A Nice Cuppa

There is no shortage of tea suppliers these days. A simple search online will result in dozens of online stores dedicated to all things tea. One of those online stores was introduced to me by a coworker via a coupon for $5 off my purchase. What a perfect way to get my attention. I figured I would visit the site, pick something interesting and pay very little for it. Adagio.com is a great site that offers a wide variety of teas and accessories for somewhat reasonable prices and allows Adagio tea drinkers to comment on the teas and rate them. The $5 coupon was a nice touch but I ended up spending a whole lot more than I expected. Shipping is free over a certain amount, thankfully.

I enjoy the site and reading the reviews but the more I read them the more I realized that, unless the review had some sort of taste description, they couldn’t possibly help me at all. The reviewers that said, this tea is great or what a wonderful flavor and things of that nature are pretty much useless. It was the reviewers that said the English Breakfast is unlike any English Breakfast tea you’ve ever had and it has a very strong smokey flavor. It was those reviews that made this feature worth it. Unless you know an individual’s taste in tea is the same as yours, a recommendation can be way off target. Knowing the English Breakfast tea was very smokey made me decide not to order that tea. I don’t enjoy smokey flavors in my tea. I’ve tried Lapsang Souchong, which is a smoked tea, and I decided that smoked flavor was not something I would look for in a tea.

If you do use the site, be sure to look for the taste descriptions from the reviewers. They helped me pick out a number of teas, including the Irish Breakfast, Ceylon, Assam, Grapefruit, golden needle, and Yunnan jig. My unsuspecting mother-in-law ordered the English Breakfast with the $5 coupon I sent her. The smokey flavor description was spot on. I tried some from the batch she received and it didn’t resemble anything I’ve ever tasted in an English Breakfast. The smokey flavor was very strong but there were also undertones of chocolate which I thought was pretty interesting. It’s not my cup of tea but it might be yours.

Give Adagio.com a shot. They offer small samples of many of their teas. It’s a great way to discover different flavors without committing yourself to a large batch.