Name: Almond Oolong

Company: Adagio Teas

Type: Oolong

Ingredients: (from website) Almond slices and Formosa Oolong tea

Packaging: Loose Leaf. I do have one gripe with the tins from Adagio Tea. They are really quite small and the tea is a bit tightly packed in there, so it makes it a little hard to scoop out. I had to empty it into a little espresso cup I have so that I could properly scoop it out.

Dry Scent/Look: The dry smell reminds me of pastry. It makes me want to go to a high priced bakery and buy something sweet but not overly sweet, just enough to know that it’s a pastry. That is exactly what this tea smells like, a rich and buttery yet sweet pastry. I can see only a few almond slices in the tea but the smell is just bewitching.

Brewed Scent: The scent mostly comes from the Oolong, you can smell the earthy tea in it very distinctly but also get the small nutty undercurrent of the almond along with it.

Brewed Color: It’s a nice slightly reddish amber color

Taste: Since this is my first taste of an oolong I can really taste the leafy earthy flavor of the leaves. It reminds me slightly of Green with the leafy flavor but it doesn’t annoy me as much as Green tea does. The almond that was so sweet smelling when in the container is mostly noticed now as a slightly nutty aftertaste. The nutty flavor starts to come forward more as the tea cools, it could be a very nice iced tea, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that step yet.

The nutty flavor becomes a little more pronounced when you add a little sugar to it, reminding me almost of a dessert tea. I do love how mellow the tea is though. Black tea always seemed to have a bit of a “bite” to it, almost coppery/peppery in flavor. I’m not sure all of the oolong teas are mellow or if it is just the addition of the almond, but I’m sure I’ll find out later.

Additions: I added just a little raw sugar after tasting it straight up. Both were good but I probably would end up adding sugar to it every time I drink it. I like the nutty flavor that comes out more pronounced and is complimented by the sweetness the sugar adds.

Overall Opinion: So far I like oolong. It doesn’t have as much of the grassy flavor that green tea has, and less of the peppery/coppery flavor that most of the black teas I’ve tasted. I really am digging the mellow and slightly nutty flavor of the almond. With all of the samples I bought of the oolongs, I hope the others are as nice as this one. My own personal preference would be to add sugar, but that may change over time as I get used to the leafy/earthy flavor of the tea leaves. I still like to open the tin and smell the tea though. Since I’m such a baker and a fan of pastries, the smell really IS bewitching.

I know it almost feels like I’ve taken a vacation from writing but it’s more along the lines that I just haven’t had the energy to. I’ve spent all my time and energy concentrating on work, training people, working overtime, and working with the Husband at a Retro Gaming Expo. (I shudder to think of all the pictures/video of me running around the net right now)

(And no I’m not sharing links)

I haven’t spent much time with cooking lately, but there really hasn’t been any time/energy for it. I really miss my kitchen!

The only thing I’ve had time to do is drink tea. I know it somewhat seems lame, but sometimes that might be the only thing that gets me through the day.

I’ve started drinking caffeine again and I’m rather on the fence about whether or not I like drinking it. I really notice the effects of it, and some of them really aren’t all that great. Minor headaches, jitters, inability to sleep at night… Why is it we like drinking this stuff? I haven’t figured that part out yet.

After these past few weeks of really needing to have that extra kick in the pants, I started looking into caffeine and what types of tea have less. Tea seems a bit on the complex side…but maybe that’s why I like it.

Caffeine levels in tea vary in the way that they are processed and creating the “type” of tea. So here are the different levels of caffeine that I’ve found that each type of tea contains (roughly):

White Tea – 10mg
Green Tea – 20mg
Oolong Tea – 30mg
Black Tea – 40mg

I’ve never had Oolong, and my experience with white and green has been very minimal, but I do like black tea. I can’t stand it straight up but flavored I can handle. Green is not my favorite, too leafy. And white…I think I might have had it once? I can’t really remember.

So I took the plunge and decided to continue on in my effort of trying new things. I ordered a bunch of tea online!

I ordered from Adagio Tea, and they came very quickly (awesome). I ordered an Oolong sampler pack as well as some herbals and a white.

I really am slightly in love with the tins and the labels. I love the tiny tins, they make storing the tea very easy, especially since they stack very well. I also love that the basic instructions of the water temperature and how long to steep are right on the tin. Hopefully I won’t mess it up!

So here’s what I got:
Oolong (Almond, Peach, Vanilla, Grapefruit)
White (Peach)
Herbal (Berry Blast, Sour Apple)

I’m kind of iffy on the grapefruit Oolong, that just sounds a little odd, but it seems to have gotten pretty good reviews online so I’ll give it a shot.

The other great thing about sample sized tins? Only $2 each! That’s a pretty good deal on loose leaf tea. Adagio also have a frequent cups program so that you can earn points that turn into free money for tea. You also can earn the points by reviewing teas and sending gift cards to other people. I’m all about the free stuff.

I’m rather excited to try these new ones out soon and reporting back on what I got.

Well, technically it’s a short week since Monday was a holiday (no work, yay!) but I feel really run down at the moment. (This seems to be quite a theme for me.)

I’m training a coworker to take over my old job since the other person I trained for my job has now been promoted to manager. Now training itself isn’t quite so bad, but it’s the hours that are killing me. I was very excited to get off of this schedule at first since it is so early (I have to be there, 40 mins away, by 5am).

