Tea Review Tuesday - A Review of Adagio Teas' Thai Chai Black Tea

Coconut, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and lemongrass...ingredients for tasty food, but also ingredients for a hopefully-tasty tea. This weeks's tea review takes a look at Adagio Teas' Thai Chai, a black tea blended with all of the above ingredients, comprising a strong cup of flavor. Just reading the ingredients reminds me a bit of last week's review of DavidsTea's Coconut Oolong, but I have a feeling that the cinnamon and ginger are going to make for a vastly different flavor with this tea.

My first surprise came, when I read through the brewing instructions. Adagio recommends two teaspoons of tea per cup and a five minute steep time. Sounds like a strong cup to me, which therefore sounds delicious! I add four cups of water and eight teaspoons of Thai Chai to my Adagio TriniTEA brewer, set it for black tea and a five minute steep time, then wait. While the tea brews, I smell the tea container to see what the dry blend is like. The ginger aroma is really prominent, but the notes of lemongrass are surprisingly strong, too.

The first cup pours dark, most likely cloudy from the ginger and cinnamon. The aroma, which I anticipated would continue to highlight the ginger and lemongrass, seems overwhelmed by cinnamon. Ginger and lemongrass notes now sit in the background. This is a surprising turnabout, and I take my first sip to see the results of this intense brewing. Immediately, I get flavors of cinnamon and black tea hitting my tongue. A certain heat from the ginger is present, and some sweet herbal notes of lemongrass are noticeable. The cup is intense. The large amount of tea combined with the moderately long steep time resulted in a heady brew. In the body of the tea, the cardamom can be noticed, lending a bit of spice, alongside the ginger. I feel as though the coconut probably smooths the flavors a bit, though it is not as prominent as the other flavors. Due to the five minutes of steep time, the black tea base has just the slightest touch of astringency.

I could imagine brewing this tea and actually making a chai of it (with milk and sugar). The milk might tone down the spices, and the sugar would highlight some of the notes that are otherwise overshadowed by the tea's heat. The black tea itself would have its astringent edge removed, and the cup would probably be full of smooth intensity.

On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate Adagio Teas' Thai Chai a 4. I quite enjoyed my cups of it, and I could see it being a very versatile tea that would appeal to a wide variety of palates. The ingredients are blending quite well, and the steeping instructions provide for good flavors all around.



Photo credit to Built from Ink and Tea.
Adagio Teas' Thai Chai is available from their website, here.
This review was unsolicited and uncompensated.
You can read more about my Personal Enjoyment Scale, here.
Text is copyright 2017, Built from Ink and Tea.

Stained Fingers on Thursday - A Review of Bookbinders Snake Ink Emerald Boa

A part of the new Snake Ink line by Bookbinders, Emerald Boa is a great green ink that found at the 2016 San Francisco International Pen Show!

This scan was done on an HP Deskjet F4280 at 600dpi.
Note: Because these scans are done with a light emitting printer, actual colors will, more likely than not, be slightly darker than they may appear, here. The colors shown, here, are probably a bit more reminiscent of what the ink would be like under a bright light or if it were held up and viewed with a light behind it.

Tea Review Tuesday - A Review of DavidsTea's Coconut Oolong

Combining coconut and lemongrass, this tea for review reminds me of ingredients that could go into a Thai curry. Maybe this tea would be delicious alongside such a dish. This week, we are reviewing DavidsTea's Coconut Oolong.

While DavidsTea does not say what kind of oolong they put into this blend, it looks slightly roasted to me, the leaves lightly oxidized. Smelling the container, I get some faint floral notes, which could be the oolong, but the coconut flavoring that has been added seems to overtake the entire aroma. DavidsTea recommends one and a quarter teaspoons per eight ounces of water, so into my four-cup TriniTEA goes five teaspoons of tea. The recommended steep time from DavidsTea ranges from four to seven minutes, and I opt for six, figuring that should be long enough to get a good, strong cup.

