Boba Fett Fandom Blend from Adagio Teas. . . .

The fandom blends section of the Adagio website is a wonderful, wacky, wild west of tea blends. Any movie or video game or book you can think of has a series of community-made teas meticulously blended and designed for your tea-brewing pleasure.  One downside is that the blend creators can change or remove their blends at any time.  I’ve got a tea today from the Adagio fandom vault, a blend that’s no longer posted, but we’ll still take a look at it’s fun, fandom flavors: Boba Fett from Chelsea Drangsholt.

This green tea blend is fruity with a bit of earthiness.  I have a sneaking suspicion that this tea might be an early draft of her current Bossk blend, made with gunpowder green, rhubarb green, and sour apple herbal teas, Bossk being a fellow bounty hunter with Boba Fett.  Either way, this Boba Fett blend is green and striking like Boba Fett’s signature armor.  This tea has a well-balanced mix of sweet and sour fruit flavors, over a masculine, musky green teas base.  The fruit flavors give this tea an energetic pop, but the green tea won’t over-caffeinate you, so this blend can be enjoyed at any time of day.

While this exact blend isn’t live on Adagio right now, you can check out other Star Wars teas from Chelsea.

I know I’ll be brewing up a cup of this tea the next time I need some energy to kick-ass on my own adventures.  Or when I need to get hyped for one of the upcoming Star Wars universe movies.


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Adagio Teas

This tea is no longer available but click below for Star Wars teas that are.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Plum Pear Green from the Pekoe Sip House

I couldn’t resist giving Plum Pear Green tea a try from the Pekoe Sip House.  It’s nice to see a tea featuring these fruits.  I feel as though both plum and pear don’t get enough love in the fruit-flavored options of the world.  There’s plenty of peach and strawberry teas and candies, but not so many for plum or pear.

This tea did not disappoint, and even the dry leaf was fragrant with mellow plum fruit flavors.  The stone-fruit taste of plum and apricot reminded me of some of my favorite oolong teas, with their trademark smooth earthy and fruity tones. The pear comes forward with the green tea taste, both a bit nutty and grassy at the same time.

This tea is best brewed while following the instructions, with cooler water and a two minute steep time.  To further bring out the fruit’s nature sweetness, consider adding a touch of honey to you mug.  Or give this tea a try as a cold brew and mix in a few fresh pear slices to dress it up.

This blend is juicy and fruity, against a savory green tea backdrop.  There’s a lovely buttery mouthfeel and the crisp-sweet note of pear on the aftertaste.  The blend isn’t too candy-like or over-flavored, but it’s also not too boring.  The plum and pear are nicely balanced in the overall palette of the tea and make for a very comforting, drinkable cup.


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Pekoe Sip House
Description:

A gentle blend of green tea with the flavors of fresh pear and soft sweet plum.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Lavender Dream from Dave and Solomons Tea

Dave and Solomons are a mother and son tea blending company, currently selling their indie creations on their Etsy store. I hadn’t come across them before this sample arrived with me, but it’s always nice to discover a new tea company, if a little dangerous for the bank account!

lavender-dreams2Lavender Dream is a fruit and herbal blend, combining the sweet fruitiness of peach with the light floral of lavender. It sounds a little odd to begin with, but I was pleased to discover that they’re actually two flavours which work incredibly well together. The dry leaf itself is incredibly pretty, with dark pink rose petals, bright blue cornflowers, and purple lavender buds, plus large (1-2cm square) chunks of dried papaya.

I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 5 minutes in boiling water. The result is a medium orange-brown liquor, which smells wonderful and which filled the entire kitchen with the scent of fuzzy peach.  To taste, it’s very much as you might expect. The peach isn’t particularly natural-tasting, hence “fuzzy” peach, but it’s strong and incredibly juicy, and I’m more than happy with that. The lavender is definitely playing second fiddle here, not really making itself known until very much the end of the sip. When it does, it’s a pleasant counterpoint to the sweetness of the peach, adding a delicate floral flavour, and just a hint of perfume.

