234 Tasting Notes
The sweet, hypnotic scent of roses rises from this very pretty tea decorated with rose petals. At a 3:30 minute steep it brews up black and produces a sweet rose-flavored brew. The taste is reminiscent of fine halavah made with rose water. The tea blends well with the rose flavor but its taste is not very prominent.
I bought a canister of this after trying the sample and I’m glad I did. However, it is not an everyday tea. It is something that demands quiet sipping time and space.So what does one say to one’s tea collection after certain members of it have given one a splitting headache? Balls! Balls! Bring them on!
It really is a great tea. Sharp like good chocolate without being bitter and with a full ration of caffeine to chase away the most troublesome headache. Bring on the Balls!
Actually, I like to say “Balls! Balls!” as a general rule in varying social situations and almost always in public.
But I will give you that the onset of a headache gives the saying more of an emotional drive.
It is deeply amusing to me to be able to say Balls! and mean tea.
I actually use the word “balls” in my daily swearing. “Holy BALLS!” or during my drive time…“Dude!!! pause BALLS, man!”
Good times.
It’s an average chai, nothing special. I prefer the chais from Upton Teas.
One problem I’ve had with all of Adagio’s flavored teas has been that I get a splitting headache after drinking them. I didn’t want to blame the tea, but so far this has happened every single time I’ve tried an Adagio flavored tea and not at all with their non-flavored teas. (It also hasn’t happened with the Golden Moon or Upton Teas flavored blends.) I tried a number of them on my Chicago trip but didn’t log them because I didn’t want to be unfair to the tea. However it seems that I am probably sensitive to the base they use for their flavors. So, I will not be trying any other flavored teas from Adagio.
Wow, what a bummer. I wonder what it is that they put in there? Perhaps you could write and ask them just for informative purposes?
I probably could ask them but I don’t know that they would know the answer. Typically flavors are alchemy. They’re deep, dark secrets cooked up in flavor labs which do not need to reveal this information and typically don’t.
I’ve been a vegetarian for about 35 years and have learned over time what is likely possible to learn and what is likely not possible. Flavors are typically not possible to find out much about (but they’re usually not made with animal ingredients, either).
I kind of figured they might not… Oh well. As much as I like tea, I don’t know that there are any for which I would be willing to withstand a headache. Maybe I’m a wuss. Or maybe headaches just suck a big one.
Wow, that’s not fun at all! I wonder what they have in them that gives you a headache… too bad there’s no real way to find out.
I’ve never heard of anything like that! But its good to know. That’s what happens to me when I have anything caffeinated. I’ve always assumed the flavored teas are based on plain black tea so I’ve never tried them.
@pinkShaya: The flavored teas are based on plain black tea. It actually looks like a CTC Ceylon tea. The flavoring is added to that. So if you get headaches from caffeine, you’ll definitely get headaches from the caffeinated versions of the flavored teas. You might be able to tolerate the decaf versions, though.
@pinkShaya Disclaimer: I’ve never tried this myself, so if you WANT to test the waters you might want to do it on a day when you’ve got nothing important to do and medication or whatever you use handy. However, I’ve heard from a couple of different sources that if you steep a black tea for around 45 seconds and then toss that out it gets rid of a pretty big portion of the caffeine. I also found this as well, and they explain it in a little more detail: http://is.gd/4w69w
Might be helpful?
@takgoti: Just found this info on Facts and Myths about Caffeine in Tea: http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caffeine-and-tea-myth-and-reality.html
He says the short steep to remove caffeine is a myth and that it takes at least five minutes to remove a significant amount of caffeine from tea.
(There is a lot of other good info on caffeine in tea in this article/blog post as well.)
Oh wow! Super interesting stuff. Bookmarked that. Thanks for the link.
I’d email them, the person doing the live chat for Q & A probably wouldn’t know, but if you email them, your ? can be forwarded to a person who might. The worst that’ll happen is they’ll say they don’t know. But if you don’t ask, there’s a 100% chance you’ll never find out. Have you tried their straight ceylon? Does it happen w/ their vanilla rooibos chai and bengal green chai as well? What about their spiced green (which is basically a chai type tea)?
I really like this one. It has a sweet, buttery, floral scent. The taste is a very light buttery, nutty, with a very slight vegetal. It reminds me more of a white tea than a green tea in its light taste. The color is a pale, cornsilk yellow that is very appealing. I may steep it for a little longer than 3 minutes next time to see what it does.
These are really big pearls. In fact, they are much too big to be called pearls. Let’s just go with takgoti and call them balls. It’s a good name for these. They expand into beautiful brown leaves and brew up into a red-black liquor.
The fragrance is slightly fruity with a slight smoky note. It’s a strong tea with a slight astringency and a very slight bitter chocolate taste (I may have oversteeped it slightly). The smoky notes exist within the taste as well. It’s a good strong tea and better than I expected. Not as good as my favorite blacks but I wouldn’t toss these balls out of the room. They have a lot to offer.
Mmm I love halavah and this tea sounds delicious. :)