The Friday Review....Adagio Teas

Hello there,

Happy Friday! Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - we hope you've had a fab week!

It's Friday....so we're back with another tea review for you...this week we have been discovering adagio teas who specialise in bringing fresh teas to tea lovers, direct from tea farmers. Their website offers teas, teaware, blends and gifts and includes a range of black, white, green and herbal teas to name a few.

The lovely people at adagio have sent us a selection of teas to try.....and a lovely pink porcelain cup complete with infuser....

Isn't that a cute cup!

So, we decided to try the cup out with the white tropics tea first (you know us - we can't resist a white tea!).

Let's take a look at the tea first....White Tropics is a blend of sweet white tea from China and the flavour of coconuts and pineapple....which sounds like the perfect cup of tea to us!

The tea leaves have a fruity aroma that hits you when you open the packet, there is a distinct smell of coconuts. The blend includes white tea leaves, pineapple flavour, coconut flavour and rose hips.

It is recommended that you use two heaped teaspoons per cup and allow the tea to brew for approximately 3-5 minutes. Let's take a look at the cup we are using to brew our cuppa....

To prepare tea, you simply place leaves inside the metal infuser inside the cup and then fill the cup with hot water. Once brewed you just need to remove the infuser (the cover doubles as a coaster) and enjoy your cup of tea. The cup also comes with a cover....which makes an excellent coaster for the infuser (as demonstrated above).

This cup is perfect for enjoying a perfect cup of tea (e.g. one made with loose tea leaves) with ease and little mess. I have used this at home....but also took it into the office with me! Fab! 

The cup costs £16 from the adagio teas website.

Moving back to the tea itself....

Once brewed the tea was a pretty amber colour and a slightly unusual aroma which was different to the tea leaves before hot water was added.

I really enjoyed the delicate fruity flavour, it was a lovely, refreshing cup of tea....but I wasn't so sure about the aroma. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was...or what I wasn't keen on.

To find out more about the teaware and teas on offer from adagio teas take a peek at their website. We'd like to thank adagio teas for sending us these lovely samples - but please remember that their kind gift has not effected our taste buds and all opinions expressed within this post are our own.

Pop back next week to see what we thought of the other three teas....

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Tried and Tested....Whittard English Rose Tea

Hello there,

Welcome back to another tried and tested tea article from Tea With Me and Friends.

Recently I received a wonderful box full of tea goodies from Whittard and Joanne at Halpern. I have to say that I was rather excited as I rummaged through the box that arrived with me and I look forward to sharing with you the various teas that I have enjoyed as a result.

I will start with the English Rose Tea that I was sent, complete with a cute little infuser. This is part of the Alice in Wonderland themed range on offer at Whittard, and I was rather pleased to also find this charming fine bone china mug to drink my tea from....

English Rose Tea
 from Whittard

The mug has a lovely key handle, which I thought was a brilliant quirky touch. Although Joe found it a little too delicate to use ("I'll snap that" were his exact words), I am pleased to report that anyone with normal sized hands will find the handle a good size and easy to use. The design is very elegant and would make any Alice in Wonderland fan happy!

The tea itself is a blended black tea with flavouring, which is best enjoyed without milk. The black tea leaves are enhanced with rose petals to produce a rather fruity blend, which I found really pleasant. 

The leaves are very dark in colour as expected, punctuated with the colourful rose petals. I'd recommend about a teaspoon of them per cup, infused in freshly boiled water.

I really liked the handy infuser, which was easy to use and allowed for simple brewing once my water had boiled.

If you look closely you might see me in the reflection!

Once brewed the tea has a beautiful amber colour and wonderful aroma. 

If I'm honest - I'm not normally a rose tea fan, as I often find them very artificial and far too floral to enjoy. However, the rose in this brew was quite subtle and gave a sweet, almost fruity taste to the tea which I enjoyed.

English Rose Tea
from Whittard

I found this to be a very mellow tea, that I enjoyed at different times of the day - but it was particularly refreshing in the afternoon with a slice of cake! 

In fact I enjoyed this tea so much that when I worked away from home this week (three nights away) I took my loose leaf tea, infuser and mug with me! Now, I think this might make me a bit of a tea snob....but I really enjoyed having a decent cup of tea at the end of the work day!

Tea on the road....
I took my home comforts with me!

The tea and infuser come together as a lovely gift set and costs £14 and the mug costs £15. To find out more about these items and more of the Alice in Wonderland range (there is lots more to see!) visit the Whittard website.

I'd like to thank Whittard and Halpern for sending me these items to try. Please note that although I have been asked to review these products by the companies, all opinions expressed are my own and I have not been influenced.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel