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It’s been a long night, and my fingers smell like tobacco. I spent over an hour on my balcony, taking things apart, and piecing them back together. I went through three cigarettes, which, as I’ve mentioned before, I detest. I make a habit to drink this tea whenever I smoke, because it’s a detox for the nicotine.

I bought this tea for college, because I knew I’d be taking in a lot of tobacco and alcohol. I started smoking right before I came here, and my roommate is 25 – and more than willing to bring into the dorm anything from beer to sake into the dorm.
This isn’t a very tasty herbal. In my first experience tasting this tea in the Puripan shop, (don’t bother searching for a local one unless you live in Korea or the San Francisco Bay Area), I found it a bit repulsive. But, as the need came, I bought it, and, like most peculiar flavors, it’s a taste you acquire.
I’ve only got a cup or so left of the stuff. I’ll need to buy more when I go back home for thanksgiving.

I smoke to remind myself that I’m a hypocrite, and that I do things that are in no one’s best interest. I drink Lotus Leaf tea, because I want to clean up and fix things. It’s a hard taste to get used to, and it takes time. Gradually, I’ll make the confrontations, admissions, and apologies. For now, I continue to make smoke clouds, and look for repentance in lotus leaves.

It’s a bag tea. A cheapo bag tea.
Another product of my late-night adventure shopping.
It smells like pot.
I’ve never smoked marijuana, but I know what it smells like. It smells like this tea. Well, a lot stronger than this tea, which has a very weak scent, but you get the idea.
Guess how it tastes.
I’ll give you a hint. Bad.

So, I went to the supermarket at 1AM to buy some water and a few groceries. And some teas. To review. Someone save me.

On to the review. Wait, not yet. Lemme critique the tea’s description instead, K? Just one line of it, really:
Oolong tea is often called the “champaigne of teas”.

Point A: You mean “Champagne”? Or “champaign”? Because the world you put doesn’t exist. So let’s assume it’s the former, seeing as “champaign” refers to “level, open country”.
Point B: “CHAMPAGNE” of teas? You mean Darjeeling teas?

Okay, that aside. The tea sucks. It has a flat, two-dimensional taste, and it just leaves an unsatisfactory taste in my mouth. The leaves, though not broken, look a bit ravaged. You can also tell by the way they look dry how… bad it will taste.
I think I bought this tea to hate it. And, in that sense, I was not disappointed. Also the leaves aren’t that fragrant.

Okay, I’m not done criticizing not just this tea, but the company. The site makes me sick. dragonpearltea.com
The worst part is the customer comments section.
Hey guys, who am I?
“This is the bombest tea ever!”
I’m Jordan. No last name provided.
These customers obviously have no knowledge of what good tea really is, and have probably only tasted bag teas.

So, I’m done being a jerk with this tea. Onto my next tea. It’s gonna be worse.
By the way, anyone want the left overs? I know for a fact that I’m never going to brew this again. You can even have the tin. According to the label, there should be 29-39 servings left ;)

Slurpaslurp. I brewed it better this time.
I made it, because I felt like drinking a “bulk” tea, and I had just transferred it to a tin that was appropriately titled “Lapsang Souchong.” Ignoring their tea quality, Peet’s makes pleasing tins – though they are a bit hard to open if you can’t get leverage.
Actually, I really brewed this because I wanted to post about it. I brewed it better this time, but that’s besides the point. I skipped both my classes today, and drank this tea. I’m going to keep going like this until a direction forms…

After I transferred it from the Teavana tin, I noticed there was a good amount of dust left over. I wish I had a bag to brew it in. Oh well. Teavana tins are too tall and thin. My hand barely fit in there. I say this because I had to whip it out – don’t want my next tea smelling like smoked meats.
I felt like writing literature, but I feel uninspired so I’m writing this, instead. I could write a story about this, yes, but my audience isn’t very tea-literate. I could also be doing the essay that was due today. Hah.

I wish we could leave reviews on the companies themselves. I’d have a thing or two to say about Teavana. That’s f’sho. Teavana doesn’t even deserve the proper spelling out of “for sure.”

I want to forget school forever, and drown myself in tea. I think I might try tonight. I need more clean water, though, for my nice teas. That means I have to bike down to 7-eleven. Or up to the supermarket. (When I say up and down, I mean it. This is a city built on slopes.)

