Adagio Custom Blends, Aun-Juli Riddle
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Mmm… there’s a lot going on in this sweet amber tea…
Sweet potato, lots of caramel, assam notes and a little orange. Everything blends together so well. The Lapsang Souchong is subtle, as are the other spices It’s just like a warm day in the garden. :)
Sipdown! (189)
Preparation
After, I taste black tea with cherries and something rich, and a tiny little bit of hibiscus. The Hound.
It pulls together quite nicely actually. It makes me think of spices that aren’t listed in the ingredients: it’s earthier, but also tart and sweet. I think it’s the Ceylon Sonata. I like it! Each sip is complicated, but it’s actually not muddy – it flows between the different notes quite nicely, possibly because the rose is so distinct that I can focus there and go on to the rest.
Ok, non-tea related blabs:
I actually had a Game of Thrones sitting on my book shelf for at least 6 years before the HBO show even aired, and I never cracked it open. I just read the back and kept thinking, huh, politics, and skipped it. WHAT AN IDIOT.
I really enjoy the books, and I like being able to watch the show (and read the comics too! Ha. I have those as well). It’s interesting to see how each medium presents the story slightly different, and how the characters are portrayed. I’ve been trying to read the books so that I’m caught up to the TV show at least, but I’m also trying to do it slow because I don’t want to hit book 5 and not be able to move onto the next.
Sometimes I felt bad that all the fanfic I consume (and book length at that!) means that I can go months at a time without cracking open a ‘real’ book, but whatever. I really need to get back into the 3rd book of ASOIAF though!!! Esp since the next season will air soon and I don’t want to be caught off guard by any more Red Wedding crap. (Cuz yes, I take it as certainty that there will be more terrible deaths by the end of it… Just plz not Arya, Bran, Jon or Tyrion….. Damn. That’s too big a list. I can’t assume they’ll all live. :()
And the rest of this is off to Sil! I hope she likes it.
Preparation
I just hope GRRM actually writes the rest before the TV show catches up. I wouldn’t want to have that sort of pressure, that’s for sure.
My whole family is obsessed with the show/books. I just can’t get into them. :/ Also, GRRM will kill anyone. It’s like he rolls a dice and then just works it into the plot. “If the character gets an odd number, they die!”
I know just enough about Game of Thrones to be really upset by the prospect of any of the characters I like dying, which is why I’ve stopped keeping up with it, so I can pretend that they live happily ever after and they’re all best friends and nothing bad ever happens to them. My little world is a much better place.
Watching the Red Wedding, having already read the books, with people who had no idea what was coming was one of the greatest experiences. It was absolutely hilarious especially given most of them didn’t even think it was necessary to show that particular wedding because it was not between main characters :P.
So I wasn’t sure what to think of the first few sips of this, but it has grown on me. I like the spices and the ginger. It seems like a brooding brew to me, but there’s definitely that bigger on the inside aspect as the spices gives you more than you would initially expect. I have a feeling that this will be like the CaraM Tardis blend and I’ll find myself thinking about it months later…
I love the idea of the TARDIS as a giant balloon too.
OK, well this is going to Sil!
I was getting a little worried about the number of Adagio teas I grabbed, and how they sorta all run together in my head when I try to remember which tastes like what, but this one grabbed me on the first sip.
It’s just so utterly green! (And maybe a little black?) It tastes like peppermint chai, which is interesting, but also good.
I don’t know that I’d restock it but I’m happy Aun-Juli gave this to me as an extra! I’ll pass the rest on to Sil. :D (bc her cupboard needs it!)
Sipdown (186)
It’s a sipdown! (197) I saved this cup for today because it’s the last season of Season 2!
I’m still reeling a little bit from the SPN finale (yet I’m really excited about where they’re going to go with this, and EVEN MORE excited about the fic it’ll generate) but I’m nervous and excited about tonight’s Hannibal finale.
But at least I WILL FINALLY be able to talk about what’s going to happen!!!
Here’s a quick crack!vid for your friday viewing pleasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZXawGcH0h0
That video was hilarious!
oh no..now I’m worried… I haven’t seen the SPN finale yet because baseball is on every week when SPN is on. Then they move it to Saturday!
