Adagio Teas

I love all things earl grey, and really all things bergamot in general. This tea has a lot of great qualities, and extra points for being caffeine-free so that I can enjoy it in the evening.

Visually, this tea is gorgeous. The little specs of blue cornflowers are delightful to look at. I did notice that it’s about time I invested in a better quality infuser, as my current ones allow a good portion of the finely ground loose leaf tea to simply fall into the water. If anyone has any recommendations, drop them in the comments.

The taste is great! Plenty of bergamot, but the rooibos profile is definitely not to be dismissed. I agree with some of the other descriptions that were listed: wet wood, root beer, anise (as an aside, I noticed that “wet dog” is one of the flavors in our database…I hope I never have to use it in one of these reviews). These are all great descriptors that work well with this tea. There is some orange/citrus as well that’s quite lovely.

I don’t often comment on the mouthfeel of teas, but I will say that this one felt particularly silky.

I enjoyed everything about this tea thoroughly and look forward to drinking it again.

This tea was really interesting to me because the concept is so ethereal and it utilizes flavours that both aren’t necessarily stereotypically associated with Paris and that aren’t conventionally paired together either. I had quite a large mug of it earlier in the week and overall I enjoyed it, but it really did feel a lot like an enigma to me as I was sipping it. Of the flavours in the blend, the bergamot was the most strong tasting to me but I have to wonder how much of that is the fact it’s highly aromatic and that deep, heady citrus smell as you lean in to take a sip is easy to get swept up in.

Aside from that I thought the pomegranate came off as a bit more generic red fruit, but in a pleasant and complimentary enough way. I wish it was a little juicier and deeper because it felt eclipsed by many of the other things going on. Caramel? Yeah, kinda. Definitely a sweeter and more “brown” undertone that was a nice foil to the bergamot. It was a little less that sweet/gooey caramel note to me versus the more burnt sugar note of a creme brulee – but I ultimately think that’s probably the better taste with a bergamot this floral and heady. Love how brisk the black tea base was, too!

Now does it taste like April In Paris? Well, I’ve never been to Paris so I suppose I can’t say for certain. There is something very European feeling about it to me, though. So that’s at least something. In my head I feel like April is so in the heart of Spring that I’d have expected something softer and floral in a more light and airy way. But all of this is HIGHLY subjective.

Anyway, a very interesting blend to be sure!

Day 9 of DIY mostly Adagio advent. The coconut flavor in this is fine – not too oily, decently creamy – but the base tea is extremely meh. It just has this coarse edge to it that doesn’t complement the flavoring and makes it impossible for me to enjoy the cup. I tried adding honey in an effort to soften the edge, but it didn’t help at all.

Not a big coffee person, but I wanted to try this one given how (seemingly intentionally) similar it is to DT’s Coffee Pu’erh. I do really like the shou pu’erh that Adagio uses in their blends. It’s very, very thick and earthy tasting in a way that obviously compliments the darker roasted flavour of coffee very well. And this is a really roasty tasting tea. I think maybe a little more overtly roasty than DT’s Coffee Pu’erh. The vanilla comes through a little bit in the finish, and I like that it gently softens out the end of the sip without diminishing the overall bold, intense feeling of the cup. I do think there’s room for it to be stronger, though.

The key difference is really that DT’s coffee pu’erh also has almond flavouring in it, and I personally prefer that inclusion. I think it’s richer feeling and creates a lot more depth and layering of flavours, and really leans into the aroma/nose of the brew as well. However, y’all know I’m a fan of things with a heavy roast note so I also appreciate that this blend was a little bolder in that aspect. It’s a solid blend overall.

Had to get a sample of this to try, because I love cranberries and cranberry-flavored things.

Sadly, this tastes more like a cherry lozenge than it does like cranberry anything. Extremely medicinal cherry candy flavor with a very powdery undertone and a light hibiscus tartness. Nope, nope, nope!

I love a cranberry tea, so y’all know I had to try this one!

The dry leaf aroma is kind of off smelling to me, like sugar free red jello but with a slight medicinal/cough drop sort of edge to it. Wasn’t the most promising, but steeped up I found the cup much, much more enjoyable. There’s still maybe a touch of a medicinal undertone/edge to it, but the cranberry was pleasantly thick and jammy with a creamy edge to it and just a hint of warming cinnamon. The cinnamon flirts a bit with this mulled fruit sort of vibe, but neither the spice or fruit notes themselves are strong enough to full commit to that sort of direction. Still, there’s a sort of festive feel to the cup from the combination. As a lover of cranberry teas, it’s pretty solid!

Adagio sent me a “we miss you” envelope with four samples in it, but they didn’t include adequate postage, so I had to pay $4 to retrieve it from the post office. When I complained to Adagio, they didn’t care. It’s only $4, but it’s funny to me that their attempt at goodwill has instead made me not really want to order from them again.

I’d already had three of the teas previously, but this one is new to me. I taste the tang of the citrus. It’s decent, but the green tea below is pretty meh. It was a little straightforward for me and not as well done as something like 52teas could have done.