The point of all this? I need a woman. I’m sick of school, sick of roommates, sick of looking at pretty, shallow girls scattered across the campus, sick of dealing with one of the few people I care about, who’s 300 miles away, hating me, sick of using tobacco as a substitute muse for lack of lover (I REALLY hate smoking), and sick Southern California in general. I’m also sick of making up for my lack of social life/tolerance of my peers, by writing reviews about tea.

I’m sorry. Really, I am.

As an oolong, it’s great. For the Oolongs I’ve had from Adagio, I’d probably put this at the top of the list. Definitely had the mountain peak taste, and rates above your average Dong Ding, or other Taiwanese leaf. Good, bright color, and had that light, buttery taste that’s characteristic of the higher teas.
But again, I’ve had better teas from the same category.

While this tea was able… to lift me, it didn’t transcend me as much as other Ali Shans have. By that, I mean… I did EXPERIENCE the tea, as you can only really do with the finer ones, but it didn’t take me away from the real world. I will give it credit for moving me, though.

Less abstractly, now…
Good leaf color, not too many stems, and a nice smell. I will note, though, that the leaves’ fragrance seemed to weaken as I brewed, where it usually gets stronger for me. Also, post brew, as I played with the leaves, I wasn’t impressed. While it seemed to be more or less all whole leaf, the leaves weren’t in the best quality, and they’re not quite as aesthetically pleasing as the leaves I’ve had from finer Taiwanese teas. I know there’s something…off in them, but I’m not tea-educated enough to be able to pick it out precisely, or put it into adequate words.

So, I’ll leave it at this. If you like oolongs, this is a nice tea. I’m sure I’ll brew it again, and use it as a “fancy tea” for guests. For my personal tastes, I’ve been a bit blessed in my tea experiences, and this doesn’t quite meet my expectations, and thus doesn’t completely satisfy. In the end though – a good tea, worth buying, especially if you haven’t tried finer oolongs before.

Lungjing, I’ve a feeling we’re not in China anymore…

Well, this tea lacks character. Not the tea itself, as a whole, but Adagio’s product. The flavor is just a bit… safe. The leaves are also very often broken. Adagio says its “First Grade” – and, well, it sure is pretty elementary.

Well, this is another tea that my own experience prevents me from really enjoying.
So, I brewed the leaves the only way I find natural now – in a cup. (actually, it should be a glass, but my “glasses” are plastic.) For all you people brewing this in a pot, and timing it… forget it. Leaves, cup, water. That’s all you need. Start sipping after a minute or so, and you’ll enjoy it more.

This is a habit I picked up in China, because that’s how they do it there. My father and I visited the beautiful country around the time of a lungjing harvest in April, and almost everyone was serving it – cafes, restaurants, you name it. They also often serve plain, in-the-shell sunflower seeds with the tea – why, I don’t know. But it was a great combination.
So, not only was I able to experience this tea fresh from the country, my father and I, while in Hangzhou, visited the Dragonwell village. My mother has Paris, I have Lungjing village, I tell you. That was my first time seeing, in person, acres of tea bush. Gorgeous. And every home there processed and served their own tea – the taste varied from house to house.
I never liked Dragonwell until I visited China.

So, on that note…
I can’t really enjoy this tea. It’s not fresh, and I’m not in a Chinese person’s house, trying to buy a tin through a language barrier, or sipping it next to the West Lake. Adagio, you can sell me the mediocre tea, but you can’t sell me the things that should go with it.

Well, this tea had a somewhat smokey taste…
I kid, I kid.

It was alright. I got it at Teavana, because they were selling the tea, and the tin it was in, at 30% off. It was a tempting combination of price reduction, my lack of Lapsang Souchong back in my dorm, and the fact that I always have room for another tin. Always.

Lapsang is always a good tea for the day-to-day, and a nice (and inexpensive) trick for inexperienced tea guests, to whom you can play the resident alchemist. Despite its characteristic scent, it’s not really much of a “special” tea in my book of tastes. Very distinct, yes, and probably the easiest black tea you could ever distinguish by scent, but the taste isn’t absolutely enthralling.

