Tag: adagio

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!

You can get your own here!

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:

(idk why it uploaded all squashed)

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!

Adagio Masters: Rohini First Oolong

I can definitely see the lilly of the valley vibe on this one.

In the bag it has a similarly banana-y flavor to Gold Wire, but while that one smelled like cooked banana, this one reminds me of banana chips–dry and shiny and sweet. After being open a minute, the floral notes come out, and in the cup it’s almost all floral!

The leaves are big and light, and the brew at 3m is super light but smells great. Like, it looks barely brewed but it already smells and tastes like a good oolong.

Leaving it in deepens the floral and general tea-like notes, darkens the color a little, but doesn’t bring on even a hint of bitterness at all! It’s really good, guys! And the longer the tea sits, the more those fruity notes they talked about on the label come out. Still very floral, but taking on sort of an apricot background taste.

The leaves have opened up huge in there! This one would be good for a teapot, without a lot of little bits getting through to your cup.

It doesn’t need anything, and like most fancy teas, would be wasted by putting sugar and milk in it.

I think I scorched it when I went to rebrew it and the water boiled too far, but it still smells and tastes good! A little less strong, but that’s to be expected from a second brew. The third brew is definitely the darkest one, too.

It’ll be up for sale on Adagio.com soon!

Adagio Masters: Rohini Gold Wire (Feb 2021)

(did not get any of those flavors??)

In the bag, it smells like…banana bread? Like that specific tang of cooked banana, a little sweet, but without all the other smells of sugar and such. And then after it’s been open a minute, more floral.

At the black-tea appropriate three minute mark, it’s a moderately light gold brew, much lighter than I was expecting! It doesn’t smell like much, just sort of earthy. And the taste is really mild and earthy too–honestly, it doesn’t even taste that much like what you’d expect a standard tea to taste? There’s almost no tannins so it’s super mild. Maybe this is what tea leaves taste like themselves, under the usual bitterness?

But in a pleasant way. Very refined and you can tell it’s quality, it has that Fancy Tea sort of time to the flavors.

After leaving the tea in the cup (because I’m a savage who doesn’t take it out), it darkened a little and got a bit stronger, but mostly it stayed gentle and gold and not bitter. Maybe took on a little more of those floral notes.

On rebrewing, it got darker and a little bitterer, closer to what might be a more typical tea taste, but lost that floralness.

Conclusion:

  • A lovely gentle sipping tea! Doesn’t need anything but leaves and hot water.
  • Sugar and cream would definitely overpower this tea, and are entirely unneeded.
  • I really want it to have those toasty fruity flavors, so I think I’ll try this tea again with better water.

Adagio Irish Stout

I love me some adagio. They’ve been one of my favorite tea companies for, what, like close to a decade now??*

Right now they’re doing A Thing where if you spend over $45, they include a bag of their seasonal Irish Stout tea! I used a gift certificate and apparently that counts as spending, so I got a bag!

When you open the bag it smells like Baileys. Like straight irish creme. Not stout at all–no hippiness, no bitterness, no malted hints, nothing that would make it smell like a beer, so it makes the name weird. BUT it’s a delicious smell. Super yummy.

There’s cocoa nibs and little shamrock sprinkles in it, and it brews up a nice medium-dark brown. Smells more like chocolate as it brews, less like irish creme, but still smells yummy.

The taste is mostly tea, but a little sort of tootsie-roll chocolatey, and a vague hint of smooth creaminess. Still nothing to justify the name, even after I forgot to remove the teabag and it got over-brewed. And it was still very drinkable even that dark!

This would go excellent with sugar and cream, british style, and if you brew it real strong, would probably make an excellent japanese-style milk tea!

*how is everything ten years ago now??