Today’s Tea is Rose Petal Blend by Sothis for Adagio!

This one smells AAMAZINGGG when you open it! Like the best creamcicle you ever tasted. Or smelled. Funnily enough, not one person on the reviews I looked at mentioned that fact, but you smell the citrusy earl grey base and the vanilla / cream overtones at the same time, so it’s just straight creamcicle to me. I didn’t smell the rose at all, tbh, but it comes out nicely in the cup.

It’s a strong tea for sure, would more than hold up to cream and sugar. It’s very earl grey at the front of a sip and then floral and rosy at the end, without being perfumey; apparently some people don’t like rose as a flavor, but I, who drinks straight rose tea, think they’re insane, and also that this wouldn’t be too much even then.

Cutting the ear grey with ceylon, I think, was smart. It lightens the actual tea part of the blend so it’s no too heavy or bitter: the tea still comes through, but the flavors balance nicely.

I’m not sure what fandom this is for, since I’m not much into video games (what with my terrible hand eye coordination), but it’s a really good tea. One of the tops from this box!

It’s not letting me pick up a link for whatever reason, but it looks like this! Just search Rose Petal Blend on adagio.com!

Ps: I might drop a group review post this week; I’ve been taking pictures as I drink through the teas, but I’ve been too busy to post!

Today’s tea: Adagio Chocolate!

One of their single flavor teas, which, honestly, I think are not their strong suit. In the bag it smells like tootsie rolls, like most chocolate teas do. In the cup, it smells more like chocolate cake, which makes me sad because it mostly just smells like it; it tastes like black tea with just a literal whiff of chocolate.

Leaves are small and compact, and don’t grow or unfold too much while brewing. It’s a decent black tea and would probably go well with milk and sugar, but last time I tried this one (and also the one from Harney & Sons which is similar), it didn’t bring out the chocolate much.

I think I’m learning that three minutes is definitely not long enough for any tea to brew to my tastes! I like a strong brew. This is three minutes, still too hot to drink; it gets much longer if you let it sit until it’s a comfortable drinking temp.

I wonder if chocolate teas might do better with cocoa powder or actual chocolate pieces rather than trying to use artificial chocolate flavor; I think that’s why they smell like tootsie rolls and don’t taste like much. Not much real chocolate.

Final verdict? Eh. Cocoa exists, and tea exists, but I haven’t yet been convinced they need to be combined.

If you wanna give it a try for yourself, you can get yours here!

Tea of the Day: Adagio Pomegranate Green

Not gonna lie, I’m kind of disappointed by this one.

It smells amazing in the bag, like raspberry jam…and then tastes like a vaguely fruity regular green tea. Not like pomegranate at all. When I think of poms, I think of rich and tart-sweet, something that would blend great with raspberry…but it doesn’t do any of that.

If I hadn’t smelled it first, and / or didn’t know what it was supposed to be, it might be nice as a green with some vague flavor, but yeah. No. It’s an okay tea, but not great.

:: sadface ::

Today’s tea is White Strawberry Basil by Adagio!

This tea is so good?? The first one so far that is buy in a bigger dose!

In the bag, it smells phenomenal. So fruity, so sweet, like strawberry jam or fruit leather or some other very fruity thing made of real fruit.

I’m not sure how much actual tea is in here, but it’s pretty in the hand!

The packet says 3m but my tea timer app said 4 for white tea, so I split the difference at three and a half (ish), and it was light colored and light flavored as I’d expect from a white tea. The strawberry smell held up super well to the hot water, and it smelled So Good. Like, I’d wear that as a body spray.

Even too hot to drink, it was yummy: light, fruity, definitely strawberry ish. Worth burning my tongue to test.

I was at work, so not leaving it wasn’t really an option. I’m pleased to say it holds up very well to being left until it gets cold! It would probably make an excellent iced tea, to be honest. It didn’t get bitter at all, and I think most of the darkening was probably from the fruit. I was a little worried that the herbal or rosehips flavors would take over, but they really didn’t. This is a Very Balanced Tea, and it got stronger in the harmony it had already.

I’m sad I forgot to finish it or rebrew a new cup before I left!

Adagio CommuniTEA for April 5 2021: Ginger Peach

Today’s tea is Ginger Peach! I never got this one for myself bc I used to work at a place that sold Republic of Tea ginger peach and I didn’t like it, so I assumed this would be the same. It’s not!

The first whiff coming out of the bag smells like otter pops–like, specifically an artificial fruitiness. After that it smells like ginger ale like most gingery teas do. And then it mellows into a nice vaguely fruity, vaguely gingery melange.

At the three-minutes-for-black tea mark it smells nice. Sort of peachy, sort of apricoty, not much ginger. And the taste is not too gingery either, but mild and fruity, and mostly like tea. Probably sugar would bring the peach out (but I have a cavity so not today).

It tastes mostly like tea, with that floral peachiness up front and the kinda-gingeriness in the back after you swallow. But you can sort of feel the ginger in your belly? This would probably be a good tea for after dinner, or if you’re feeling icky in your stomach, without it being as overwhelmingly gingery as teas meant for that sort of situation. It doesn’t taste medicinal at all.

Here’s what the bag for today looks like:

Letting it sit makes the tea stronger. Like most black teas, it takes on sort of a bitter edge pretty quickly, but also the ginger gets stronger and that actually seems to balance the bitterness. When it’s real strong, I bet it could stand up to milk really well.

Overall, a pretty pleasant tea, considering I didn’t think I’d even like it at all!