Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Assam Melody, Black Tea, Cardamom Pods, Cinnamon Bark, Clove, Ginger Root, Lapsang Souchong, Natural Spice Flavour, Orange Peel
Flavors
Malt, Smoke, Spices, Sweet, Tobacco
Sold in
Loose Leaf
Caffeine
High
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Mastress Alita
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 15 sec 20 oz / 600 ml

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From Our Community

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18 Want it Want it

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32 Own it Own it

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20 Tasting Notes View all

  • “30/01/2013 I’m Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only consulting detective. I’m not going to go into detail about how I do what I do because chances are you wouldn’t understand. If you’ve got a problem...” Read full tasting note
  • “A friend who knows my love for tea & for all things BBC brought me a bit of this to try (her college-aged daughters brought it home). Since it was labelless, I’m guessing this is the correct...” Read full tasting note
  • “Had this blend for a late breakfast before heading out. I really like strong smokey teas, so I was excited for this one. The oriental spice in this one seems to tone down the lapsang, without...” Read full tasting note
    78
  • “Smoke and spice and everything Sherlock. :) This is fantastic. My first taste of lapsang souchong ever, and though it’s blended I feel like I’ve passed some sort of tea milestone. :P Love, love,...” Read full tasting note
    95

From Adagio Custom Blends, Cara McGee

All at once exotic and mysterious and perhaps a little bit insane, with a lingering hint of smoke.

Inspired by BBC’s Sherlock, which I am in no way affiliated with. This is created purely for my own enjoyment.

Created by: Cara McGee

Ingredients: assam melody, lapsang souchong, black tea, natural spice flavor, orange, cinnamon, ginger, cloves & cardamom

Steeping Instructions: Steep at 212° for 3 minutes.

About Adagio Custom Blends, Cara McGee View company

Company description not available.

20 Tasting Notes

84
681 tasting notes

Sipdown 52/375

There may be a couple more sipdowns like this that have escaped my attention. I don’t know why I never wrote a tasting note for this tea but it’s been gone for ages. Smoky teas aren’t usually to my taste, but I really enjoyed this blend. Something about the combination of spices softened the smokiness so that it wasn’t overwhelming, and my favourite way to drink this was with a teaspoon of honey, maple syrup or agave which I thought rounded it out very well. Of course, this being an Adagio black tea blend, I drank it with milk most of the time because astringency. In fact, I’m almost convinced I can remember writing up a tasting note to that effect years ago (what is Steepster doing to all my notes from back then??). Because I do like a smoky tea every now and again and because of the novelty factor – it really is a good fit for the character it represents – there’s a good chance I might restock this at some point.

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84
1379 tasting notes

Firstly – I want to apologise for not being active on Steepster recently. Unfortunately I caught a bad cold and chest infection which left me without a sense of taste for over a week, including through my birthday too. That left me a little numb and disheartened with tasting (or at least trying to taste) tea and so I took a back seat, finished some tea samples I had already reviewed and did my very best to recover. I believe that now is good time to come back, though my taste may not be perfect to my usual standard it should be good enough, as with my sense of smell also. At least the illness caught me well before my holiday as I leave for Fuerteventura, Spain at the start of next month.

While I was ill I ended up playing through some of my games of which I have accumulated 859 of via Steam. They recently had a sale and I noticed they were offering The Testament of Sherlock Holmes at a reasonable price so I scooped that up and began playing last night. It reminded me of the teas from Adagio that I got around Christmas time, I waited so long for the tins to come back into UK stock. It’s time I tried them.

Starting with Sherlock Holmes, the musky, dark and pipe tobacco smoke scented tea. It’s strongly smoky yet I get a mature and rather debonair feeling about it.

Flavour is rather smooth yet smoky throughout with malt, tobacco and sweet under tones. It’s not too strong, nor smoky nor dry but rather a perfect balance of all so that you can taste each flavour equally. Considering it’s Lapsang Souchong part base it’s milder than I was expecting. There is also a mild spicy after taste mixed in with the smoke.

I rather like this blend overall and admire it greatly. Assam and Lapsang Souching, who would have expected a pleasant union? Well played Cara McGee.

Flavors: Malt, Smoke, Spices, Sweet, Tobacco

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 20 OZ / 600 ML
looseTman

KittyLovesTea, No apology is needed. It’s that time of year for respiratory viruses for many of us, myself included. Glad to hear your feeling better!

mrmopar

Agreed with looseTman, health and time for your self is important. Hope you are over the illness.

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90
2238 tasting notes

So today I have another cold, which started yesterday afternoon and turned into something awful overnight. It’s totally grim. I’m mostly drinking strongly flavoured teas today, such as this one, although I can’t say I’m really able to taste them. It’s a very sad state of affairs.

Just in time for the weekend, too.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec 1 tsp
Nichole/CuppaGeek

Sad! Hope you feel better soon!

Fjellrev

Feel better, Scheherazade!

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75
52 tasting notes

“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!"
It was worth a wound — it was worth many wounds — to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

This is one of my favorite quotes from canon. Regardless of whether you ship them or not, you can’t deny that in later years they had grown to love each other. Even if it was platonic.

This tea is complicated, much like Mr. Holmes himself. It’s smokey and spicy, depending on the sip, it is either smooth or bold. I am finding I am not a fan of Lapsang Souchong. The smokiness turns me off.

It was worth a try, but I’ll stick with my Watson on this one.

Thanks to both cavocorax and MissB for samples of this one!

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37
18 tasting notes

Oh wow. Bought this for the fandom reference, obviously. I am not a fan of lapsang souchong, to be honest. It’s a bit strong for me. So when I opened this and it was a spiced lapsang souchong, I knew I was not going to love this blend, as much as I adore Mr. Holmes. I wasn’t sure how I was going to even USE this tea for a while. Then, on a whim, I mixed it with a package of hot cocoa mix. And it was delicious. Not drinkable alone for me, because its flavor profile is just not my cuppa. However, with the hot cocoa mix, I love it.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec

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35
20 tasting notes

You know, when I first tried this, it was my favorite tea in the world. It smelled so intriguing and sexy. I recently got a bag of this which had too much Lapsang in it, and it put me off the blend, even after they sent me a correctly-mixed replacement bag. (Adagio really is awesome.) I will have to leave this one alone for a while.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

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51
11 tasting notes

I really, really wanted to like this tea. I mean, it’s the title characters tea, and everything in it sounds exciting and slightly exotic. How can a Sherlock tea set be complete without an amazing Sherlock tea? So as you can see, I really, really wanted to like it.

Unfortunately, the only word I can think of to describe it is…dull.

I will admit, it SMELLS amazing. More so in the bag than in the cup, where it loses some of its sharpness, but if I could have a perfume that smelled like this I would wear it until the day I died. Overall the tea has a beautiful scent and a nice color in the cup. What it lacks is the zing I was heartily hoping for out of a cup dedicated to the sharpest mind in fiction. What I got was just plain old ordinary.

No, it’s not Lipton, I will at least give it that, but after the promising start with Watson, it was a real let down. What it needs is a touch of something sharp, something biting. I guess adding lemon would improve it, but that’s just a small fix. It doesn’t help the fact that the tea itself is sadly unimpressive. If I was going to suggest any changes, I’d say Sherlock would be better served with a hint of hibiscus, or something similar to give it the edge it deserves.

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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