Oh phew. I’m happy I didn’t actually say anything that was a real spoiler. I would have felt awful. :P I forget that not everyone goes onto tumblr and sees a billion reaction gifs!
OMG, the SPN reaction gifs have me rolling on the FLOOR. Umm. Which might not be a normal reaction? But. Show.
Hahahah. It’s pretty great. I alternate between OMG it’s going to be awful to OMG but what about… I’m really excited about the fic. There are going to be some awesome Destiel fics…
Drinking this again because Hannibal is on tonight. I’m also listening to an 8tracks playlist of all the music from Hannibal: http://8tracks.com/rickonstarks/music-of-hannibal It’s quite fancy.
I hope we find out if the show is renewed or not soon!
I read that if the network cancels it, it’s likely that a cable station or Netflix would pick it up.
Me too! I was just thinking of that this morning… I’m hoping for the best! I downloaded that playlist from your post last night and I’m looking forward to listening. I won’t be able to watch until tomorrow, so I’m banned from the internet from tonight until then ;)
I’ve heard rumours like that as well, but nothing solid. Fingers are crossed. From what I can gather, Bryan has been meeting with NBC this week and they are trying to make a decision. #fingerscrossed
I would be so sad if it was cancelled :( We need to start a petition. Ha ha
Help Will?
Pshaw. What about help me? Stupid website stuff not doing what it’s supposed to and I’ll just cut and paste more php here and see what happens? No???
I’m a fly by the seat of my pants website coder. Sometimes that works well. Other times….
OH HAI WILL! This tea is superb actually. CHOCOLATE. Yes.
(I think everything will be ok)
LMAO
I’m looking forward to the day when I can fully understand these Hannibal tea titles :) Soon!
I hope you try the show out sometime – it’s really well done, albeit a little slow to begin with. A lot of people dont’ like it because of the gore, but there’s a huge difference to me between splat!gore and artfullyarranged!gore. :P Well, it’s still awful but everything in this show is presented so beautifully.
ALSO: I just realized you have a DINOASAUR icon. <3
I’m on episode 7, season 1 ! Working on it. I like the gore, and the design of it all. Plus, as a fan of Kids in the Hall and The X-Files and everything, the casting is AMAZING. But it’s nice to hear that it starts a little slow. I’m getting the sense it’s building up to itself, even moreso than other shows. I’ll get back to you after a few more episodes :)
Excellent! I’m glad you’re enjoying it! I think it’s a great show, but it seems to have rather limited appeal based on the ratings.
We are just finishing building bodies etc for the second season right now, so I have my fingers crossed that we will get renewed for Season 3! I just love that I am part of this show, even if I’m only tangentially a part of it (in the office ordering stuff and building website, rather than actually building dead people).
Yeah. It’s really not a good idea to actually build dead people. It never seems to work out well. ;-p
YOU’RE PART OF THE SHOW?? 0_0 !!!! Wow, awesome awesome – even my dinosaur-riding Batman icon is impressed haha
Ahahahaha. I am ridic proud that I even sorta connected to the show. :P The company I work for builds all the bodies and does the prosthetics/special make-up. I was a pretty big fan of the show BEFORE I started; now I’m out of control. I get to read the scripts and help plan what we need to build, so I know how Season Two will end and I cannot tell anyone.
/dies/
It’s the best job. Even if I have to peel silicone off of tables and source out the oddest materials. :P
And OMG. I hadn’t realized that was Batman on your dinosaur. That’s pretty freaking awesome.
My twin sis studied prosthetics, wigs & makeup. She works for the LA Opera and does freelance wigmaking for movies. I think behind the scenes people are awesome – and I can only IMAGINE the weird requests you have to fulfill for that show, omg. The bodies are amazing though – really impressive, and a big part of making the show work (I mean, if it’s a show about cannibalism, they kind of have to be!). I would not be able to keep those spoilers to myself, too hard! IDEK what they are yet! But hopefully I’ll be caught up on S2 by the time the finale hits.