I expected this one to be a lot heavier on the lavender, given that it’s called Lavender Dream. Having tasted it, I feel Peach Dream lavenderdreams3would be a much more appropriate name, because it is primarily a peach flavoured tea. I’m not the biggest fan of floral teas, particularly when they’re herbal blends, but in this case it shouldn’t put you off. The lavender really isn’t very prominent, but the contribution it makes is balancing one, and pleasant to boot.

As  this is a  caffeine free blend, it’ll likely be making a regular appearance in my evening rotation for a good long while to come. I love the juicy peach notes, and I’d actually like to try this one iced (although I might have to wait until summer, or a rare warm day, for that now.) I’ll definitely be trying more blends from Dave and Solomons Tea in the future on the strength of this experience. There’s certainly some skilled blending going on!


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Fruit/Herbal Tisane
Where to Buy: Dave and Solomons Tea
Description

Yummy peach cubes with organic lavender, rose petals, marigold & cornflower petals. MMMM Soooo good!

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Summer Rain Tea from Art of Tea

summer_rainTea Information:

Leaf Type:  White Tea

Where to Buy: Art of Tea

Tea Description:

The taste of fresh sliced melon washes the palate and refreshes the spirit. A special blend of organic white tea fully infused with the fresh essences of cantaloupe and jasmine. Perfect as an iced tea or after a meal.

Caffeine Content: Medium

Tasting Notes: Fruity, Crisp, Light

Learn more about this tea here. <– Update this link to the vendor’s product page. Don’t forget to remove this instructional text!

Taster’s Review:

Summer Rain Tea from Art of Tea is a wonderful delight!  This loose leaf white tea is fruity, crisp, and light in touch, feel, smell, and taste.  The dry leaf smells very much like cantaloupe and when you add the hot water the natural jasmine aroma comes into play a bit more.

I have enjoyed this tea both hot and cold.  The thing I find almost as fascinating as the flavor is the sight of this tea once infused.  This is one of the darker white teas I have seen to date!  Just by looking at it in the cup you may mistake it for a light to medium strength black tea instead of a white tea.

Summer Rain by Art of Tea makes me want to get back into the white tea phase of my tea drinking days!  It helps warm these winter moments and promote dreams of summery weather once again!  Two thumbs up on this white tea – Summer Rain – from Art of Tea.

 

Tropical Sunshine Green from A Quarter to Tea

TropicalSunshineTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Green

Where to Buy: A Quarter to Tea

Tea Description:

Summer winding to a close, getting you down? Don’t fret — just let yourself get whisked off to the beach. Tangerine, mango, raspberry and coconut make a fruity tropical cocktail that will have you hearing waves and feeling the sand underfoot.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

We’re a long way from summer now, so a tropical themed tea feels a little out of place but just because this might not be the ideal season to drink it doesn’t mean it’s not going to be super tasty! So, when I cold brewed this tea I did my absolute best to be open minded about it. And honestly, it wasn’t hard: the coconut in the blend smells super fresh and yummy and I could see lots of goji berries which are a fruit I’ve really tried to learn more about this year. Both are things for me to get excited about.

Like I said, this was cold brewed because Lauren from A Quarter to Tea specifically said on the tea’s page that it’s great iced. I don’t normally ice teas, but I do cold brew them! I find, if a company is going to specifically point out a way to try their tea I want to take that into consideration.

Mostly; I thought this was just a really nice smooth, vegetal and grassy cold brewed green tea that demonstrated characteristics of both the Chinese and Japanese style greens in the blend. On top of the really enjoyable base, the coconut was quite a dominant flavour. It tastes insanely fresh! It’s a nice balance between tropical “Pina Colada” type coconut and a more confectionery type coconut. It reminds me of DT’s Coconut Grove which is something I haven’t gotten to say in a LONG time since that delightful blend has been discontinued for a while now.

Sadly, none of the fruit really seems to contribute much flavour. I certainly don’t taste the goji and I just barely taste the faintest citrus flavour on the finish of the cup. I’d never be able to identify it as tangerine is I wasn’t reading an ingredients list. I don’t mind the absence of fruit because I get to enjoy the coconut, but I doubt that’s entirely what was intended and if you’re looking for fruit flavour you may be disappointed with this blend.

Regardless, it was a good experience for me.