings out the richness of the flavor, but might make it overly sweet to some people.

I don't know where the merlot comes in.  I don't taste anything wine-like.  I suppose the aroma might have some wine-like qualities if you went looking for them.  This is not a disadvantage, in my world.

Tea Tasting: Republic of Tea's Downton Abbey Estate Blend

I admit, my first cup of Downton Abbey Estate Blend disappointed me deeply.  It's grown on me since then, with some careful handling.

Downton Abbey Estate Blend is essentially a combination of Earl Grey and vanilla: black tea, bergamot orange oil and vanilla.   By all rights, this should work for me, right?   On the first up, it Did Not Work.  I accidentally let it steep past 5 minutes and, unlike most other kinds of Republic of Tea teas, this long steep pretty much ruined it.   The bergamot became too perfume-y, the vanilla became gag-inducingly bad potpourri.  I didn't think there could be a vanilla flavor that I didn't like, but I should know never to say never.

Undaunted, I began to experiment to see whether the full package of tea could be salvaged.  Fortunately, it could.   Limiting the steeping to no more than 3.5 minutes keeps the bergamot and vanilla in line.  Adding some honey after the 3.5 minute steep manages the flavors to the point where they are a feature, not a bug.   With some attention and patience, it has become decently drinkable.

This is one of Republic of Tea's limited edition Downton Abbey-themed teas.  Unlike the sublime Downton Abbey English Rose, this one should stay "limited."

Tea tasting: Tea Forté's Cherry Cosmo

Tea Forté's Cherry Cosmo is a darn peculiar tea.  In addition to the cherry fruit flavor, there's a weird, almost fizzy over-taste.  It's not quite lime.  It's not quite hibiscus.  Looking at the ingredients, I can't quite account for it:  organic rosehips, organic hibiscus, organic apple pieces, organic raspberries, natural cherry flavor, other natural flavoring (berry).

As a hot tea, the over-taste is borderline unpleasant.  As an iced tea, however, it more or less vanishes; what's left is a flavorful tart cherry taste.

As between Cherry Cosmo and Adagio's similar Dewy Cherry, I like Dewy Cherry better as a hot tea, but this one better as an iced tea, although neither is ideal.  Honestly, the best cherry tea I've tasted so far is good old reliable Celestial Seasonings' Black Cherry Berry.

Tea tasting: Tea Forté's Tupelo Honey Fig

I've been trying to finish off the tea I have before acquiring any new tea, hence the radio silence for a bit.  However, in the midst of today's awful weather, I did manage to find my white tea sampler and try something new: Tea Forté's Tupelo Honey Fig White Tea.

Tupelo honey is a type of honey made from specific trees (white tupelo trees) that bloom in the Southeastern U.S.   Apparently it's considered a gourmet honey.  As with everything, you can find it for sale on the internet (http://www.teavana.com/us/en/tea/tea-sweeteners/tupelo-honey-011046728.html).

This is a very very lightly sweet tea, with a strong minty and herbal finish.  The sweetness is definitely the sweetness of honey, not sugar (and certainly not the taste abomination that is high fructose corn syrup).  There's a smokey quality to the sweetness, if that makes any sense.   In addition to fig and the honey, the tisane contains licorice root, fennel, myrtle and peppermint, all of which combine to make a fascinatingly complex flavor.    To be honest, I really don't taste fig at all amid all of the other stuff going on.

This is not a delicate white tea.  Because it's got strong flavors, I tried icing some of it, which worked surprisingly well.   If I were to plan on serving it iced, I'd make sure to have fresh mint to add to the glasses.

Tea tasting: Trader Joe's Raspberry Black

Raspberry is one of my favorite flavors, so I'm always eager to try teas featuring raspberry. Anyone who finds a tea that combines vanilla, raspberry and almond will earn my undying love.

Unfortunately, Trader Joe's Raspberry Black tea is a huge disappointment.  It's a decent black.  But it has nothing in it that makes it raspberry.  There's just the faintest aftertaste of something sweet.

However, combining this tea with the Raspberry Sugar from the Spice and Tea Exchange that I reviewed previously works out incredibly well.  The sugar brings out whatever raspberry qualities should be in this tea as well as adding its own raspberry sweetness.

Tea tasting: Tea Forté's Kiwi Lime Ginger

My newly blossomed head cold demands a lot of tea, and that tea needs to have flavor and not have caffeine.   So, I opened my sample package of Kiwi Lime Ginger herbal tea by Tea Forté.

My initial reaction is not promising.  The brew smells sort of like cough medicine, and not in a good way.  The aroma fairly reeks of ginger, with a sharp slightly unpleasant citrus overtone.  Looking back over the ingredients, I see the "problem": organic honeybush, organic ginger root, organic rooibos, organic lemon peel, natural kiwi flavor and natural lime flavor.

Ugh.   I wasn't expecting a tea billed as "herbal" to be rooibos-based.  Ugh.   But I will soldier boldly on in order to give you a proper review.

If I hold my nose, the flavor of the tea is no more than adequate.  It's not particularly flavorful, unfortunately.  There's a very little citrus bite in the background.  The ginger is relegated to an aftertaste.  It certainly doesn't make up for the sheer unpleasantness (to me) of the aroma.

I've got some single-steep packages left.  If you don't object to the scent of rooibos, I'll happily give them away to someone who might enjoy them.

Tea tasting: Tea Forté's Rosemary Tangerine White Tea

Rosemary is not a flavor I immediately associate with tea (with pork loin, definitely).  

Tea Forté's Rosemary Tangerine White Tea works far better than it should.  I'm not sure I would buy a full box of it, but I will definitely finish the sample package.  This is NOT a fruity tea.  The aroma is all rosemary with a hint of tangerine.  The flavor starts out tangerine, but the rosemary quickly overwrites it.  I can still taste the tangerine underneath, somewhat.  It's . . . odd.   

This tea definitely needs pairing with food.   It paired surprisingly well with the gingerbread cookies I had as a snack this afternoon.  I think it would go well with any kind of strongly-flavored savory meal.   +Jody Livingston  suggested pairing with garlic, and that might work.  I'm immediately immediately thinking of herbed meats of various kinds, rather than something pasta-like.

This tea needs to be consumed hot.  Tea Forté's website says it's "refreshing iced" but they lie, lie lie.  It's appallingly bad when iced unless you like drinking liquid rosemary.

Likewise, this white tea needs to be brewed at the right temperature (185 F) or else it becomes a muddy awful herby mess.

I'd recommend this anyone with an adventurous palate who likes savory flavors, particularly if it is part of a sampler pack.