My best friend gifted me with a ‘flavors’ starter set from Adagio Teas for Christmas. The set comes complete with an ingenuiTEA™ teapot, four samples of loose tea (mango, oriental spice, strawberry, and vanilla, although there are other samplers to choose from), and A Guide To Tea book.
It’s exactly the sort of thing I might see somewhere and covet for thirty seconds before walking away and forgetting it completely. Not because it isn’t an awesome gift, but I’m too practical to buy something so unnecessary when I can just as easily drop some Celestial Seasonings™ in a mug and nuke it for two minutes.
But my bestest is a good gifter and I am fortunate enough to benefit from her talent for scoping out interesting and useful products.
I’m not going to lie though. I think I was a little intimidated by it at first. Brewing tea is really an art that I know very little about and knowing I would have to report back to my friend made me a little nervous to try it. What if I messed it up? Or what if it sucked? What if the teapot malfunctioned on my first use and I had to explain to my friend that I am completely inept with these newfangled contraptions?
I admit, the what-if’s kept me from trying out my new gift for almost three weeks.
(That, and I’m fundamentally lazy.)
Luckily for me, both my friend and Adagio Teas are essentially brilliant.
- Start with A Guide to Tea which is exactly that, a short but informative guide to different kinds of teas as well as how to brew them. It provided simple instructions that told me exactly how much tea and water to use according to the different types, the temperature of the water, and for how long to let the tea seep. You can’t get any more clear cut than that.Confident I could at least handle the mechanics of tea brewing I moved onto the next daunting task.
- The ingenuiTEA™ is the most ridiculously simple, but brilliant invention I’ve come across for the kitchen. Especially considering the entire starter kit is only $19.00 US. Here’s how it works:
- Add tea and hot water.
- Seep.
- Sit entire teapot onto any sized cup or mug and the tea drains from the bottom, leaving the leaves behind.
There was literally no mess. No spills, no dripping, no fuss. The entire thing couldn’t have been easier. (I should mention here that I used two cups of water which filled a medium-sized mug just fine. Perfect for an individual cup of tea.)
It was a dream to hand wash too, although the product boasts being both microwaveable and dishwasher friendly. I’m already considering purchasing a second one for my office at work.
- The final part of the gift is the sample of tea included. You get four miniature, air-tight canisters full of loose tea in four flavors.
This was perhaps the thing I was most skeptical about as I come from the side of the pond where tea is served iced and sweet. You add lemon to cut the sugary taste, or mint to cool you off in the summer, but experimenting with flavors is a fancy luxury I never really discovered until I went to college and began hanging out in coffee shops.
I know that I am a fruity tea drinker, a fact my darling bestest seemed to know intuitively. Serious flavors of tea such as earl grey and english breakfast aren’t really my thing (and I admit to being slightly wary of the oriental spice but I’m a big fan of American chai, so we’ll see).
But I love a good orange or peach tea any day. Raspberry, blueberry, cinnamony apple, you name it, I’m there.I decided to start with the strawberry flavor. The guide tells me that since it’s a black tea, it generally works best with one teaspoon of tea per cup of water. I made two cups and let me tell you, there is plenty of tea left to be made.
So, if you’re hesitant to try new flavors, or try tea at all, the sample sizes are a great introduction. Adagio is selling them for around $2.00 US and claims they should make ten cups.
The tea itself was perfect. The fruit wasn’t overpowering, the tea wasn’t bitter, and it wasn’t at all too sweet when I added some sugar. I am very much looking forward to experimenting with the flavors and trying a strawberry-mango tea next, or perhaps a strawberry-vanilla before I branch out and purchase some different flavors from the site (blood orange herbal, I’m looking at you). Bestest says a chocolate-hazelnut blend is her current favorite but I think I might have to take her word for it.
Not only am I considering a second starter set for myself, but my mother wants one now too, and to be very honest, this is a fabulous gift for any tea lover or anyone else on your list who likes to experiment with fun and innovative foods and products.
And at prices that are nearly unbeatable for what you receive. I only wish I’d know about this myself this past Christmas. 