I really didn’t miss being woken up by my alarm clock and looking over at the time to see it flashing 3am at me. I had to start drinking caffeine again this week to try and keep myself going on this schedule, while trying to do my job so I’m not leaving my dear coworker hanging and yet train someone on a job I haven’t technically been in for over 6 months.

The lack of traffic coming home is a nice consolation prize for how I’m feeling right now.

So I decided to self medicate… No not in that way, but with a hot cup of tea and a mellow song to try and take myself to another place all together. My favorite tea of all time is Tazo’s Passion. I love the taste and how it can just relax me every time I drink it.

I decided to start doing reviews of the teas I drink. Maybe I can convince someone else to find the enjoyment in drinking tea, or help someone else find a tea they might also like. I love tea so much, and I just want to share my loves with you guys.

Name: Passion

Company: Tazo

Type: Herbal

Ingredients: (from packet) hibiscus flowers, natural tropical flavors, citric acid, licorice root, orange peel, cinnamon, rose hips, lemongrass, and fruit juice extract (color)

Packaging: Standard tea bags.

Dry Scent: It smells slightly tangy and floral. Not overly floral, but you can tell there is some sort of flower in it.

Brewed Scent: Rich and deep fruity yet slightly floral. It smells like its going to be strongly flavored.

Brewing Temp/Time: Boiling/5 mins. I tend to leave the bag in the cup far longer than the specified time, mostly because I really don’t care if it gets stronger as it sits. I like it strong.

Brewed Color:It brews up a nice dark purple/red color, nice and complex and really shows the hibiscus in the brew and some sort of fruit juice also helps for the color according to the package.

Taste: This is my all time favorite tea. I drink this tea almost daily at work so obviously I love it. The taste is strong and complex, tasting mostly of the hibiscus with the flavor of lemon grass coming through along with the rose hips. It has a tart, citrusy flavor that I’m in love with.
This also makes a delightful iced tea. The tartness mellows out as it cools and tastes slightly more of lemon. It pairs well with lemonade to make a really tasty cold drink.

Additions:I’ve had this with sugar as well as honey, but I much prefer this strong flavor plain. I would definitely not add cream or milk, but I would add some lemon or mix it with some lemonade.

Overall opinion: This has to be my favorite tea. I’ve drank this for the last few years and I’m really in love with it. I would recommend this tea if you have a taste for some strong flavors. It’s not delicate by any means, but then again I’m more into the robust flavors all around.

Because I’m a hermit and don’t do well with other people at times, I thought about not going. Then I also thought about my recent goals to meet more people and to try new things. So I went.

I have to say it was a glorious trip. Not only was the day beautiful, but the garden was really nice as well. It was quite a shocker to me that this little oasis existed in the middle of a bustling city, surrounded by tall office and apartment buildings. I took tons of pictures and got to know my new friends better over the beautiful landscape as well as a good few hours in the tea house.

I almost tried to convince them not to go in the tea house since I stopped drinking tea for the last few years due to caffeine inducing my killer migraines, but they wanted to go and I gave in.

I’m such a sucker for a pretty face.

I am really glad I went though. I thought I would be just sipping ice water until I found the selection of herbal teas. It’s almost like I forgot that herbal teas existed! How silly is that.

I went with hibiscus tea, Terri had tea flowers (as in the flowers that bloom on the tea plant) and her friend Kelly had black ginger peach tea. I didn’t try their teas but I was in heaven with the hibiscus. It was nice and strong, tangy and almost citrusy. Plus it was a beautiful red color. I love strong flavored teas.

We also ordered some snacks go to with them, some vegetable dumplings as well as a red bean cake.

Red bean cake? Really? To the uninformed, silly, sheltered American this sounded really odd and not too tasty.

I was proven wrong, yet again. If you’ve never had it, try it. It’s sweet, rich and almost has undertones of a fruity chocolate. It was baked in a really beautiful pastry crust and was really moist and delicious. It went beautifully with my dark red hibiscus tea.

The dumplings were pretty awesome also. I’m not really sure what was in them but they were pretty tasty.

We each got our own little teapots and little (and I mean LITTLE) cups for our teas, which I found just charming.

All in all it was a great day, meeting a new friend and growing closer to my other friend, plus the “reintroduction” to tea for me.

I highly suggest going there if you are in the area or plan to visit. It’s small but a wonderful experience. And don’t miss out on the tea house, it is quite lovely.

Plus for some strange reason it started giving me horrendous heart burn. I’m partly convinced that the heartburn thing is really my body’s way of saying “You want to stop? Ok, I make you stop!”

I have to say, that really sucked. But it was also good in a way since I started to associate soda with pain, therefore I really didn’t want it anymore. I still craved it, and the sound of opening a can of soda? Holy crap, I could smell soda across the room. I went from 2-4 cans of Diet Coke a day, to none.

I tempered the bad reaction of losing a main source of caffeine with drinking tea. I liked black tea, flavored or with some home made vanilla sugar and milk. And chai. I loved chai tea.

I say loved because after a while I just stopped drinking tea. No real reason why, it just happened. Then when I tried to start drinking it again it started to trigger migraines.

That made me very unhappy.

Recently my friends took me out for a day trip to the Chinese Garden in Portland, OR and we had a drink in the tea house. It was lovely. I forgot how much I love tea. Granted its herbal, but it’s just delicious!

So be prepared, there will be more talk of tea in our future.