That sounds really awesome! I couldn’t imagine the detail required for wigmaking! We end up ordering wigs for our bodies and then doing our best to match them to the actors. Everything is so rushed – 2 weeks for episode, so we have AT MOST two weeks to build whatever they need, and usually much less than that. I can’t believe how much detail they can do in that short a time.
And I just can’t wait until everyone is caught up to me so I can blab about the show. Hahaha. I’m so happy others are into it though – tumblr is a lot of fun. I really, REALLY hope NBC renews it for Season 3.
Twenty minutes until Season 2 of Hannibal starts! We need to Save Will!!!
From the tea description: “Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me.Help me. This is my design.”
I can’t wait for it to start. Will be so good!!
LOL
Totally re-watching last nights episode. It is SO good. I am so jealous you get to work on this series. Totally in love with Mads Mikkelsen!! <3
I don’t have cable, so I didn’t watch it, but I think at the end of the season they’ll give me a copy of the dvd for being on the crew list(even though I’m just in the office, or out on the floor cleaning up the leftover silicone/clay/etc. I know what’s going to happen in the second half of the season because I’m reading those scripts, but I don’t know all the details for the first, so that’s exciting. :D I can’t wait to see how it goes.
And Mads seems like a really awesome guy. My sister-in-law works at the shop with me and goes on set to help apply make-up and set up the prosethetics, etc. She met Mads when he came to our shop last year so we could mold part of his body for something (I can’t remember what scene), and since then he’s remembered her. When he saw her in February, he ran over to where she was on set and gave her a hug and said Happy New Year as he hadn’t seen her since December. Just shows he really pays attention to people and is friendly and doesn’t think he’s better than everyone else! Too bad I won’t have a chance to meet him!
That sounds super awesome Cavo. I’m still jealous. Ha ha.
I nearly reviewed the wrong Will Graham tea! I was very confused why it said it was all decaf. I thought I had been tricked! :O
But this is most definitely not decaf. This IS my Will Graham. This is the cup for frazzled shaking hands in search of something to steady them.
Dark roasted coffee notes, and rich hazelnuts. It’s dark, and everything is spinning. Time is out of joint. Spice! Cream! Apple! Coffee: there’s so much and yet not enough!
There’s no actual coffee here…
How long have I stood here over this cup?
And what… what is this I’m looking at? It, it can’t be… What have I done?
/a deep charismatic voice whispers from across a nameless abyss, ‘this is my design’/
My cup shatters.
I chose this because Hannibal is on again tonight, and I would be an easy sipdown before passing the rest to Sil, but…
but then I turned on my computer and got my notification from DAVIDsTEA. My tea is outside the house! So this will be the last cup I drink in my fall leaves cup!
Now that I’ve unpacked it, I have to say that the color changing thing is a little weird. Maybe I would have liked the Perfect Mug more? It basically looks like the whales are stickers just stuck on top of the lid. I can even see a bit of white lining the sticker on the whale that’s on the mug! (http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2hdpgde&s=8) Maybe that’s just how it works with the changing color mugs? And I never noticed because my Fall leaves cup had delicate lines every where so they felt like they were actually part of the mug? Either way. I’m not disappointed yet. For the most part, my leaves are in tact, so I’m sure I can care for my whales.
Whaaaaaaaales!
Oh, also, Hannibal… This is an odd tea. I actually don’t like it at first but I do after a few sips. It’s just spicy and surprising. I can taste the pomegranate, ginger, and the cinnamon mostly.. A lot of cinnamon. And that’s surprising.
I wonder why the blender chose Cinnamon? Is that muskiness going to be the last thing you smell before he kills you? Hmmm…
(sipdown 190 – woah what happened to getting to 150? lol)
omg your tea is here! I can’t wait to read reviews. Also, I’m glad you love your whale mug. I’m scared of the colour-changing ones because I somehow managed to wreck my Christmas one and am still really annoyed about that. But omg yes mugs and tea!