After six minutes, my TriniTEA machine beeps to let me know that my Coconut Oolong has been finished. As I pour my cup of tea, I realize that this is the last of my container of Coconut Oolong, and I regret waiting so long to review it. The cup smells heavily of coconut with a slight tang of lemongrass to the aroma. Any oolong notes are overwhelmed by the other ingredients or are barely noticeable. The first sip seems rich, when the tea hits my tongue. The flavors are warm and slightly-sweet in a very natural way. But, as I taste the sip in my mouth and swallow it, I find myself slightly disappointed. The tea seems weak on flavor, as though I had not steeped it long enough, surprising given its six-minute steep time. To me, the flavor also seems very singular - coconut, a touch of lemongrass, and not much oolong. While it could be the case that the oolong has blended very well with the coconut and therefore is not distinguishable on its own, I think I would have preferred a blend, where the coconut has a chance to show itself and be supportive.

On my personal enjoyment scale, I would rate DavidsTea's Coconut Oolong a 3. The cup tasted okay, but to me it felt like it was missing a lot, and the balance seemed off. A cup heavier in oolong would have improved this blend.



Photo credit to Built from Ink and Tea.
DavidsTea's Coconut Oolong is no longer available.
This review was unsolicited and uncompensated.
You can read more about my Personal Enjoyment Scale, here.
Text is copyright 2017, Built from Ink and Tea.

Tea Review Tuesday - A Review of DavidsTea's Super Ginger Rooibos

If I had to make a short list of my favorite DavidsTea blends, Super Ginger would be right near the top. Given how much tea I drink, you can be assured that I have no desire to stop drinking, just because I am nearing bedtime. However, caffeine affects me as it does other folks, and decaffeinated black teas have never been my favorite. Herbal blends are good, but what I really enjoy is a nice cup of rooibos. And when that rooibos has ginger (also a favorite flavor of mine) in large quantities, it gets steeped regularly!

Super Ginger from DavidsTea blends ginger and peppercorns with green rooibos for a slightly-sweet, and definitely spicy, cup of caffeine-free, antioxidant-rich deliciousness. Normally, when I make Super Ginger, I want my rooibos and ginger flavors to be as strong as possible, so I steep five teaspoons with four cups of water (1.25 teaspoons per cup) for seven minutes in my Adagio triniTea. (Of course I am making a big pot of this - by the end of one cup I most certainly want more!) However, for this review, I am going with the average of the four to seven minute range, suggested by DavidsTea, and brewing this Super Ginger for five and a half minutes, using just-boiled water (the same temperature as I use for many herbal blends and black teas).

As I wait for my completed cup to cool, I take a whiff of the container of dry rooibos blend. One does not have to put their nose into the container to smell it; the spiciness hits fast and hard. With both white and black pepper, this could be a little bit like a food topping, but the ginger adds some distinct heat and a touch of sweet aroma. By comparison, the steeped cup smells much sweeter with the ginger having been rehydrated and flavoring the blend. Pepper notes are more subtle, now, and the rooibos is noticeable.

I can hardly wait for the rooibos to be cool enough to drink. The first sip washes heat over the tongue, but the heat is subtle and not overpowering. The five and a half minutes were ideal for steeping. Living up to its name, Super Ginger provides plenty of ginger flavor that builds the body of this cup. The rooibos sits quietly in the background, letting the ginger be most prominent. On the edges, decently strong, are the peppers. Having pepper in a drink, versus having it on food, is an interesting experience, as the spice spreads thinly over the tongue with a pleasant burning tingle. The rooibos does taste sweet from the ginger, though only slightly. One would never consider this drink to in any way be sugary- or fruity-sweet.

On my personal enjoyment scale, I would absolutely rate Super Ginger a 5. I enjoy every sip of this rooibos and the flavors it brings. As spicy teas and herbal blends are not very common, I feel that the uniqueness of Super Ginger makes it one that I want to share with others, so that they can experience it, too.



Photo credit to Built from Ink and Tea.
DavidsTea's Super Ginger is available in their retail stores and from their website, here.
This review was unsolicited and uncompensated.
You can read more about my Personal Enjoyment Scale, here.
Text is copyright 2017, Built from Ink and Tea.