Gingerbread

My first impression of this tea was “Wow! What an aroma!” My second impression was “This is definitely something new and pleasantly different.” The tea in question was Adagio Teas’ Gingerbread, a black tea that was very different than other spiced black teas of my past tasting.

I began with a simple steep – three minutes of a teaspoon of this tea in a just-boiled cup of water. The aromas that hit my nose, as the tea brewed, focused mainly on the cinnamon bark and “gingerbread flavor.” In a way, I was quite thankful. My past experiences with teas containing cinnamon and orange peel have usually resulted in brews, where the orange is far too strong and the cinnamon very subdued, both accompanying an overly bitter black tea (bitter on account of how long it took to get any sort of non-tea flavor to evolve). With the addition of gingerbread flavor and ginger root, this tea moved beyond the traditional orange and cinnamon spiced black tea.

In Adagio’s Gingerbread, orange peel took a back seat in the vehicle of flavor that drove across my tongue with my first sip. Despite all of the bold additions to the tea, I found that the resulting brew was not overly strong, instead containing a pleasant mixture of all of the flavors. Warm cinnamon swirls around the outside of the flavor palate and the ginger root adds a slightly sweet bite to the main part of the body – the Ceylon black tea. The lack of heaviness to the tea helped it go down smoothly, and I found myself drinking it far more quickly than I had anticipated.

This black tea was not especially re-steepable, but I typically do not expect such from black teas, especially flavored ones. For my first few cups (and pots, over several days), I did not sweeten it at all, as it has a bit of natural sweetness. Upon the addition of a small amount of sweetener, I found that more of the orange flavor came forth.

Well done with this holiday tea, Adagio. I will gladly drink it any time of the year. On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate this tea an 87/100.

Not bad! This one seems to get a lot of negative reviews. I’m not going to go out and buy a pound of this, but it’s definitely drinkable. I definitely get a molasses smell along with the spices and ginger. Lighter taste, definitely gingerbread. Again, not bad.

The smell of the dried leaves is spicy, but by this time, the batch I have is a few months old, so maybe it has calmed down a bit. It’s a black tea with additional spice and from my experience, I know that I will like this much more if I understeep. I brewed for three minutes instead of the usual five. The liquor is still very dark. The aroma is spiced black tea. As a precautionary measure, I add a pinch of rock sugar.

This is not bad. It is definitely spiced, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, the tea is a light black, not too strong in anyway. I believe the only way I do enjoy this at all is because I underbrewed it.

It smells nice dry. The flavour isn’t much of anything. Doesn’t really taste like gingerbread. Or ginger really.

Ginger works better as red bush tea.

Thank you Doulton for sending a sample of this my way. I like the lightly spicy notes to it. I think I may have over steeped a bit, as it is a tad bit bitter, but the spices are nice. I think I prefer Oriental Spice from Adagio as my go to spice tea, but this tea is pleasant on the tongue.

I feel like all of the holiday teas I got were a bad batch :\ I’m having an epic sip-down today and decided to try and finish the holiday teas. I remembered that this one would have a VERY bitter aftertaste so I added a bit of sugar.. It actually helped round the bitterness and bring out the sweet gingerbread taste. Now it’s a bit better. It’s a little spicy but mostly sweet. Now it just tastes like gingerbread with icing :]

Taken with milk and sugar + plain.
Without milk and sugar the tea leaves are over powered by the strong spices. Drinking this tea plain is actually kind of unpleasant in the way that tasting cinnamon by itself is dry and bitter.
With only sugar the spices mellow out and become nice. My only complaint is that the spices still over power the tea and it has a very weak mouth. This tea really just tastes like spiced water. It’s nice but not awesome.
Adding milk with the sugar rounds out the body and flavor but they are still not at all robust. The spices become well mixed and the tea flavor pops out a little more.
This is a nice holiday change but if I could have it year round I really wouldn’t be excited because it could have been done much better.

There are no words for the way this tea smells dry. As soon as you open the tin — fresh gingerbread. Spicy-sweet and gorgeous. The ginger, cinnamon, and a hint of orange are clear to smell. Oh, heaven!

As you might expect it doesn’t taste quite like it smells, but it’s pretty close. It’s probably the closest you can get to drinking cake, at any rate. The orange is all but lost but the cinnamon and ginger shine through, complemented by the smell of baking. Drinking this tea is a truly divine experience.

As with most black teas, I drank this with a splash of milk. I think this adds a certain something here — a softness, or a creaminess. I’ll try it without next time, for the sake of experience, but I’m pretty sure milk is the way with this tea.

Maybe because it’s getting cold, but Adagio’s holiday teas are really hitting the spot for me right now.

I made this over the weekend while at my sister’s house. I boiled milk, water, and sugar together with the tea, then let the tea steep for several minutes before straining the leaves out and drinking (what I could remember of takgoti’s chai method posted on Steepster earlier).

It’s okay, but I didn’t get a ginger flavor, just a spiced tea flavor. Rather dissappointing.

so i re-steeped this and forgot it but when i got back to it…it was delicious! i guess my 2nd steepings of flavored blacks need to be really long for me to like it lol i will be trying this with my beloved blueberry and strawberry teas