Adagio Teas - Duplicate

A sample from Nichole!

I made this today simply because of the name. I am tutoring some young ladies and they requested that we use the book Tintenherz (Inkheart) for our passages. The antagonist is called Capricorn so I just had to make it, even though one of the girls hates coconut.

We had Triple Berry Blend as well so there would also be a tea that she liked! We had Lindt Blueberry truffles and they brought Belgian Butter Crisp Waffle Cookies, and it was my first time having those cookies. Recommended for tea time! They were purchased at Lidl but may be available other places as well.

The coconut hater did try this tea like a champ, but disliked it as expected. Her sister and I found it good hot, but when my cup grew cold it was rather astringent. It really tasted like moderate strength black tea with a lot of heavy coconut flavor, and I didn’t pick up the other things in the blend.

I didn’t expect to like Triple Berry Blend because of the hibiscus and rose hips, which I usually only take cold and sweetened, but I thought it was pretty good. I definitely didn’t mind drinking it. It wasn’t sour enough to cause a permanent pucker anyway! I am not going to do a separate review for it because when I look for it on the Adagio site nothing comes up with this exact name, so I am guessing it is discontinued. My no-coconut student enjoyed it very much with sugar.

I have had this sample tea bag for a very long time. In the oppressive heat and humidity today, citrus sounded good. I am surprised I liked it as much as I did, especially as old as this is. The green base came through and was rather nice, the lime was just right – not horrifically tart, just pleasantly lime-y. Citrus and especially lime feels refreshing to me in hot weather, and this was pleasant to drink. I bet it is quite good iced and now I am sad I didn’t keep the sachet to see if I could get an iced resteep out of it. Rats.

Has a similar beginning taste to Bigelow Oolong but with a very light flavor. The end taste is pretty bitter. Both the bitterness and the beginning flavor being light keep this from being a really good tea.

This is a wonderful tea. It has a good bit of depth for a white tea. Smooth with a honeyed lightly floral taste. Smells sweet while steeping. Good for multiple infusions with a tiny bit of astringency creeping in on later infusions. The cute little ‘cookies’ unfurl to nice big leaves. This is one of my favorites that I have tried from Adagio. Only 2 minutes on the first infusion, 3 for all others. (2 mins @ 180°F) 1 cookie per mug.

Mastress Alita’s Monthly Sipdown Challenge
May 2022 → A tea that reminds you of yourself

Growing up, I wasn’t ever really interested much in zodiac signs and astrology. In fact, it made me nervous even glancing at the horoscope column in my Seventeen magazine. Growing up as I did in a tiny southern baptist church, these things were frowned upon (to say the least). As an adult, my pastor would be properly appalled at me now with my curiosity about tarot and herbalism. All that to say, I don’t know much about the signs aside from the basics. I know that I am a Scorpio sun, Libra moon, and Libra rising. My birthday falls right on the cusp of Libra and Scorpio, and I tend to think of myself more as a Libra than a Scorpio. Maybe because my moon and rising signs are Libra. But I am sensitive and loyal and private. I also definitely feel the need to control every little detail around me. So it fits, for sure.

This tea is mostly a mix of chocolate and vanilla with a vague fruitiness coming through in the dry blend. It has good flavor, I’m enjoying it. I think this was a sample I received with an Adagio order. I don’t see myself purchasing more of it.

This was sent to me as a free sample from Adagio in my last order and I only recently realized I haven’t tried it yet. The reviews on Steepster are somewhat mixed but leaning toward poor. I actually do like the flavor of this one. I can smell and taste Adagio’s chocolate chip which I love, and I get the vanilla the creator was going for. I don’t really taste the mango but maybe it’s a lightly flavored tea. That one doesn’t get high marks on Steepster either. Even without the mango, this is a nice chocolate-vanilla tea. I think the rooibos actually gives it a nice body as a foundation.

There is maybe a bit of fruitiness as I continue sipping. Maybe it’s the mango. Maybe I’m convincing myself it’s the mango because I know it’s supposed to be there. Either way, it works.

Cold Brew!

I’ve moved on from my kombucha now, and am onto what is possibly my last tea of the night. I liked the dry aroma of this white tea a lot, though the tea leaf itself looked quite broken up. It had the same citrus note that I get from chenpi blends, which is sort of a mix of the natural orange oils (which have a little sweetness to them) and a bit of a pithy “zest” or rind kind of note. Not anything tangy, sour or acidic – or “juicy”, but still a deeply natural type of orange…

Steeped up, it really is reminding me A LOT of the flavour of those white tea stuffed mandarin/tangerines – exactly the same type of citrus notes. It’s nice because it’s so clean tasting and finishing, with a highly refreshing element to it from the white tea. I’m also getting notes of flowering cucumber as well, both flesh and skin. I imagine this would probably also be good hot, but cold it’s really hitting the spot tonight. So natural, and a good sweetness level.

