On Tap Today and Order Arrival

This morning I’m drinking Cranberry Autumn from Harney & Sons. My tea orders got here yesterday, just in the nick of time, since I’d almost run out of black tea (my staple for every day caffination). The Cranberry Autumn is delightful to start with this morning, though I think it would benefit from tap water (I used filtered this morning from the fridge, and it’s a bit astringent & thin).

Harney & Sons produces my favorite flavored teas of all time. I don’t know what it is, but their flavors are true, and the base tea is always very high quality. Florence is my absolute favorite flavored tea – black tea with chocolate and hazelnut. Very tasty, and that’s what the bigger black tin in the picture contains. The smaller black tin is Peaches & Ginger, and the red is Cranberry autumn, of course. They also included a sample teabag of their Darjeeling, but as I’m not a huge fan of Darjeeling or teabags, it will probably wait awhile. I’ll have to check and see if their bags are compostable or not.

From Adagio, I ordered large tins of Lapsang Souchong and Keemun Concerto (daily teas for me), and a smaller tin of Irish Breakfast (I wanted just a refill bag, since I already have both small and large IB tins, but alas, they were out of all but the 4oz quantity). My husband likes Irish Breakfast, so I try to keep some on hand for him (I’m quite fond of it myself). For some reason Irish Breakfast seems illusive right now – part of the reason Adagio got my order this time was simply that they had IB in stock, and other companies I like IB from didn’t.

I also ordered the sampler box of their new teas – and I have to say, that Yunnan Noir smells absolutely delish. Can’t wait to try it, but I will, because I want to brew it up properly in a teapot, rather than my rushed triniTea cups for work. This weekend though…

The other teas included were Emerald Needles, White Symphony, Keemun Rhapsody, Golden Spring (which smells almost fruity and rich – can’t wait to try it), and Fujian Baroque (that smells chocolate-y and sweet).

And as a bonus, I noted that *all* of my tea was packaged in tins, with mostly paper as box filler (though Adagio did include a couple plastic air pillows, to my disappointment). I’ve been trying to avoid unnecessary plastic lately, and it’s really quite wonderful to know that at least these two tea companies care enough to package their tea in environmentally friendly tins (even though Adagio’s lids are plastic, at least they are sturdy and reusable). It’s not that I didn’t know about the tins before, I just suddenly *noticed* it quite radically this particular time, if that makes any sense.

This afternoon I think I’ll break out the Peaches & Ginger…