What tea would you drink with Dr. Who?
Would you try some colorful blend, or a nice British black tea? (Would it make a difference which Doctor?) What about Sherlock? Or the people in the Firefly universe? (Certainly the 'Verse has a Chinese element.) What would Snape's brews taste like?
You can answer these questions, or have them answered for you, at Adagio Teas, a website that not only sells normal teas, but invites you to make personal blends. You can make them for yourself, name them for a loved one, or most excitingly, you can make the tea equivalent of fan art, blending teas to express, through flavor, the wacky whimsy of Tom Baker, or the biting cruelty of Moriarty.
You either love Adagio or hate them: on one hand, they're a little twee, the kind of place that serious tea drinkers love to hate, along with Constant Comment, teabags, the phrase "chai tea" and flavoring white tea with fruit. It's just a little too trendy and self-consciously hipster to be a "real" tea shop, even online, and indeed it's somewhat disheartening to find the noble Matcha lending its subtle bittersweetness to mints and dried fruit. On the other hand, who said that tea should always be serious? Adagio means 'at leisure', and is the happy, playful side of tea, like finger painting murals on butcher paper, or making English muffin 'pizzas' in the toaster oven with random tomatoes, random cheese and your choice of cold cuts and/or garnishes. Well, hey... some people like Constant Comment…
Anyway, they have all the usual suspects as far as plain old non-blended teas go: your oolongs, your green teas, pu-erh, Darjeeling, Earl Grey…plus rooibos, white tea, herbals, Lapsang Souchong, you get the idea. They also have some "blooming teas" which mean that some nice Chinese person hand-sewed your drink for you so it "blooms" in your cup like one of those old-time water flowers in a bivalve. Don't you feel special?
Anyway, the main idea is that you can blend teas to your wish. This is "easy peasy" as they say, and you can add your own label, fancy name, or whatnot to make this tea totally your own, somewhat like making T-shirts or e-books, so whether your inspiration is Schoenberg or Shades of Grey, you can make your mark on tea history, and even pick up a little coin while you're at it. For buyers, there's an extensive breakdown on what's inside your potential brew and a per-cup estimate on how much it costs, if you need reassurance that shelling out $12/oz max isn't too heavy a Jones. So, live a little! Name a tea for Raggedy Ann! Sip a sample of Firefly! Drink some Night Vale while listening to Night Vale! Go nuts! Have a ball!