Adagio Custom Blends, Cara McGee

Oh yeah! My TARDIS tin came in, along with some Jane Austen Mafia (which.. truth be told is VERY similiar-I think one has an EG base while the other has a black cream base), and a few other samples via Shadowfall who was kind enough to ship it over the border for me.

And if it wasn’t for Shadowfall I would never have had my order because I’m not going to pay $27+for shipping. I’m hard-pressed to pay $15 for other companies but I’ll do it occasionally if I’m ordering enough tea, but $27? No way.

I’m so happy though – I really do love this tea even though it’s probably not the highest quality and a good chunk of my enjoyment comes from the fandom. I’m very, very happy. :D

I have the prettiest tin! (http://s12.postimg.org/4bcrc9jf1/971554_499524890127459_553092188_n.jpg)
Happy Friday!

And there’s my sipdown for today. (159)

I meant to make this last longer but it was just so darned tasty and I said why not have it again. :) I get a sipdown, and a great cuppa! WIN.

ETA: I really really enjoyed A&D’s Mount Gray yesterday, but this one is equally impressive. I practically have blueberry mouthfeel in each sip! And I know it’s not blueberries in this blend, but I don’t care!

Oh thank you thank you! TerriHarpLady was kind enough to send me a bit of this, and even with all the other wonderful things I’m excited to try, I HAD to have this one first.

And yes, it is just as good as I remember. I was worried that maybe I’d hyped it up in my head, but someday I will get a tin of this. Someday. :O I’m not even a fan of bergamot most of the time.

Bumped my rating way up because yeah… I LOVES IT.

Also I’m listening to the (Fucking) Game of Thrones intro a billion times because I’m so psyched about that fandom right now too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25KABvPbq-U
Midway through the second book, while we are watching Season 3 on tv. I don’t mind watching it before I read it because I see it as an intro, and then I can dive in deep with the book and read the hell out of it and not share it with anyone. :O

Tardis Sipdown! I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I’d heard that Adagio teas weren’t great, but I’m tempted to buy more!

Another sample from Valerie! Thx!

And finally, an earl grey blend that doesn’t overwhelm me with perfumy bergamot notes. Not sure what that was about but I’m happy it passed.

Smell: I know it’s blackberry, but the smell reminds me of plump juicy blueberries. It makes me want blueberry pancakes so bad.

Taste: Pretty good! Slightly bitter, but not unpleasantly so, followed by vanilla/bergamot notes, and finishing with a nice berry taste. I would probably enjoy it more with a touch of cream or sugar.

I used to think Adagio was pretty expensive, but $9 for 3oz (or 4 oz) isn’t bad at all. I just don’t want to pay $24 for a pretty fandom tin, and yet…. I do. Damn you Adagio. But a 6 oz tin? Would that be double the size of a DavidsTea tin?

Very strong tea. I’d only steep for 3 minutes or so. There’s a very musty smell to it. Reminds me of old books. Kind of smokey too. Interesting.

Thanks Momo! Adagio and I have a love/hate relationship. This tea is ok. I don’t find many of adagio’s flavored teas to be very flavorful.. this blend is ok. I’m not getting a whole lot of berry, mostly earl grey. Thanks again!

I like this tea a lot better without any additives and steeped a bit longer. It’s not overwhelmingly sweet like the first time I tried it. I wish I could get more of the apple taste without having to add any sweeteners.

I’m a Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, fan. The tea itself is a blend of Spiced Apple Chai tea, Almond tea (a flavored Ceylon), and Assam Melody tea. They’re all black teas, so you won’t want to steep this for more than three minutes the first time for the best flavor.

I was pretty excited to try this tea. Opening the bag for the first time was a disappointment though. The smell of the tea is awful. It’s sickeningly sweet. I was hesitant to add any sweeteners to the tea after that. Without anything added, it is a sweet tea. It tastes a bit like apple pie. I added a little honey, and that didn’t make it too sweet, but I wouldn’t want to drink a lot of it with something sugary added to it. That would be too sweet. Adding honey made it taste even more like apple pie, which is good, but not something I want to drink often.

When I had it today, I also added honey because I was adding milk, and I wanted to see how that would taste. It is good; it tastes a lot like apple pie with vanilla ice cream. While I enjoyed it, I would not want to drink a lot of it.

I’m giving this tea 3.5, maybe 4, out of 5 stars. The smell of the dry tea leaves put me off a bit, and it’s just too sweet for my tastes normally. It’s great if you’re into really sweet teas. I don’t think it would work well as an iced tea partially because of the chai. I do think it would be a good tea to bake with though.

Ever since I found out about Adagio and its most popular custom tea blends by Cara McGee, I’ve wanted to try the Tardis blend. The Tardis blend is one of the many fandom tea blends the site offers; this one being for one of my favorite television shows, the BBC’s Doctor Who.