Continuing sipping my way through this last Adagio order!

Even though spiced orange is a very played out flavour, this one intrigued me because it’s herbal/fruit based and I feel like most of the spiced orange blends I’ve tried are either rooibos, black, or green. Sure enough it’s not the most unique tasting blend, but it would be unfair to expect that when dealing with this classic of a flavour profile.

What I did find myself impressed by was how deep and rich yet juicy the orange notes were. I bought in that it was blood orange and not just a standard orange flavour. I loved that it wasn’t sweet/sugary or really sharp/tangy and acidic but that the fuller, lush sort of citrus flavour felt lively and contrasted against the spice notes. It was a cool effect to have that deeper blood orange profile still feel refreshing and lively against the spice mix instead of the more cooked down or mulled orange we usually see in these types of blends.

The spices were maybe a touch one note? Well, two note I guess because it was really cardamom and clove that came through the most. Y’all know I love cardamom paired with fruits, and it works really well. Especially in the nose of the cup. The clove was pretty strong, especially in the aftertaste which lingered for a much greater time than the orange did. I love clove, but I think if you’re not as into that flavour it could read as too strong for a lot of people.

Overall, I think this was really nicely executed! I don’t necessarily think of tisanes as one of Adagio’s strong suits, but this is the type of tea I would actually buy again even with it being a more accessible flavour profile from other companies.

December Sipdown Prompt – get a final sipdown for the year

Apparently this exact blend is no longer available. This was a sample from the Communitea pack for Dec 27, probably for 2022 or 2023. It came to me as a gift so I don’t know how old it is, for sure. There is a tea by this name on the site but not with these ingredients, and another tea named Warm Up By The Fire, also not with these ingredients.

And that is a shame! This is one of the first blends by Adagio that I have rather taken a cotton to! Ginger and clove made me dread it, but they were both so tame they didn’t offend. Maybe that was die to age. It was a true cold weather comfort warm up mug of tea, and I enjoyed it for breakfast.

Since it was only a sample, it wasn’t listed in my cupboard and therefore the numbers don’t go down but nevertheless the number of grams of tea in the house DID go down.

Cold Brew!

Sometimes I feel like a bit of an oddball for liking elderberry as much as I do, especially because the quality of elderberry can range so significantly and when it’s bad it’s really bad. I got a little nervous smelling this one as it definitely has a bit of pungent musk to it. Not quite full blown “foot smell” as some elderberry is want to do, but leaning that direction a touch…

Steeped up it’s actually surprisingly fresh and mellow, though? I mean, don’t get me wrong – I don’t think I would at all describe the OVERALL taste as mellow since it’s still got a lot of tartness and bold berry flavour from the hibiscus in the blend. It’s just much more mellow than I would have ever assumed given the dry aroma. Not funky tasting to me at all, though! Instead it’s a refreshing deep purple berry sort of flavour with a citrusy edge from the lemongrass and some apple notes. Refreshing and relatively clean finishing with an appropriate level of natural sweetness.

I do think I own elderberry teas that I enjoy more which have a bit more saturated, syrupy fruit notes to them without any funk – but I think this is nice! And pretty approachable for someone who has either never tried an elderberry forward tea or, perhaps, has been burned by an especially stanky one in the past.

Cold Brew!

Back at the top of November Marika and I ended up placing a joint Adagio order that, unfortunately, got stuck with Canada Post during the strike – however it was finally delivered a few days ago so I’m now slowly exploring the different teas – most of which were samples of new to me blends, but I did get a couple restocks.

Y’all know I love a strawberry banana tea so I feel like maybe I had high expectations for this one. I do think Adagio does banana well, and I feel like that comes through in this blend. It’s got sort of a “medium feeling” flavour intensity to it, with fresh and lightly sweet notes of banana and ripe strawberries. A little bit tart and a little bit creamy, but not too much of either. My big issue with this blend is the lemongrass. It’s a nice enough quality lemongrass with a bright, soft citrusy note – not coarse or lawn clipping-y. However, for a banana split inspired profile any lemongrass kind of just feels out of place and there’s A LOT of it in this tea. It makes the overall profile read more like tutti-frutti than ice cream.

I still enjoyed the brew, but I’m definitely making the mental note that it’s not something I should pull out when I’m seeking that sort of fruity decadence of a split since I just feel the name is a little mismatched to how it actually tastes.

Devon Bartholomew Advent Day 20

Crazy to see the stash of little tea packets dwindling down…HOW is it only 5 days until Christmas already??? At least it is starting to look like Christmas here in Wisconsin; we had our first real snowstorm of the season last night!

Anyway, the tea. :) Apparently this is supposed to taste like chocolate-covered strawberries? Can’t say I really picked up on any strawberry flavor in my cup. I did get a whiff of (unfortunately very artificial) chocolate in the aroma, but the flavor was mostly the brisk Ceylon base tea with floral notes coming through from the rose petals. Oh well! At least the mug kept my hands nice and warm for a bit this morning.