That’s fast, right? I can’t believe it! My original plan was to go to the store on the weekend and buy some then, but that depends on us having time to go out there. I really didn’t expect to get my order now! :O
Part of me wishes I’d grabbed the Perfect Mug version so that I could have the whale inside the mug and not worry about tacky stickers falling off or something, but… I love the dark blue of this. It’ll be fine. I’ll be happy once I commit and use it. :D I can’t wait to read your reviews too! We need some nice fresh spring teas to get out of this winter funk!
Oh yeah, you’ll love your mug! I’m so glad you’ve opened it. I, like, keep on walking past my new mug and going over to feel the box, but you know how it is: once it’s open it’s open,and you can only open it once and I can’t decide which tea to have in it first and aaahh
Hahaha. I bet the longer you let it sit there, the more pressure you’ll have to break it in with the perfect tea.
Just drink Queen Catherine. :P
My teas from Aun-Juli arrived JUST IN TIME. Today is the premiere for Season 2 of Hannibal. You guys – watch it! Set your PVR’s or whatever and check it out!
I love the show, and I want to keep working on the show, so lets get the ratings up there so we get Season 3 and more!!!
To celebrate I am drinking my Hannibal themed teas.
First off, the man himself… This is an interesting tea. It’s black, it’s dark, there’s spice, and a little bit of sweetness. It’s complicated. Thought provoking. Contemplative. Also, maybe just a little not right. But I’m still compelled to drink a little more…
And more…
Who’s consuming whom?
Oh, btw, Mads was on Twitter and Tumblr last night to help promote the show. It was his first time and he was awesome. He loves us Fannibals! :D (even though NBC showed him fanart, and fannish/pornish art and the Fannibal fandom basically exploded with shame and fear, and he was totally cool with it all!)
Tre is very excited about the premiere tonight! I’m gonna have to watch it tomorrow though, tonight I’m going out to a metal concert with a friend. Very out of my league, heh…
Hahaha. Yes, fandom always explodes with shame and fear when that kind of thing happens. There was a huge SPN brouhaha a few years back, because people were forwarding things that weren’t theirs to the actors. :)
Maybe it’s cruel of me to laugh, but I think I’m allowed to because it worked out and he was cool with everything? Which makes me love him more?
I’m not watching Hannibal yet, but even with TeWo I avoid fanwank because of my years spent in SPN fandom. I usually can refer everything good & bad back to that fandom, too :) But if Cumberbatch and Freeman can be super cool about it all, everyone really should be. It’s usually only the showrunners who get pissy ;/
This was the first of the samples that I snagged from Aun-Juli. They all came today!!!
I love this series. I love the fact that she’s making a bunch of teas dedicated to Sean Bean and his many, MANY, deaths.
This is a nice sweet black. There’s lots of different sweetness in this, and a little bit of cinnamon bite. Just a little bit of bite. I like it, but I think it should have a bunch of cinnomon bite to represent all the arrows.
Oh. I get it now. THE SPRINKLES ARE THE ARROWS.
Hahaha these were the teas that called to me when I looked at her samples. Mostly because I thought they were hilarious. I am glad they taste good as well.
oh my goodness, lol, I am definitely going to have to check those ones out!
They’re pretty silly, but I like that. :) Can’t wait to try the rest!
Dry this smells very strongly of caramel and peonies…which carries over nicely once steeped. While hot you can still pick up the caramel scent – albeit a bit fainter – but it’s layered in snugly with what smells like a strong black tea and an odd plant-sap-ish note that seems a wee bit discordant.
A few sips in and the discordant feeling hasn’t faded…but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a strong black in the front, floral notes in the middle and a smooth caramel finish that makes this an oddly enjoyable cup.
I received a whole batch of this from Shadowfall, so I’ll definitely enjoy drinking it down. I’m not so sure as to whether it’s worth restocking, though…but I’ll have a while to make up my mind.
Preparation
Sipdown!
Thank you Shmiracles for sending this my way!
And thank you to my roommate, Angie, for choosing my three teas of the night hehe :) I don’t have anything to do till 5pm tomorrow so I’ll just DRINK ALL THE TEA!!
