12/30/07 Part II

I had some Yunnan Jig later in the day anyway. Much better. I felt better after I had it.

The letter from the Adagio people:

Hi Russell,

Thank you for your note. I personally haven't had Teavana's Golden Monkey,
but I would be safe in saying that they are of the same quality- however
Teavana decides to mark up the price is their company policy.

Our musical names go with the theme, but for the most part, you can figure
it out by looking at the tea base name, for example- Ceylon Sonata- is the
regular grade of Ceylon black tea, Ceylon Waltz- a bit of a higher quality
of Ceylon. It also helps to look at the price. Many tea companies give the
same teas various names to be creative and to differentiate themselves from
other tea companies- our names are all musical, to go with our company's
name and theme.

We definitely encourage trying out various brands and types of teas in order
to build your pallet and recognize when you're getting ripped off for low
quality tea, and when you're getting a good deal on high quality tea- hope
this information helps! Have fun discovering the world of fine teas. :)

Please visit us again soon,

Adagio Teas
http://www.adagio.com

This is just a great response. I love them more for it.

12/30/07

So I forgot to put in the response email from Adagio. Ooops. Meanwhile, more Christmas tea: orange, lemon, some other fruits, and spices...just masks the natural tea flavor I like. It seems that I probably should be putting sugar in that tea with all those normally sweet things (except the lemon, of course). It does seem to be premium quality tea. I used my new teapot. It's an improvement in one area: the top is large enough for me to put my whole hand in so I can clean the pot. But it drips something fierce when you pour it. So my search for teapots goes on.

Today was the Ceylon Sonata. Ho hum. I should have gone for the Yunnan Jig...I needed more flavor, more "kick"...