TARDIS Blend

I got a sample of this from Bibliohermione. Thanks, Erin!

This is super tasty. The earl grey comes through but is tempered with the blackberry and vanilla. Everything works together perfectly, and is a nice alternative to a regular earl grey.

The Doctor would approve.

This tea smells amazing in the bag. Most of the reviews of Adagio say that this tastes like a blueberry muffin. I can’t seem to figure out how to make it taste that way. I’ve made it both with and without milk and sugar. I’ve played around with temperature and steeping time. It is a very good Earl Grey tea. But all I can taste is the Earl Grey. I bought the collector’s tin so I can display the artwork on my shelf. When it is empty I will probably just refill it with a plain Early Grey unless I can figure out the secret to unlocking this tea.

Let’s be honest: I got this because there was super-cute artwork on the front and last year I rediscovered earl grey as an actually good tea. (Early experience with Lipton Earl Grey had me convinced that it tasted like Pine-Sol and was to be avoided.)

I really liked this! The fruity blackberry smell is strong in the bag, but the flavor mellows out into a great accompaniment to the bergamot when the tea cools down. I’m nearly to the bottom of my bag, and I have a few other earl greys in my cupboard I’m going to try first, but I’d definitely order this again or buy it for the tea-loving Doctor Who fans in my life.

Yum. You can smell all the flavors in the dry tea. When I steeped it, the Earl Grey won out, though there’s some berry in the background. Perhaps I steeped it for too long or with too hot water, or maybe my palate isn’t nuanced enough. Still, it’s tasty, and even more so with some sugar and milk.

Ever since I found out about Adagio and its most popular custom tea blends by Cara McGee, I’ve wanted to try the Tardis blend. The Tardis blend is one of the many fandom tea blends the site offers; this one being for one of my favorite television shows, the BBC’s Doctor Who.

The Tardis tea blend is a mixture of Earl Grey Bravo tea (Adagio’s signature Earl Grey), blackberry tea (which is a Ceylon black tea infused with blackberries), and vanilla (another flavored Ceylon black tea). The tea is naturally sweet, so I recommend tasting it before adding any sweeteners. Since it’s a black tea, you should steep it for 2-3 minutes.

I think it would make a nice iced tea as well, but I love how comforting it is while hot. It’s sweet, but the sweetness doesn’t overwhelm the taste of the tea. You could even add sugar without making it too sweet. I like how the vanilla is more of an aftertaste. It takes you a moment to catch the blackberry notes, but I like that it doesn’t overshadow the tea.

This would make a very nice dessert tea. Some people on the website recommend it with milk, so I’m going to have to try that at some point. All in all, I give this tea five out of five stars. I’ve tried some blends on Adagio (some where my own, but not all) that haven’t really turned out well. I think this might become one of my new favorite teas!

Another thing I love about this tea? You get 4oz instead of the standard 3oz of custom blends… Because it’s bigger on the inside!

Again, bear with me, still just a beginner in the world of loose leaf teas, though I think I am getting better. The massive number of opinions out here on the site help me increase my knowledge quite a bit, and I have to thank everyone for that. So here we go:

Scent:
Before Steeping: Fruity. Very fruity. I can definitely smell the blackberry; the smell tends to overwhelm everything else. Faint scent of vanilla in the background, along with the earl grey bravo.
While Steeping: About one minute in: slightly aromatic. Earl grey scents are in the majority. Light berry scent, smells more like blueberries than blackberry.
After Steeping: More aromatic than before, but not much. Earl grey scents have taken a back seat- more of a blueberry scent now. Very fruity, reminds me almost of cooked blueberries.