I don’t remember drinking this so I’ll probably just write this note as a first time tasting of this tea :)
Lovely cinnamon-y chai scent right out of the package (and can we all agree that Karen packs her teas in the absolute cutest way?) I do smell the oolong bits coming out (and I’m just going by what steepster says okay) BUT THE CHAI. IT’S LOVELY.
I do need milk soo… I’ll see if my roommate has some?
But this is a lovely tea! Because it is a chai tea, I had to add sugar and milk to it. But it’s definitely a nice cuppa :)
Flavors: Chocolate, Spices
Preparation
Going through all the teas I premeasured yesterday! Study day with tea. All day, every day! All the premeasured teas have gone into a pile next to me and the first one I [pick out, that’s the one I drink!
111th Birthday tea from shmiracles is the first one of the day :)
Definitely smell the almond from the package. I used to hate the smell of almond, but now it’s actually growing on me. Same with chocolate teas. Almond and chocolate in this tea, two of my least favourite flavours in teas and yet, I’m actually pretty excited for this!
Steeping, the oolong definitely takes over. THAT’S ANOTHER THING. I used to hate oolongs!! But dude. Now that I’m trying all these different types of teas and exploring, I’m learning to love them :)
Hmm… this tea is good? Ish. It’s like.. it’s right on the edge of being bitter, but it’s not as strong as I would like. But I actually really like the flavours together, surprisingly!
Added some honey to see if I can bring some of the flavours out and NOPE. DID NOT HELP AT ALL.
Well then. I ended up with slightly tasteless, bitter tea. Darn.
FLAVOUR-WISE, THEY ALL WORK TOGETHER. Fault on me. I usually use 3g of tea for 12oz, but I think for this, 3g or tea for the typical 8oz would do the trick.
Preparation
Whew, back at work again and there’s snow on the ground and I’m exhausted and congested and depressed but… it’s the 11th hour of the day and I’m drinking Elevenses (that paragraph in the Hobbit about multiple meals always makes me laugh) and it’s a lovely enough tea for sure, but with these Lorna Doone shortbreads I’m nomming on in true Hobbit style, it’s DIVINE. Blueberry tea and shortbread cookies – yes, please.
This isn’t have the same blow-me-away quality that it had the first time I tried it, but I knew what I was expecting this time. It’s still really good and a bit like cake and cookies for breakfast or cinnamon sugar donut holes (and who could complain about that really?)
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Preparation
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
I was going to head this with my favorite quote from Bilbo’s party, but this tea inspires great cheer and food-loving in me. So yeah.
Still, it’s the most apt quote for family gatherings ever:
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
This tea is a amazing and I want it in my face forever now. Seriously.
While it smells strongly of almond, it tastes like snickerdoodles in my teacup — like, real live bakery fresh snickerdoodles. It’s cinnamon-y vanilla in the front of the sip, mingling with the almond to give it that pastry and nutty butter flavor that is cookie-esque. I don’t understand why this is so good.
This makes me wish that everything I consumed ever smelled and tasted like cookies.
Thank you Shmiracles!
I also just realized this was the 400th unique tea I logged. So that’s pretty cool too.
Preparation
it’s a great blend! you and i are both swimming in these hobbit teas and many of them are turning out to be very very yum. idk how this tea is so good either.
not to critique adagio too hard or anything cuz they are the funnest, but it’s not like their teas are super nuanced or anything. they kinda tend to be a bit flavor heavy or maybe a one note song. but this is definitely one of those blends that rise above the fray.
^I think you pretty much nailed it. I think that’s why blends work so well though, because at least by combining multiple single-dimension teas you get something better. (Not that they’re all this good. But yeah.)
Nice! Sounds like a good blending of elements.
Yeah! I tossed the rest into your box so I hope you enjoy it. I made only 8 oz, and steeped it for 2.5 minutes to try and coax as much flavour out as I could – I hope you get the same results!
i’ll have to review notes when i go to drink…you need to pick your tea up..it’s calling for you
Haha. But I’m not readY? I’m still piling tea away for you, and I haven’t even grabbed the WtNV teas yet…