Adagio Custom Blends, Cara McGee
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My son Drew (24) is drinking a large pot of Tardis. I just nabbed a cup!
It’s Earl Grey Bravo, Blackberry, & Vanilla, & tasty & bold. IMO he brewed it a little weak…
Save me some of this, I’ve been watching Dr Who lately…
I’ll try! It’s become quite popular around here! If we drink it all, we’ll probably re-order though, so you’ll get some…eventually! ;)
I can’t believe how much I loved this one! Someday I’ll get an Adagio order… :P
Cavo, did you try Farewell Ponds?
I had a sample of that one too. I think I enjoyed it, but I liked TARDIS the most of the fandom teas I’ve been lucky enough to try out.
River Song is also kind of nice. I think my most favorite fandom blend has been Bilbo Brew:)
So here I am at Maryville U. A young lady from Colorado is here to audition on harp.
I met with her & her parents last night, & they are delightful people!
I brought a 16oz insulated mug of this Tardis blend. I was a little worried about buying this, as I was when I purchased ‘farewell ponds’, but as I sipped & cried over the final Amy & rory episode, I decided to give the Tardis a try. It’s earl grey, blackberry, & vanilla, & it’s good! Probably good iced too!
Sipdown.
I hoarded the last of my Bilbo Brew at Tony’s house for quite some time, but today I drank the last cup. I’ve enjoyed this tea, but it’s no longer available. Maybe I’ll have Stacy make me a custom brew similar to it.
I loved this one soooo much. I wish I had been able to get some before it was yanked.
We went through a couple of orders of it, & I even bought the commemorative tin! I think it will be even better if I replace the vanilla green with either black or oolong vanilla, or just have Stacy make a blend…that’s what I’m thinking… :)
Terri- have you ever had the remixed Burglar Brew tea? It has pumpkin instead of sweet potato. Was thinking of grabbing some, but if you’ve had both I’d love to hear your thoughts!
A perfect brew to have with a decadent breakfast of gingerbread almond flour pancakes with maple syrup, bacon, & eggs. The tea is a mix of irish breakfast, sweet potato, & vanilla green. Since I was already having a sweet brekkie, I left the tea unsweet & bold. Now we’re watching Cardinals baseball, hoping they will sweet the Pirates. I won’t get to watch the whole game, because I have to go home soon to get ready for a gig, but they have a good start so far, 2 – 0!
Go Cards!
Shhhhhh, don’t tell my sons, Drew & Leif, but I have a secret stash of this tea still at Tony’s house, hehehe. Tony gives me all his empty Ahmad tea tins, & a few months ago I filled one with this tasty tea, brought it to his house, drank a cup & forgot all about it. Today I’m enjoying a cup.
This blend of Irish Breakfast, sweet potato black, & Vanilla green is bold enough to stand up to breakfast, & nicely sweet, smooth, & mouth filling. It is especially nice with a plate of almond flour pancakes, drizzles with maple syrup, but today I had it with a more savory plate of eggs, almond flour biscuits, homegrown broccoli, & hollandaise. Yum!
Road Trip!
After I claimed a sipdown on this tea, I realized I had a secret stash at Tony’s. so this was the first tea of the morning, which I drank on the way to the airport. My mistake was forgetting there is green tea in here, which makes me sick to my stomach if I haven’t eaten. That queasiness started, but luckily I brought my own food: a frittata & paleo banana muffins, so I am saved.
The Sad Sipdown.
Gone…but never forgotten…
Is your dashboard moving?
Noooooooo! :O
Good luck re-creating the blend. It was so tasty, and I’m happy I was able to try a bit.
Also my dash was frozen for a while. Looks like I’ve got new tea reviews to read, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to keep updating. #fingerscrossed
yeah, it was frozen, but looks like we’re on the move now!
When I DO reformulate Bilbo Brew, you guys will get a sample…of course!
:D That would so great!
I’ve really enjoyed this Brew, & sadly, there is only enough for one more pot of it…sigh…to be shared with good company in the form of my sons.
Irish breakfast, green vanilla (the only flaw in this recipe, IMO. When I experiment with my own version, the green will be left out), sweet potato, & cinnamon. Yum!
Both of the boys unanimously picked this as our breakfast tea, & it was perfect, with it’s essence of sweet potato, cinnamon, & vanilla layered over an Irish Breakfast base. Our tin of this is getting closer & closer to a sipdown. While we ate our frittata & raspberry muffins (gluten free, made with homegrown black raspberries), & sipped our tea, we discussed making our own Bilbo Brew. One of the things I told the boys is we don’t HAVE to use Adagio teas. I’d like the brew to be a little more stout, for example, so maybe a more potent Irish Breakfast/Assam might be in order.