The Tardis tea blend is a mixture of Earl Grey Bravo tea (Adagio’s signature Earl Grey), blackberry tea (which is a Ceylon black tea infused with blackberries), and vanilla (another flavored Ceylon black tea). The tea is naturally sweet, so I recommend tasting it before adding any sweeteners. Since it’s a black tea, you should steep it for 2-3 minutes.

I think it would make a nice iced tea as well, but I love how comforting it is while hot. It’s sweet, but the sweetness doesn’t overwhelm the taste of the tea. You could even add sugar without making it too sweet. I like how the vanilla is more of an aftertaste. It takes you a moment to catch the blackberry notes, but I like that it doesn’t overshadow the tea.

This would make a very nice dessert tea. Some people on the website recommend it with milk, so I’m going to have to try that at some point. All in all, I give this tea five out of five stars. I’ve tried some blends on Adagio (some where my own, but not all) that haven’t really turned out well. I think this might become one of my new favorite teas!

Another thing I love about this tea? You get 4oz instead of the standard 3oz of custom blends… Because it’s bigger on the inside!

thank you, Starfevre, for the trade! I adore the BBC Sherlock, that I caught by accident one day. I rarely just sit at the TV and flip channels. That time I caught the first airing of the first episode of Sherlock, sat captivated through it, and watched it for a second time immediately after the first episode aired. I love the idea of Adagio’s fandom teas, so I love to sample them!

This one is delicious. I haven’t tried many of Adagio’s teas but I really like their chai that I’ve tried. Like Starfevre, ginger is probably my least favorite thing in tea other than hibiscus, but I don’t seem to mind it in chai. I do get a bit of a hint of chocolate here, but not much of cream. Otherwise it’s a nice solid black tea mixed with chai. I love the bitterness (in a good way) that this tea has.

I love how when you add milk and sugar- as I do to black teas- it gets very hazel-nutty, which you can’t taste without them. A very good wintertime, cozy drink :)

Yum! Thanks to Valerie for the sample!

I just realised that I like Assam teas, and while I don’t know what “Assam Melody” is in comparison, that doesn’t change that I like the base of this tea. The coconut makes it a bit creamy, while the apple and vanilla give it a bit of sweetness. It rolls around nicely in my mouth with each sip giving you a bit of a different flavour – - – I suppose that makes each sip as unpredictable as the Doctor. :O

The vanilla makes me think of Earl Grey too, which isn’t a bad thing.

I’m glad I got to try it, but I wouldn’t have bought it. Adagio teas are a bit too pricey, and I’d only be doing it for the pretty tin. (And $24 for a pretty tin is… sadly not worth it). On a sidenote, these are 6oz tins, so they must be a lot bigger than the ones from DavidsTea!

Oh – I noticed that 5 new people started following me in the last 24 hours. I don’t know what I’m doing, but HI! :D #NoPressureToBeEntertainingYIKES

Possibly it’s the season, the holidays, something making me focus on this, but as I try it (and it’s cooled down a lot because I forgot I was drinking it..heh) it tastes like gingerbread to me. It doesn’t help that I’m overly sensitive to ginger tastes, and I haven’t liked it much in the past.

I don’t pick up much in the way of chocolate notes, mainly the chai spices and ginger. Maybe a bit in the very first instant the tea hits my tongue on a sip, but it fades really quickly thereafter.

I’m sure that most people will really love this tea, and I can see myself really enjoying it…if I liked ginger. As it is, I don’t hate it (which is unusual for a tea with ginger in it) so that speaks well of it. But I still don’t like it.

This tea is really wonderful! By far the smoothest Earl I’ve ever had, the hazelnut really contributes well to this brilliant tea.

Being a custom blend, I followed a pattern that I thought would produce a generally good result, and was really pleased!

Measurement: 1 & 1/4 teaspoon
Temperature: 185F
Steep Time: 4 minutes 15 seconds.

This is another one that will go on my ‘buy more’ list!

As far as fandom blends go, this tea is tough to top in terms of perfectly capturing the character. It’s the most unusual tea I’ve ever had and it’s a bit of an acquired taste, but as I sip through each mug I become more and more fond of it.

It’s definitely floral — aggressively so, it’s not subtle at all and people who dislike jasmine and lavender should stay far away from this tea. I’ve never had gunabana before but it definitely adds a nice fruity taste buried under the flowers. Unfortunately for me, the bergamot of the earl grey is also easy to taste, and that’s what made me knock off a point. If you like florals AND fruit AND bergamot, you will want to marry this tea.

By the by, the taste of the base is completely hidden by the other flavors, so I really like the fact that it’s partially rooibos. Many of Adagio’s black teas seem to have too much caffeine for my taste, so as a black and rooibos blend this is ideal.

For sure, this is a perfect tea representation of Luna Lovegood — shockingly so, considering the limits of Adagio’s tea blends. But do I like it? I can’t decide.