Roswell Strange Send Message

From Monday…

This tea is overpriced for what it is, but if you want more rant/exposition on that you can check out my review on the Zach’s Breakfast tea from the same company. Ignoring the mark up, I think it’s a fine but relatively boring tea.

Like, for the ingredient composition nothing is off tasting – it’s very mint forward, with chamomile and earthy turmeric undertones and a bit of a lingering/cloying throat sweetness. It’s deeply not a flavour profile that appeals to me, but it’s super “classic feeling” as an evening/sleep type of tea blend and for that reason I think it probably has mass appeal even though it’s not reinventing the wheel at all.

Overall… it’s fine.

Sipdown (1151)!

This grew on me a little bit over time, but it’s something I’m mostly pretty relieved to be finished with – especially because my rooibos/herbal tea sample drawer is so full right now that I can hardly close/open it. It was mostly creamy pistachio in this cup, but it always has a menthol peppermint note and is a bit too apple-y/fruity to work all fit together nicely. Long steeps are better though – more pistachio/almond.

It is a very cold, grey and rainy day today so I pulled out what I think is arguably the most cozy matcha that I own for Matcha Monday this morning…

It’s hard to describe this as tasting like anything else but Cardamom, because the flavour is just so accurate and so strong. It works with creamy, frothy matcha though and whisked up in a teacup I felt perfect warm (inside and out) while I listened to the rain and cozied up at my desk wrapped in massive blankets.

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGh6zAqAGye/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4o_16DpGbY&ab_channel=Thestate51Conspiracy

Cold Brew!

Another that came well recommended to me from Instagram tea friends, but unfortunately this was a bit more of a disappointment. While it does steep a beautiful, deep azure blue the taste just wasn’t enjoyable. Very, very lemongrass forward with the strong and unpleasant floral taste of chamomile bringing up the tail end. I knew this one was a gamble for me, as I don’t like chamomile and I’m iffy with lemongrass, but I honestly didn’t expect them to be this level of intense. I didn’t really taste any mango or lychee at all, and so there was nothing to counterbalance those flavours for me…

In the end, I ended up mixing it about 50/50 with lemonade and that produced something drinkable – but not great.

Gongfu!

This was one of the minis included in the September (at least, I think it was September) W2T subscription box. I’m happy it was included – based on the site description this is something I would have VERY heavily gravitated towards and without the minis I would have likely blind caked it.

It’s very appropriately named; so thick and viscous with aggressive camphor, petrichor, pine smoke, tobacco, decaying oak, and leather notes. Just bitter enough. This feels like Lumber Slut’s more grizzled older brother. I didn’t find it had the staying power that I expected it to have, and my session was quick/short – but I really thoughoughly enjoyed the tea. I did, in fact, end up buying a cake of it! I’m excited to get another burly shou like this one into my rotation!

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGdWBshgJew/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aKF9i5e4ZU&ab_channel=HugoHamlet

I had a Western steeped mug of this on Thursday and I really enjoyed it a lot. More so, I think, than my last tasting of it which was Grandpa steeped. I found the flavour very fresh and light to medium bodied with sweet floral character that seemingly danced on my palate. We’re talking notes of lilac, peony, and magnolia that seemed almost magical. The finish had that weird “fresh linen” note that sounds kind of strange until you taste it – but just fresh, clean, and Spring-like. It was a bit green, but no rough edges to the flavour. Everything seems to roll together seamlessly.

It was one of the better cups I had during the week, and thus I feel the need to marginally increase my previous rating of 78…

Currently undecided on this blend…

The cranberry was really pleasant in the cup and worked well with the black tea base; more of a sweet and jammy cranberry (likely because of the presence of cherry, as well) than a tart/puckery one and that’s the sort of cranberry I like more. The more herbal and bordering on smoky notes of raspberry leaf come through, and work okay with the fruit. The thing that I feel sort of… “meh” about is this sort of creamy mint note that I’m sure is intended to be the ‘frosted’ part of ‘frosted cranberry’ – it’s pretty strong and consistent throughout the sip, but it’s very pasty tasting to me, like a fondant flavoured with mint extract!? I think that flavour could work with a cranberry tea to give it more of a sweet pastry/decadent type of vibe but with the presence of the rapsberry leaf (which is just so natural/herbal) the combination felt a little cacophonous for me. I will need to revisit this a few more times, I think, to try and wrap my mind around the flavour composition a bit better…

I remember really liking this one the last time I had it, and my rating seems to support that. What I don’t remember is the heat/spice of the chili pepper being so strong! I drank this one pretty late at night while rewatching Thumeblina on Disney+ (the soundtrack was so much better than I remember it being)! and I found myself almost panting at points because the heat of the chili was so intense with each sip. It works really well with the more dark cocoa like notes and black tea and if the goal was a Mexican Hot Chocolate sort of vibe then I think it was totally achieved!

Candy Corn is a Halloween classic so how could I resist picking up a Candy Corn tea for this October!? Let me tell you a secret though; when it comes to actual candy corn it’s not a flavour that I enjoy…

It’s a testament to the power/influence of it as a Halloween icon though because I see basically any Candy Corn inspired thing other than real Candy Corn and I immediately want to buy it because motherfucking Halloween! Shockingly, there are probably a DOZEN different Candy Corn inspired tea blends on Adagio so I had a lot of range to pick from. I chose then one that had the most appealing to me flavour composition and not the one I thought was most accurate to actual Candy Corn, which is basically just a mix of fondant/icing that tastes like pure sugar. No thanks…

So this is essentially caramel/orange/cream with black tea and honeybush. I guess I have seen cream and caramel flavour candy corn so it’s not totally off base in the interpretation of the flavour – but orange seems more out there and I would guess is only included because of the actual colour of candy corn. I’m okay with that, though!

The taste is straight forward – literally all of the flavours I just mentioned are represented, including a malty backbone from the black tea and that sweet and nutty flavour of honeybush that is so distinct. I would say the strongest flavours are orange, cream, and honeybush. It loosely reminds me of Candy Corn, but whether it’s accurate or not isn’t really the goal that I wanted from this cup – the important thing is that it tastes good, and it does. I find it a little thin, and the caramel could be better but I enjoy the orange and cream combo a lot – and I get the FUN of Candy Corn for Halloween which is exactly what I wanted.

I also drank this while watching Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror episodes which was a massively fun and nostalgic Halloween evening activity that only made the tea that much better!

Couldn’t resist stocking up on a bunch of Halloween inspired tea blends to sip throughout Spooky Season this year, and I do love a good caramel apple so this was the first one that I tapped into when I got the order earlier in the week!

I had this one at my office, but the idea is to drink these blends while doing fun Spooky Season activities throughout the month – like watching TV shows/movie and pumpkin carving. I did over steep this by a hearty ten minutes because I got caught up in responding to emails, and my inattention to steeping was punished with a hefty dose of astringency. However, the flavour of the blend itself was good and I could see from the taste that with proper steeping I would have enjoyed this a lot. Very sweet, bordering on caramel with hints of apple, cream, and cinnamon. Caramel is an infamously hard flavour to capture in tea – this felt a bit more like the thin and sort of artificial/generically sweet caramel like might see used as a Sundae syrup? On the cusp of nailing it, but just a bit off.

I look forward to brewing it properly later this monthl.