Guess what I am doing? If you guessed playing Minecraft on my new Xbox One then you are totally correct! My beloved Ramble is now monstrously huge, with many Ocean monuments, Ice Spike biomes, jungles, and fancy roofed forests. I am very pleased with how the terrain generated on the rest of the expanded world, lots of potential for epic build, and of course lots of mountains, because Ramble wouldn’t be the same without a ton of extreme hills. I only have one complaint, there is a glitch that I assume will be fixed in the next bug fix that makes map walls totally unusable, this saddens me because the first thing I did was fill all the maps and make a map wall at spawn.
Today I am looking at a tea from Adagio Teas, a store I have a great nostalgic fondness for since they were the first tea company to show up on the blog, and the first online shop I ordered from. It was scary at first, being so used to going to Wegman’s (which is a distributor for Ito-En) and selecting based on sight and sniff, moving away meant I needed to bite the bullet if I wanted a steady flow of tea. So in a way, Adagio Teas is to thanks for my raging out of control tea stash! The particular tea I am looking at is Fujian Rain, their name for Shui Xian (or Shui Hsien, Water Sprite, Water Narcissus…so many names!) one of my favorite of the Wuyi Rock Oolongs. The aroma of the dark curly leaves is pleasantly smoky, like a campfire that has gone to smolder and not a raging smoke belching fire. There is more than fire to this tea, there is also sweetness with notes of molasses, figs, dates, and a gentle spicy nutmeg and cocoa. At the finish there is a gentle, almost too faint to notice, hint of orchids.
Into my Yancha pot the leaves go, the aroma of the soggy leaves is sharp and mineral, blending wet slate, woody stems, tobacco, and smoke with a tiny hint of cocoa at the finish. The liquid is a sweet blend of cocoa and woody tobacco with a slight hint of nutmeg and char at the finish.
The first steeping is pretty light in both taste and mouthfeel. It starts with a gentle blend of honey and tobacco and moves to char and cocoa with a hint of nutmeg. The finish is a delicate and lingering mineral and light distant flower note that wavers between lily and orchid.
Second steeping time! The aroma is a bit more floral this time, along with woody tobacco and gentle char, also a nice mineral burst at the finish, like dropping water on hot coals. The taste did not change much from the first steep, the main difference is the stronger notes of tobacco and mineral and less sweetness. If I did not know this was a Shui Xian before, I certainly do now!
Third steep, the aroma is woody tobacco and char, with a strong mineral finish and a touch of cocoa. The taste is milder this time around, primarily woody tobacco and char, with cocoa and a strong mineral finish. Wet slate and hot coals linger as the aftertaste. This is a decent Shui Xian, I wish it were a bit more potent or unique, since this is very similar to the much cheaper Sea Dyke brand that I get at my local Asian Market, but if you lack access to a super cheap everday drinker, this is a good option.
For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/01/adagio-teas-fujian-rain-tea-review.html
I like the name list! I want to learn more of the Chinese words for different teas so I can understand/classify them better.