Not bad, had a cup of this recently. A bit more astringency than I would like, but probably oversteeped.

Sample of this from… someone. The writing is distinctive but it has been too long for me to remember. Oh well. Anyhow, in addition to having a couple new teas tonight I figured I should try and work on some older samples, so here we are. This one’s a light, pleasant jasmine – probably used to be stronger, but still has a good amount of flavour. It may actually be better a bit muted – a little less in your face. A good choice for relaxing this evening!

A decent green tea, but does taste green. It is smooth, however. I"m sure if you like green tea it’s great, but since I’m more of a black tea consumer, I still prefer the balck teas, but for a change of pace this is fine.

My daughter asked for a cup of this today, so I made a cup for each of us. The peach flavor really shines in this one. The tea itself has a really mellow flavor, sweet but not overpowering. I really like this one.

I bought a sampler of this nine years ago from Adagio, and honestly forgot about it in the back of my cabinet. I discovered it earlier this month, and surprisingly it is still a decent cup. The jasmine flavor is still very strong, which is good because I’m sure the tea itself is well past its prime. I tried an improvised gongfu (teacup and saucer for a gaiwan) for the first time with this today with. Trying to practice the technique with this before trying it with better teas.

The recommended steeping time was not available with this tea. Steeped the tea for 3 minutes. Tea smelled like old lady perfume and a strong candle. Tastes like nothing. So many competing flavors, but somehow none of them showed up. Tried 10.2018.

Steeped 1 min with some dunking. Good flavor without bitterness. Could probably steep longer but was afraid of bitterness like with the blackberry tea. Tastes like warm raspberry water, pleasant. Tried 09.2018

Another advent calendar surprise I wouldn’t have chosen for myself, but glad I had the opportunity to check it out. Very nice, and probably especially so for jasmine fans. I caught major jasmine “fumes” in my mouth (if that makes sense), but the taste was much sweeter than expected—almost honeysuckle. Very nice change of pace to challenge my sensory descriptors.

I wish I’d given them a fake birthday so I could’ve gotten a better free sample, but oh well! I tried this twice before giving it away. It’s really too light for me. I’d say it’s definitely more white than oolong in there. It just tastes like white tea with tiny hints of fruit. I guess I’m looking for more obvious flavors in my tea! Also these tins are cute, but so useless. I use a teaspoon to scoop my tea, so I need higher walls, otherwise the tea goes all over the counter. Whenever I empty an Adagio tin, I just give it to my sister for crafting purposes.

Adagio tossed this in as a lagniappe on my last order and honestly, if I’d known this was what they wanted my birthday for I probably would’ve made one up (I’m not generally a fan of coconut in my tea).

It smells politely unassuming in the tin, but the buttery coconut notes in the aroma come to the forefront upon brewing. Thankfully each sip is heavily buttery and not so much on the coconut…so it actually makes for a super enjoyable cup. The first steep definitely reminds me of nothing more than a black tea version of butter coffee, in all the best ways.

My southern ass approves. :D

Home – 5:30 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 13

Last one from Adagio. This was a free sample tin that they added to one of my orders.

It’s a fairly one-note coconut tea. The coconut is strong and it’s a bit sun tan lotion-y. I can’t really taste the black tea much, and get just a little bit of hay flavor from the white tea. I don’t really taste vanilla at all. It’s smooth and not at all bitter.

Meh.

Warm, soothing, medium bodied tea. Nice aroma, some astringency, definite mineral taste. Sweet & lingering aftertaste. Multiple infusions.

This was a mellow Darjeeling. easy to drink. Powerful without being overbearing.

As I’m trying new blends that contain teas I’ve never drank straight (oolong in this one, pu-erh in one I tried yesterday), it’s making me realize that having a knowledge of what those teas taste like on their own would better assist me in picking up on their notes in blended teas.

Regardless, I really enjoyed this blend. It’s actually my second time trying it, but yesterday was a bust. I put it in a teabag for on-the-go and didn’t have access to temperature-controlled water, so it just wasn’t that great. Today, brewed up at proper temp, it was great. Can I say that I felt it was the tea that embodied all I am as a Taurus? Not quite, but I suppose that’s a bit much to ask of a tea. It has great peach flavor that is a bit more full-bodied than other peach whites I’ve tried, presumably due to the oolong.