With Adagio's offering $2 samples, I decided to break out of my tea comfort zone a bit and try its White Cucumber tea. (https://www.adagio.com/white/white_cucumber.html). Here's how the website describes it:
"Stay cool with this refreshing, spa-inspired blend of cucumber and premium Chinese white tea. Vegetal aroma (think cucumber appetizers at a middle eastern restaurant), with a pleasantly dry, green melon finish. Excellent over ice, this unexpected pairing will leave you relaxed and centered; a lot more convenient than placing cucumber slices on your eyelids."
Unfortunately, this is a tea FAIL. While we're not talking diner Tetley, White Cucumber is definitely not something I'll be drinking voluntarily once the sample runs out. I will experiment with the last of the sample size to get rid of it. Or possibly just kiss those $2 goodbye.
That "vegetal aroma" touted by the website is akin to the unspeakable stench created when one opens a bag of salad left at the bottom of the crisper for far too long. I opened the package and nearly dumped the whole thing in sheer self-defense. Fortunately, the tea does not taste anything like that awful stink.
The tea also doesn't taste much like good white tea. It tastes like cucumber water. While cucumber water is refreshing to drink iced during the hell of a steamy August, I recommend against drinking it hot while the country is in the grips of a Polar Vortex. I don't get tea or melon flavor out of this mixture at all.
In the interests of science I'm going to brew it again and try it iced, and possibly with sweetener, although I can't image that putting sugar on cucumbers will taste good. Tea shouldn't put me in mind of how much I want ranch dressing, but that's all that the White Cucumber brew accomplishes.
I'm almost intrigued (probably in the iced version), but in general I find white teas to be so mild as to be much like drinking plain hot water. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteI will be happy to make this in iced form for tasting the next time we're together.
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