Evading classes today, mostly because I didn’t redraft my essay or annotate an article for English. Also, I need to catch up on sleep, because I failed to do that on my usual friday afternoon through monday break. So, I made a pot of this for myself and my roommate, who’s working on his second essay, something about relating a book to the philosophy of Nietzsche and some other guy, for class today.

Tea’s a little sour this morning. No fault of Teavana’s, just my own – I think the water was a bit under temp. What I will call teavana out on, is calling this “superior grade.” I’ve tasted some fine black teas in my time, and this is no SFTGFOP1, my friends. Not that I trust much of what Teavana says, anyway…

Fortunately for me, my roommate’s only tea experience really comes from me, so he won’t notice the poor brew. On that same note, the tea holds nothing enticing for him – he has no sense of smell. This time, I don’t kid.

In any case, this tea generally isn’t anything too exciting, once you get past the smell (which I, personally, like). I like the color, and the taste is pretty smooth for me. A good any-time tea, and Teavana can’t mess this one up TOO bad. One of the few teas I don’t have too many qualms with buying from them. On the other hand, maybe someday I’ll taste some absolutely astounding Lapsang, and have another reason to look down on this company.

In any case, I guess I didn’t talk much about the tea here. Oh well. Ignorant sippings away!

Well…
A good, smooth brew, yes. Water has a nice color, much more brown than most greens, and the flavor is a bit roasty. A nice tea to suit a taste that you might have, so a good tea to keep around. Hardly vegetal tasting, and the flavor isn’t too bold or mild.

Now for the kicker:
I compared this to a Bilouchun I bought at Mountain View Tea Village, a Bay Area store that I’m pretty sure is independently-owned by a Taiwanese family. The tea I got there was competition grade – I believe it placed first.

So how does it match up?
When compared, there’s a notable lack of nuance and delicacy. The Adagio tea seems to have a bolder leaf, keeping a good flavor in a broader temperature range. The competition-grade leaf, however, has a much narrower range of acceptable temperature – but, with that narrowness comes quality.
The flavor, truly, is rather different. They’re in the same realm of course, and a less discriminate tongue could probably find them pretty identical. The differences are really in line with the general comparisons that can be made between mediocre and quality tea. As I’ve mentioned, the delicacy, nuance, character, etc.

When it comes to the leaves, there’s an immediate visual difference. The Adagio leaves are a much lighter green before and after brewing, and I noticed there’s a lot of broken leaf, as well as a few stems. The comp. grade leaves have a much deeper hue, and are composed only of while leaf and there are no stems. As for smell… no comparison. the competition tea is very fragrant, rich and characteristic, while I find the adagio to be a bit light and generic-smelling.

This has been a bit of a beat-up on Adagio’s Pi Lo Chun, but keep in mind the scales were immediately tipped against it. As a basic tea, I enjoyed it, really. I’d say, though, if you really enjoy this tea, and you have the money, give the quality stuff a shot – you’ll be pleased by this tea at its finest.

Part of the green savant sampler. Was very excited when my teas got delivered today.

As TeaEqualsBliss pointed out, definitely a great tea for a beginner. Mild and smooth, and doesn’t lack at all that Chinese Green flavor. Very mellow, yes – but maybe a little bit too much. I had trouble picking out anything that would make this tea distinct or memorable.

As for the smell, the dry leaves have a pleasant fragrance, that would be suitable for scenting a room. Subtle, and even a bit fruity. That smell is misleading, though. One brewed, the leaves take on a scent similar to the taste – vegetal, but not unpleasant. Maybe I just like it because I spend too much time with tea…

Brewing wise, it has a lasting flavor. I got a good four infusions out of it before I took a break to record. Do note, though, that I was brewing it in a gaiwan, not a teapot. The open leaves fill about half the vessel, so my proportions are probably much different than that of what one would brew in a tetsubin or something.

The liquor was very light, and the brewed leaves are a bit bitter to eat, but somewhat delightful. Though the flavor is nothing to write home about, it is pleasant and elegant. Not a bad tea at all, especially for the price. Worth keeping around for times when you don’t want to just gulp down some tea, but you’re not in the mood for anything extravagant.
Probably something I’d buy more of in the future… if I remember it.