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"...

12/27/07

I had the Keemun Concerto today. I made it a bit light, when I was looking for a stronger flavor.

I got lots of tea for Christmas. My sister gave me a beautiful enameled cast iron teacup. My mom got me Christmas loose tea, which came in sealed silver bag. It's flavored with something...I don't remember what. She opened it before I wanted to, and now it's just sitting, unsealed. I haven't even put it in a ziplock back. Bad. Two different co-workers gave me tea: mostly in teabag form, and not-even-tea type stuff, like Rooibos, Mint, and some other kind. I got real tea, too, but it has artificial flavorings in it...It's drinkable, but not great. I also discovered the Twinings is now selling Earl Grey tea loose in 100 g containers (about 3.5 oz) at the grocery store!

I got Ahmad tea...all the teas say that they are the "finest" but I'm beginning to wonder what that is, or what it means.

Lastly, I got a reply email from Adagio, and I have to say I'm impressed. I'll put up the response later today if I think about it.

12/21/07 Part III

A letter I wrote to the Adagio people...

Merry Christmas! I love the Golden Monkey. I was on the teavana.com website, and they are charging $18.50 for 2 oz. of Golden Monkey, whereas you charge so much less. Do you know why the difference? I am a customer of yours, and a loyal one, so I'm just curious more than anything.

One other thing, though. I notice that you have musical names to go with your teas. That makes it difficult to compare your varieties with other tea sellers...

I'm not sounding so loyal...I'm just trying to explore the different teas (mainly black teas at this point). Thanks for your help!

Also...do you know of any teapots that have infusers where the infuser has a handle that can be used to pull the infuser out of the pot without having to reach into the pot and burn your fingers (and contaminate the tea), or use some other tool to do that. Because if you don't pull the infuser and tea leaves out of the pot, you have to serve it all at once. Not ideal.

Thanks for everything!

12/21/07 Part II

Golden Monkey...I looked at the Adagio website, and it's $4 for a 2 oz tin, whereas for the same amount at teavana, it's $18.50! Yikes. Not sure why the difference. I'm having the last of the Golden Monkey from Adagio right now, it's a bit weak, and so not as good as I'd like, but still drinkable. It's still soothing to the soul.

Meanwhile, I came across the cast iron teapots...they are soooo nice! And expensive. But I'm back to the infuser problem: they have the infusers that fit into the pot, but how are you supposed to remove them once the tea is done steeping??? They don't have any kind of handle or anything to get them out of the near boiling, cooling liquid. An improvement, no doubt, but still not good enough. There needs to be a handle on these infusers and a slot in the lid to let the infuser handle stick out.