Day 8 of DIY mostly Adagio advent. This one smells better than it tastes. At least it smells great, though! The cookies and cream scent of the dry leaf got my hopes up. The brew didn’t live up to it. The cream flavor is ok, but the base is so tannic it detracts from my overall enjoyment of the cup. A two-minute steep might have been better than the three suggested on the packet. I tried adding oat milk. That didn’t do much to make it less tannic. This was drinkable but not worth the caffeine.

Day 6 of DIY mostly Adagio advent calendar. I needed this palate cleanser after the Orange Pomander. This struck me as a very solid mid-range jasmine. Floral in a way that feels scented, not like jasmine essence has been added. A bit dry. I like a whiff of sweetness in my jasmine teas, but I’m not picking up on any here. I stopped after two steeps to avoid over-caffeinating for the day. I added agave syrup to the second steep, which complemented the jasmine nicely. This would make a perfectly reasonable daily drinker, especially on days where you can’t give the cup your full attention so you maybe don’t want to be using your fanciest stuff.

knittingopera Swap Advent Calendar 2024 – Day 17
Theme: Santa’s Reindeer
My pick: Cereal Lover Caramel from Dammann Frères

Ooh! I’ve been curious about this for a while. It’s one of those teas that sounds good to me in theory – a chocolate mint black tea and maté blend – but that I’m hesitant to actually purchase in order to try. Chocolate flavoring and I don’t get along, plus Adagio and I often also don’t get along… So thanks Marjorie, for picking this so I get to try a sample!

As I expected, it’s not my favorite. The peppermint is very murky-tasting, and something else is very, shall we say, earthy. Maybe it’s the ginger? And then the chocolate flavoring is quite prominent, and has that fake, almost alcoholic chocolate taste. It’s all very sharp together, and a touch bitter (though it has also now cooled). Drinkable, but very, very muddled for sure.

But super happy to have tried it, now I don’t have to be curious anymore! XD

This was delicious with a bit of brown sugar and cream. It has a slightly floral or perfume flavor in my opinion that I did not like but my daughter seemed to love it.

I found this to be a delightful tea. The smoke notes were rich but not overpowering. I would definitely try it again although I might not go out of my way to purchase it alone.

I do so enjoy a maple.
I noticed more maple in the scent of the dry leaf, but the brewed tea is more of a sweet cinnamon. Thankfully I found the flavor more maple forward overall, with a hint of that cinnamon/cardamom combo I’ve come to love. As it cools the maple starts to fade from the initial sip but lingers afterward. I’ve had other maples I like more, but this isn’t a bad one either.

Adagio advent day 5

This was fine. Not terribly exciting, and I definitely got a little more ginger bite than anything else. As it cooled the green tea was more noticeable.

Adagio advent day 4

Day 4 of the DIY Adagio calendar. I intentionally saved this for bedtime because the name makes it seem like it would be soothing. Unfortunately, it seems to actually be better suited to being a mid-morning tea soda, filling the gaps between cups of caffeinated tea. The dry leaf smells like sweet lemonade. The brew itself is conspicuously missing any tartness. What I have instead is a candy-like lemon sweetness and the barest whisper of lavender. There’s a thing about how a proper dry martini is made with gin and a glance at the vermouth bottle. That’s what this blend reminds me of – candy lemon with a glance at the lavender. This is drinkable, I can see where in the flavor portfolio it fits, but it just isn’t what I expected at all. And for what it is, it’s missing depth and complexity to make it great.

Day 3 of DIY Adagio advent. This is one of the better Adagio blends I’ve had, I think. The banana flavor is sweet but falls just short of being candy-like. I can’t quite place the nut here – maybe walnut? – but it’s definitely nutty. And honeybush is the perfect base for this. The overall effect is very “banana nut muffin.” I’d happily drink this again.

I placed a BF order with Adagio for some basic essentials. It came with so many samples that I was able to DIY a 12-day Adagio advent! Once I catch up on the first few, I’ll probably slot these in to alternate with the Tea Thoughts tea days. Day 1 is this blend. I accidentally oversteeped by 10 minutes and only had enough leaf for one cup, so this is probably not a reflection of how it’s optimally meant to taste. It’s not bad, though. Like peach gummy candy flavor on a woody rooibos base. Not amazing, but serviceable, and would probably be tasty iced.

ETA: The cup cooled before I could finish it, and I did not in fact find this pleasant as an iced tea. The flavors sort of separated? Like they blended decently when it was hot but once it cooled, they became discordant and the peach took on a more chemical-y quality, for lack of a better descriptor.

I didn’t hate this, even though it’s absolutely a strong toasted coconut. The white base worked well for me and I think I preferred having no fruit to try and compete with the coconut. I wouldn’t buy more but it wasn’t bad.

Adagio advent day 3

Adagio advent day 2

I expected something else given the ingredient list, but the cinnamon is the strongest flavor by far, and it’s more like hot cinnamon candy. Honestly, I’m not mad about it – I’ve wanted to find a tea like this without the rooibos base and here we are. Occasionally something else comes through – a hint of ginger, a bit of pepper – but it’s mostly cinnamon candy and I could see myself enjoying small cups of this as an occasional treat.