Next topic: sweet potato…I’m actually thinking of baking a sweet potato to it’s fully caramelized glory, liquidating it in my blender, & then dehydrating & turning it into a powder, or at least slicing it into little slivers…
cinnamon chips: those are easily acquired
Vanilla: same
So…we may just order an oz each of irish breakfast, vanilla black (instead of green), sweet potato black, & then add some cinnamon chips, or we may try some crazy experiments. To be continued…
okay, now i’m hungry and considering bilbo brew, lol. how close are we to the middle of july?
That sounds like fun! I didn’t realize it was being discontinued when I drank my precious sample, but I re-steeped it and enjoyed every drop of it.
I hope your version works out as well. Is there any way to contact the original blender to see what proportions they used etc?
I keep hoping they will re-release it, as we LOVE it.
Cara McGee is the person who came up with it, & I did send her an message on Adagio, but haven’t heard back. I think I’m just gonna do my own experimenting. If I come up with something worthy, I’ll let you all know & send samples. I’ll give it a different name too…
This tea is so popular at my house that it’s almost gone! We bought the 6oz tin, & we’ve probably only got about an oz left, if that!!
Anyway, it was the tea of choice for Game Night, along with the raspberry muffins we pigged out on. Drew, Leif, & I played Pirates of the Caribbean Monopoly. I went to jail almost immediately, & every time I got out, I ended up back in there! It was 6 times in jail before I finally made it around the board & passed go. I rolled doubles 3X in a row on 3 different turns, I landed on the ‘go to jail’ square 3 times, I drew 2 cards that send me to jail. I also drew one card that got me out. Needless to say, I think I only passed go 4 times in the whole game, & I was the first to fold. Leif had a glorious win, however, & was quite pleased with himself.
Drew & I also played a full 6 rounds of Yatzee. We each won 3, but I ended up with the highest score. Then we played competition Solitaire. He won 2 out of 3. And so ends Game Night, which we plan to alternate with movie night I think.
well, you’re far more genteel than i… i was traveling all day to the mainland and back and played angry birds, lol. competition solitaire? haven’t heard of it. ‘speed’ is good though!
I don’t know if competition solitaire is a real game, LOL. We just both set up solitaire, said go, & the first to complete their game won. If you busted, you just shuffled & started over.
The funny thing is, I’ve always loved solitaire, but this is the first time I’ve played it with actual cards in years. :)
Drew & I had breakfast together this morning, & he picked Bilbo Brew. I love this blend, but when we run out I already have plans for improvement, LOL. I’d like to swap out the green vanilla for a black vanilla. I don’t really like combining green & black teas in the same pot, as their brewing parameters are different.
Yes, I know, I drank this yesterday. But’s so delicious!
Plus, Drew picked it to have with breakfast, and we must indulge our children from time to time, right? (even when they are 24 years old).
I really am loving the boldness, the cinnamon, the hint of vanilla. I’m sure I’ll taper back on it soon, but for at least a few days I’m also indulging myself.
Tomorrow is pancake breakfast day here, & I already know the 5 of us (That would be me, my 2 sons, plus little terri & Ms Theresa) will all agree unanimously that this is the perfect tea to go with an indulgent breakfast like that!
Bilbo has returned!
Say what you like about Adagio’s tea base, which admittedly leaves room for improvement, but this tea is absolutely delicious! This is my own personal favorite Cara McGee blend, & although I tend to start my day with a nice bold unsweet black, I do make exceptions. Drew & I fixed breakfast & he actually picked the tea, which we drank a rather large pot of. This blend is a bold Irish breakfast, with sweet potato, vanilla green, & cinnamon. Lightly sweetened with stevia, it was the perfect accompaniment to the hearty Frittata we whipped up.
It’s also very tasty straight.
We all love this one so much that we bought the 6 oz tin, which apparently is no longer available.
My son Leif (age 20) came to me this morning, informing me that we have just enough of this brew to make a large pot of it.
“How about when I get home from classes we do a sipdown together?” he suggested. And we did!
We’ve really enjoyed this tea with it’s sweet potato & cinnamon flavorings, & the irish breakfast base makes it nicely bold too. My sons & I all agree that this is probably our favorite adagio fandom blend, & it is definitely the best of the ‘Hobbit’ brews.
Its a drizzly dreary cool & damp day in St. Louis. It’s also my day off from harp students, & both of my son’s days off from college, so I had these great plans to garden, with the 2 of them as my yard monkeys, but alas, it rained all night & most of the morning, so it was not to be.
Instead we had breakfast together, & I spent the morning in my PJs, answering emails & phone calls, booking gigs, etc.
There were errands to run, & I wanted something sweet & spicy, & this tea fits the bill!
I thought I had reviewed this already, but I guess not!
My daughter Ari & grandson Kyzer came over & we fixed 2nd Breakfast, so of course, this was the appropriate tea for the occasion! Irish breakfast, sweet potato, vanilla, & cinnamon! Add stevia & yum!
Ari is the kitchen manager for a restaurant that serves amazing waffle-based dishes, both sweet & savory, & I’m helping her to come up with some waffles that are gluten & dairy free. We sampled 3 different recipes:
1 The almond flour pancakes from elenaspantry.com – these are my go-to paleo pancakes for when I need a treat for breakfast, any time of day.
