Violin in C Sharp

  The front of the package bills this as a boozy black tea with white chocolate and prune. Well... I don't get the boozy bit at all.   The white chocolate is the dominant fragrance in the bouquet of the dry leaves and it adds a sweetness to the brew that means this does NOT need any sugar added to the cup for my palate. However, it is thankfully not TOO sweet.     Do I taste the prune?...... *sips again* ...... only when I'm really looking for it. Mostly, I think this tea reminds me a bit of a plum pudding..... which I guess means that it does have a sort of boozy prune profile after all....just... in a very specific combination.     The back says notes of armagnac which I maybe get? I think of armagnac being a plum and vanilla taste though I have had some armagnac that have more of a caramel and burnt orange taste and this tea has a bit of plum and maybe some burnt orange... so that could be their armagnac claim there. The back also says prune - which...

In case you hadn't figured it out - NEWS FLASH - I love tea.      Like several other tea aficionados in my extended friend group, I have managed to make my love of tea more than a simple appreciation of a beverage - I've developed my love of tea into a full blown hobby.  I collect different blends, I follow different tea companies and their blend collections the way some hobbyists follow card sets.  I have multiple drawers and shelves full of tea related paraphernalia, I have an electric water kettle that has multiple temperature settings specifically for different types of tea.... tea is a part of my daily life.  When I take a vacation someplace special, I try to find a tea cup to bring home for my collection.  For Mother's Day last year, I took my mother out to a fancy tea house to treat her to a Mother Daughter afternoon tea as a way to mark the celebration of the day. I LOVE tea.      With this in mind, it should come as no surprise ...

       Last year I did the David's Tea advent calendar and found myself some lovely new blends from a company I wasn't very familiar with.  I'd had some of their teas before and really enjoyed them, but only a few and so I loved trying blends I never would have purchased for myself.      I had so much fun with the experience last year that I decided to do it again this year and choose a different tea company to explore.  I settled on Adagio Teas because their calendar looked so cute in the add. The inside of the Adagio Teas advent calendar     Last year's David's Tea calendar design was a bunch of little drawers that pulled out to reveal pouches of loose leaf tea portioned for two.  I like this punch/perforation pocket design better.  The little drawers slipped out before their time a lot and revealed blends before their days.  This also feels a lot more like the little chocolate advent calendars that I had as a kid....