Passionfruit

The next paragraph has nothing whatsoever to do with tea. If you’re just looking for a tea review check out the last paragraph!

Before I get into my thoughts on this tea I have to tell you that today has been an absolutely fabulous day. You see, my daughter has severe food allergies (anaphylactic shock, epi-pen, call the ambulance type allergies). When she was a year and a half old we did a food challenge to beef, and she broke out in hives after having 1/16th of a teaspoon of the stuff. Today at twelve (almost thirteen) years old she did another food challenge to beef and she passed! It’s not so much the fact that she can eat a steak that I’m thrilled about – although that is pretty awesome – rather it’s the fact that her quality of life will be that much better. It’s one less food that we have to worry about making her sick or possibly killing her. And the next time we go to a picnic she can eat a freaking hamburger just like everyone else. That’s huge to her! Food plays a major role in the way our culture entertains and celebrates itself, so she’s often felt like she’s on the outside looking in. While she is fiercely independent (heaven help me through the teenage years!) she’s also a kid who just wants to fit in. So this is big, and I’m excited for her!!! She still has other foods that she’s allergic to, but we’re hopeful that she’ll continue to outgrow at least some of them. More food challenges to come!

If you read that, thank you! And now the tea….

It was a bit more perfume-y than I was expecting, but once I got past the highly floral smell the taste was all passionfruit. The base tea was decent, but I had to concentrate to taste anything other than the fruit flavor. This isn’t exactly a negative. After all, it is Passionfruit. I enjoyed it hot, but I think I’ll like it even more iced.

Last of my sample! Another one off the to-be-finished pile. I’m beginning to believe there’s hope for me there.

I put all my Adagio samples on that pile. I don’t know. Some of them were really nice, but none of them has been delicious enough that I wanted more, and most of them I’ve just grown bored with. This one is the last of the fruity ones, not counting the Valentine sample that TeaEqualsBliss sent me and in which I can’t for the life of me find any strawberries try as I might. (I haven’t posted about this yet, but I have taken notes. It’s one of the ones I’ll be backlogging eventually when I can put a post together)

But this isn’t about the Valentine.

For a fruity tea, this one is definitely decent. Slightly artificial in flavour, I think, but all in all decent. I seem to be more pleased with Adagio’s fruit flavours than with their other flavours. The cinnamon is seriously getting nowhere.

It’s not one I’m sad that I’ve finished off. On the contrary it was rather a WIN-moment that the pile had become a little smaller.

I don’t know. I used to be enamoured with Adagio because of their enormous selection of interesting flavours. Now I think I’ve just fallen out of love with them all together.

Sipdown no. 166.

I had a bit of this sample left. I tend to save the samples I like and sip down the ones I don’t like as much. This has turned out to be exactly the opposite of what I should be doing, since it means I end up with a lot of tea I like sitting around and getting old when I fall out of serial obsession land, while tea I like less gets consumed while it is fresher. I have decided this time around to be guided more by what I feel like drinking at any given time rather than the “saving the best for last” mentality.

And I do still like this one. I now have more of an understanding of passion fruit as a fruit, given that we had it quite a bit for breakfast when I was in Costa Rica. Where they call it “Love Fruit.” For some reason I find that adorable. Leave it to English speakers to separate passion from love.

The flavor is definitely that of passion fruit over an unobtrusive but tasty black tea base, and even though it’s quite old, it’s very flavorful.

That’s the thing about California. We’re in a perpetual drought and the air is desert dry almost all of the time. Between that and pretty good storage habits, my tea has tended to keep pretty well and way longer than recommended times — at least it never mildews or anything ugly, and it seems to retain its flavor. But then I view expiration dates on everything from milk to pharmaceuticals as rather more of a guideline than a rule.

Once again, another free sample that I received either with an online order or from a contest. I think I’m not really a fan of the flavored teas from Adagio. I think this is because they seem to be vary astringent and I just don’t feel like changing how I brew it. In small batches I really like it because I am able to get the full flavor of Passionfruit out, though for the most part I have not really been able to get it to stay that way. I probably should just try harder, but don’t really feel like it. Oh well.

Second cup of the morning. The dry leaves smell fruity and sweet and the tea itself has a fruity and floral aroma. This is a simple tea, with mainly a sweet, fresh passionfruit flavor. There is a heavy, lingering aftertaste of fruit. Milk and sweetener helps to take the edge off of the heavy fruit taste, and the fruit flavors blend together well. I want to try this tea iced!

-Dry blend has medium black tea leaves with pieces of dried apple and yellow petals.
-Dry leaves smell fruity and sweet. Tea liquor aroma is fruity and floral.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium orange brown color.
-Fresh sweet passionfruit flavor and finish. Heavy and lingering fruit aftertaste.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Good tea. Heavy and sweet passionfruit flavor.

I don’t know that I really noticed passionfruit, so much as fruit flavoring, but it’s a good tea.

YAY MOMENT: This was D-lish this morning! ANOTHER YAY MOMENT: The loose leaf I steeped had a huge chunk of Passion Fruit or in this case Passionfruit. :) BUMMER MOMENT: I’m officially out of this now…sigh…

Second steep. The fruity taste is a bit stronger (or, rather, the other tastes are lighter). Still pretty good, though.

Free sample from Adagio. I don’t love fruity black blends generally, and this was okay, but nothing special. Adagio’s black base isn’t fantastic, and the fruit flavoring is fine, but it really didn’t excite me. It was all right cold, but I wouldn’t want it again.

I bought this when we visited Chicago earlier this summer, and realized today that I hadn’t tried it yet. I put it front and center on the kitchen island so I wouldn’t forget it. I have a metric crapton of it, which is a shame because I am pretty underwhelmed. If you hadn’t told me it was passionfruit, I don’t know that I could have identified it. I think I just might be over Adagio.