2 A variation on the above recipe, substituting half of the almond flour with Hazelnut flour. I once made pancakes that way, & they were a real taste treat!
3 The pumpkin waffle recipe from paleOMG.com – This one was the winner, hands down! NOM NOM NOM! Her recipes rock, & although these waffles were a little more tender & fragile, they were out of this world!
Bring on the bacon, the maple syrup (just a little), & the tea, of course! Bilbo would have been proud!
Terri, do you follow http://thedomesticman.com/? Russ (the man behind the curtain) posts some wonderful gluten free recipes.
Hmmm…haven’t been to his page yet! Here I go! Thanks for the lead, Claire!
Yum!
The recommended steeping parameters for this are 212 degrees for three minutes. This has both black and green tea, so I was a bit skeptical but went with it anyway. I think it did affect the green tea, because this didn’t taste very good at all. It also has earl grey green in it, and haven’t been a fan of Adagio’s earl greys. I think this just isn’t the tea for me
Preparation
Ok I started writing this last night but got distracted by hockey failures.
Thank you to Starfevre for the sample of this, I had been thinking about getting it previously so a sample really really helps!
I am especially glad because I don’t like this very much. The rooibos chai is way too dominant of a flavor. When I first saw this blend I was like, ooh chocolate spice cake?? But it’s more spice. And that’s it.
I still keep forgetting to finish this but really I need to try this again in some other way so there’s more to it than the chai!
I can definitely identify with hockey failures. My team is in a hellish slump.
I find that Adagio’s chocolate blend is very light on the chocolate. It would probably be lovely with a base like Laoshan Black.
I really shouldn’t complain because they’re still first in the east but it was the Islanders
Habs fan? They’re my backup East team now that Gomez is gone and I love Gionta. My team has lost to the whole bottom of the Eastern Conference in the last month and went from 1st place to “Why me?”
yes. I think I can figure out you are a Devils fan from this, right? haha I thought they were going to be unstoppable too. Now it’s just Chicago with a ridiculous point streak…we had half of one.
I expect it to end soon for the blackhawks now that ESPN is paying attention to them, it would only figure that when they start showing up they ruin everything. I’m also bitter.
Yep. Big time Devils fan. When Marty goes down, they don’t seem to know what to do with themselves. You don’t realize how important he is till he’s not there. I’m currently on Lemaire watch. He usually shows up when the Devils look like this.
The minute I saw the NHL on ESPN’s news feed, I expected the Blackhawks to lose to someone I hate—like the Wild. I don’t particularly like anyone calling hockey for NBC aside from Doc but I hated hearing Melrose jibber jabber about the Devils and the trap all the time. And they ruined my team’s last Cup win with Chris Berman.
I’m sorry I’m polluting your tea note with hockey :)
I was so expecting them to lose last night when I saw something about Sportscenter actually going to the game.
Unless the Habs are on TV here on a weekend, I always watch an RDS feed so I don’t have to listen to anyone. I know the key “le but” and I don’t have to listen to anyone be obnoxious. Though I guess in this case, I wouldn’t mind but I know they get obnoxious about wooo Quebec born players.
But I can’t fully understand so I don’t care hahahaha.
At least with NBC they know Columbus has a team (maybe) and that there aren’t ties anymore.
There is no such thing as hockey pollution for me unless this space was being filled with the bruins!
Sportscenter should just stick to sports they understand like golf and football…and professional bowling and leave hockey to literally anyone else. I like NBC aside from the fact that they employ Pierre McGuire and Mike Milbury. Milbury should be banned from all NHL anything because of how he destroyed the Islanders.
I have Gamecenter so I watch the local broadcasts on mute more often than not. I love watching the game but some of those commentators…are so bad. I’m including the Devils’ guys in that.
Haha! I completely agree only add the Rangers, Sabres, Wild and Kings to that :)
Mmm. My boyfriend gave me an Adagio gift card for Christmas, and I knew this was one of the teas I wanted to try. I adore Peeta, and the tea sounded amazing as well! I’ve had Adagio’s chocolate chai and enjoyed it, and I like how the vanilla green and almond kind of cut the spices. A nice tea to sip on Christmas <3
I really love this one. I am pretty sure I absolutely blew it on my final today, but I had this with me. Granted, on the train ride back home it ended up all over my pants and in my bag because it turns out the leakproof claim of my mug only holds true when it’s full.
I really like that I can taste each aspect of this tea without it being ruined by whatever it usually is that ruins Adagio flavored teas for me. It’s creamy, it’s clearly earl grey, and it’s got some berry notes to it. I don’t need to add milk or sugar whatsoever to enjoy this.
It’s also not so bad cold, either. When I got home I just wanted to eat lunch and go back to sleep, so I poured the rest of my tea into a glass of ice and had it iced. I love berry earl greys when they’re cold. This one I might have to also try cold brewing when it’s warmer again.