Flavor:
-1st Steep: Did this at boiling, so I’m letting it sit to cool down for a moment. Mixed two spoonful’s of sugar in with it, to enhance the natural sweetness (I love sugar). My first sip instantly engulfs me in intense berry flavors. And they most definitely are blueberries, not the blackberry like it says in the ingredients. Too sweet to be blackberries. I can taste a hint of vanilla in the back, nice and soothing. The earl grey is still there to, just less intense than I thought it would be.
-2nd Steep: Boiling again, but steeping them a second time around with the same bunch as the first time. Only one spoonful of sugar this time though. I kind of like the taste better this time. It’s lost a bit of flavor, sure, but the earl grey is still noticeable, as is the berry and the vanilla, just less so. Still fruity and sweet, which is good, but not as much as before. Fairly good for a second time around.

Overall: I like it, I really do, but it’s too fruity to drink consistently. I would drink it every now and then, but the fruitiness of the blueberry tends to get to intense at times, while there isn’t enough vanilla, and the earl grey flavors are little less than I usually like.

This is another great blend that is on my favorites list. It smells so good in the bag and tastes better in my tea mug! I was a bit skeptically about it at first, since of the vanilla. I’m not too big on vanilla. However blended with Earl Grey Bravo, and Blackberry it’s surprisingly pleasant!

Hey, so… hi.

Sorry the return has been less than stellar. I’ve been extremely sick lately, for about a month at this point. I started drinking tea again, then everything went to pot and I’ve been in and out of the hospital due to stomach issues.

But today, I decided I was done. if everything I eat or drink makes me sick, I might as well enjoy what I put in me. I’m sure as heck not going to enjoy it coming out.

So! Time for a new tea. Today is TARDIS tea, something I bought ages ago and never reviewed. I didn’t bother to look this up before brewing a pot, but it smells something like an earl grey? Whatever, let’s brew up a batch.

Full Brevelle Pot, 3tsp/212F/4 Min.

First cup I’m drinking iced.

Taste is… Yep, that’s definitely an earl grey variety! I can taste the bergamot! But there’s more to it than that. A vanilla, maybe? Hmm… my fractured palate is having trouble here. Maybe a touch of splenda…

Ahh, that’s delicious. Definitely an earl grey creme with a side of berry. Tastes like blueberry? It’s heavenly, whatever it is. There’s a good deal of natural sweetness to this one but I usually prefer my blends with a single splenda to them so I’ve added it here. That said, I don’t have an icemaker so I only had a tray to put in this. It wasn’t enough to fully ice the tea and it’s more chilled than iced. I think this would make a good enough iced tea if you added a bit of sugar to it.

Time to try it hot…

Odd. It isn’t nearly as sweet when hot, even with the added splenda. Actually a little bit bitter even. The flavors aren’t nearly as pronounced or strong when hot, which is a disappointment. It gets better with a second splenda, but then it’s too sweet. There’s got to be a happy medium here, but I’m not finding it. I think I like this one better iced. It’s tasty iced. When hot, it just tastes like a mediocre earl grey.

Final thoughts? I never thought I’d say this but, again, this one is much better on ice. When you ice it down, the flavors pop much better, to the point where even I didn’t need splenda to drink it. (I added it anyway, but not until I had already drank half the cup.) It’s not as tasty hot, but as with the iced cup, as it cools down, the flavors come out more.

All in all, it’s a decent enough tea. I don’t know if I’d get it again but I like the mix of blueberry, bergamot, and vanilla enough that I’d love to try other teas like this in the future.

Unknown steep time provided with tea. Steeped 2 minutes. Tea smells like dehydrated blueberries with some cinnamon undertones. Warm water taste, not a lot of substance. Would drink but wouldn’t re-purchase. Tried 10.2018

Bears a striking resemblance to Reichenbach Recovery because they have the same base but this one does smell or taste as subdued. Not one to normally reach for earl gray but recently it has become more my cup. I think it’s the bergamot that I’ve had in other teas that made me willing to try this blend. Although this is advertised as having berries as a main note, I don’t taste them. It does come off as a floral, creamy earl gray which is nice with a dash of milk and sweetner. Maybe the berry taste is found in this steeped black. Something to try in the future.