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Sunday I wrote about my Tuesday Tea Time, and intended to post that on Tuesday, however my blonde was showing and I ended up posting it early.

Silly me.

Now that it’s Tuesday I can finally say it’s Tuesday Tea Time!



Today I am drinking the Sour Apple herbal tea I ordered from Adagio. I’ve gotten this before and I honestly forgot how much I enjoy this stuff. The last time I ordered I only got the sample, and that’s enough for someone to figure out if they like it.
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This past week was a waiting game for me. After spending so much time not buying things for myself and focusing on the nitty gritty of life, I decided to be a wild child and order some new teas from my favorite loose tea company: Adagio.

Granted, they are my favorite since they are the only people I have really ordered tea from online. However, I have yet to be disappointed.

If you remember before, I posted about some samples a few years ago about my very first order from Adagio. I decided I needed to clean out my tea cabinet and found the little sample tins again. Sadly, I used up all the herbal ones and only had the caffeinated ones still. I had to really cut caffeine out of my life and so those are not going to get used.

It’s rather a good thing that I didn’t use them anyways since they were 4 years old! Loose herbal or mixed teas should last about 6 months according to my research, and up to 12 months for good quality pure tea.

They are long past their use by dates! Yuck. I’m sure they would be perfectly safe to consume but who knows.

So I ordered my tea and had to wait all the way to the weekend for it to arrive. I admit to going a little crazy with the ordering, but I was so excited to finally spend money on myself that I just couldn’t resist getting ALL the samples that I’ve been curious about plus larger sizes of the teas I loved from last time. I was so excited when the husband and I went to pick up the mail.

However I was not so excited to see this big rip in the box.



Luckily all of my tea was inside and nothing appeared to be missing or damaged. I wasn’t so sure at first since the inside of the box faintly smelled of fruit, but that could just be the bags themselves or maybe some scent from the warehouse? Everything is perfect and in order. Yay tea!



So here’s what I got:
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So this is my fist foray into the loose leaf tea business as well as into an Oolong. This was one of the many that came in my sampler pack I bought.

Name: Almond Oolong

Company: Adagio Teas

Type: Oolong

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It’s been a long week.

Well, technically it’s a short week since Monday was a holiday (no work, yay!) but I feel really run down at the moment. (This seems to be quite a theme for me.)

I’m training a coworker to take over my old job since the other person I trained for my job has now been promoted to manager. Now training itself isn’t quite so bad, but it’s the hours that are killing me. I was very excited to get off of this schedule at first since it is so early (I have to be there, 40 mins away, by 5am).

I really didn’t miss being woken up by my alarm clock and looking over at the time to see it flashing 3am at me. I had to start drinking caffeine again this week to try and keep myself going on this schedule, while trying to do my job so I’m not leaving my dear coworker hanging and yet train someone on a job I haven’t technically been in for over 6 months.

The lack of traffic coming home is a nice consolation prize for how I’m feeling right now.

So I decided to self medicate… No not in that way, but with a hot cup of tea and a mellow song to try and take myself to another place all together. My favorite tea of all time is Tazo’s Passion. I love the taste and how it can just relax me every time I drink it.

I decided to start doing reviews of the teas I drink. Maybe I can convince someone else to find the enjoyment in drinking tea, or help someone else find a tea they might also like. I love tea so much, and I just want to share my loves with you guys.
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My new friend, Terri, decided to surprise me with an invite to head out with her and a friend to the Chinese Garden in Portland OR. I love surprise outings.

Because I’m a hermit and don’t do well with other people at times, I thought about not going. Then I also thought about my recent goals to meet more people and to try new things. So I went.

I have to say it was a glorious trip. Not only was the day beautiful, but the garden was really nice as well. It was quite a shocker to me that this little oasis existed in the middle of a bustling city, surrounded by tall office and apartment buildings. I took tons of pictures and got to know my new friends better over the beautiful landscape as well as a good few hours in the tea house.

I almost tried to convince them not to go in the tea house since I stopped drinking tea for the last few years due to caffeine inducing my killer migraines, but they wanted to go and I gave in.

I’m such a sucker for a pretty face.

I am really glad I went though. I thought I would be just sipping ice water until I found the selection of herbal teas. It’s almost like I forgot that herbal teas existed! How silly is that.

I went with hibiscus tea, Terri had tea flowers (as in the flowers that bloom on the tea plant) and her friend Kelly had black ginger peach tea. I didn’t try their teas but I was in heaven with the hibiscus. It was nice and strong, tangy and almost citrusy. Plus it was a beautiful red color. I love strong flavored teas.

We also ordered some snacks go to with them, some vegetable dumplings as well as a red bean cake.

Red bean cake? Really? To the uninformed, silly, sheltered American this sounded really odd and not too tasty.

I was proven wrong, yet again. If you’ve never had it, try it. It’s sweet, rich and almost has undertones of a fruity chocolate. It was baked in a really beautiful pastry crust and was really moist and delicious. It went beautifully with my dark red hibiscus tea.

The dumplings were pretty awesome also. I’m not really sure what was in them but they were pretty tasty.

We each got our own little teapots and little (and I mean LITTLE) cups for our teas, which I found just charming.

All in all it was a great day, meeting a new friend and growing closer to my other friend, plus the “reintroduction” to tea for me.

I highly suggest going there if you are in the area or plan to visit. It’s small but a wonderful experience. And don’t miss out on the tea house, it is quite lovely.