Tag: limited edition

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??