Adagio Teas

Haven’t been logging tea because I’ve been having a stressful week with moving back to LA for school, unpacking, doing extra training for my research lab, classes starting up again… BUT I would not have been able to do any of this without my wonderful tea collection. And wuyi ensemble is a wonderful way to wake up.

I absolutely love this tea. I first sampled a white blueberry at Seattle’s Queen Mary Tea Room and fell instantly in love. Unfortunately, they no longer carry it as they claimed their supplier went down in quality. Adagio’s has continued to be consistent, at least so far as I can tell. An excellent tea where the blueberries are well-balanced with the white tea. Could stand to have a few more blueberries in there, though.

Genmaicha is my favorite green tea. I love the strength of this tea, and the smoothness. The fragrance has always reminded me of the ocean for some inexplicable reason. It’s a very clean tea that I drink when I want to feel cleansed.

Made this for my friend Helen today. 2.25g/3oz water and then added 3oz milk. No sweetener.

I’m nervous about trying this tea. I don’t like coconut, but came in a sampler set that I got so it’s not like I intentionally bought it per se. I knew I’d like the other ones in the sampler so I hoped for the best with this one.

When I open the tin I’m even more worried. The only thing I can smell is the coconut. No spices. No lemon grass. No ceylon black tea.

Since this has large pieces of flavoring, I decided to measure it by the teaspoon instead of the industry standard of 2.25g/serving. I steep it in 6oz boiling purified water for 5 min.

The tea has a medium amber color, kind of surprising for a ceylon.

The sent when steeped is definitely of coconut… I hope I don’t regret wasting this teaspoon of tea.

While I’m not a fan of coconut, assuming a person drinking it would like it does, I’m very glad I measured the tea by the teaspoon (it’s more dense than 2.25g/teaspoon). Served unsweetened.

It’s a very weak tea, but I’m not sure if I’d prefer it stronger or not. The first thing that hits me is the coconut of course. Second, I taste the lemongrass… well kinda… I really only taste the grass part of the lemongrass. Finally the spices, but it’s not really the flavor the spices. It just burns my throat. There is absolutely no flavor of the black tea, infact because of the “grass” part of the lemongrass this could be mistaken as a green tea chia.

My conclusions: Do I like it? No. Would someone that likes coconut like it? Probably. Would I like it better stronger? I’m not sure. Would someone else? Probably. Would I drink it again? Probably, if that was my only option. Would I buy it again? No. Serving suggestions: unsweetened, steeped partially or entirely in coconut milk if milk is desired, a touch of pineapple juice or a few (dried, candied, or fresh) pieces added during steeping? More leaf used during steeping? Maybe. I voted it thumbs down because I personally don’t like it and I’m not sure someone else would think it’s strong enough when steeped by industry standards, which would be even weaker than the way I steeped it. I also rate a tea based on number of infusions I can get and I’m leary I’ll be able to get the average of 3 good infusions..

Earthy and dark. Full bodied and almost chocolaty. I was surprised to like this since I don’t always go for teas this dark. Neat to watch the pearls unfurl.

This smelled stronger than it tasted. While we liked it, we wanted more pumpkin flavor…

Hubby and I loved this! It tasted as good as it smelled!

This is the last of the tea in my little sample tin. It’s maybe not my favorite plain black tea but I still enjoyed its unique taste and found it a very pleasing drink for waking me up in the morning or shaking the tiredness out of me during the day.

I’ll likely re-order at some point in the future; maybe not a full tin, but I’ve been eyeing Adagio’s black tea sampler which this is part of.

This makes a nice wake-me-up tea; strong, straightforward, and not too complex.

Yawns It’s nice to have something strong to wake my up in the morning.

I finally got my order from Adagio this morning, whoot! I’ll tear into it sometime later today. :D

Another long steep but this time I added a bit of skim milk which made it taste considerably better. It’s back to that sort of vegetal smokiness which is nothing like the sort of smokiness you get from a Lapsang Souchong BTW, instead it tastes rather tanin-laced.

I re-steeped the leaves from the last cup (adding a minute onto the previous steeping time) and found that the taste this time around is lighter and there’s also a curious hint of spice. Le gaspeth Could this be the elusive pepper flavour the tea gurus speaketh of???

I honestly have no idea, but if you squint and use your imagination I suppose the flavour might be considered peppery. shrugs Maybe I’m just crazy and this tea has finally driven me mad! ;)

Six minutes is too long to steep this tea I think, as there’s a bitter bite of tanins in the flavour. Some milk might leaven it out so maybe I’ll try it that way next time.

I resteeped the leaves from last night and they were plenty strong enough to provide me with another cuppa this morning. This tea does lose a lot of its unique qualities on the resteep I’ve noticed, and it tasted more like a slightly smokey generic (but still high quality) black tea.

Halloween party tonight and what better way to make sure I’m bright and awake? I think I used a bit too much dry leaf because it has a slightly bitter aftertaste but oddly enough it almost seems to work with the smokiness of the tea. (And sorry, still not tasting any pepper.)

I re-steeped the leaves from this morning (5.5 minutes, no milk). This cup came out a bit weaker than the first, but considering the strength of the flavours in this tea, that wasn’t really detrimental.

I tried it with milk this morning and I don’t think it added anything to to the tea, if anything it looses much of it’s subtleties. Still not tasting any pepper.

Drank another cup this morning. I steeped it for 4.5 minutes and noticed a bit less smokiness but still none of the black pepper taste Adagio claims it has.

My first taste of Yunnan! The leaves were longer than I’m used to seeing but it was neat watching them expand and unfurl while they steeped (5 minutes).

I’m not entirely sure what they meant by ‘peppery’ in the description, to me it tastes more smokey but with a cleaner, vegetale undertone almost like what you’d get in a green tea maybe.

This is one I’ll have to experiment with the steeping time more, but I think it’s quite enjoyable thus far. It’s robust enough that it’d probably be a good wake-me-up tea to have in the morning.

I’m busy making some food (southern style stuffing and a veggie tray) for a friend’s Thanksgiving gathering. I figured I’d put my recent tea advice to test and I’m glad to say it paid off.

I went with the advice I got from Jack (http://steepster.com/jack), Cofftea (http://steepster.com/Cofftea), and Angrboda’s awesome conversions (http://steepster.com/Angrboda). I added about twice as much tea as I was using before and I got the much stronger flavors I was expecting. This tea naturally has some really strong flavors, but I think it worked much better.

Great sweet raspberry aroma, and super sweet and tart raspberry taste. It finishes with a little of the bitterness from the raspberries, but still good. I added a little bit of honey to cut some of that and it seemed to do the job. The one thing I’m not a big fan of is the hibiscus flowers, they can be a little overpowering.

But overall, much better and an enjoyable experience. Props to my Steeps!

Light and sweet. First you get the sweetness of the apple and a hint of the raspberry. Then as the pink liquor travels back on your tongue you get more of the sour/bitter flavors of the cranberry and the hibiscus. This seems like a tea I would really like, except I can’t quite seem to get the preparation down. My first cup was too light, not enough flavor, so maybe I needed to add more tea and steep for longer. The second cup (that I had left steeping) had a much more powerful flavor but a little on the bitter side. It would probably help if I had a proper kettle so I knew what temp my water is.

I originally purchased this tea because it comes from the same region of Japan that I stayed in when I went there a few years back.

This tea has the perfect amount of grassiness for my preference, at least compared to other green teas I’ve tried so far. Once this tea cooled down, it was very good. None of the flavors were very sharp, which I like. It all seems to mesh together quite well.

I do see one problem however. I only made two cups worth, and I am starting to think that was not enough! This might qualify for a re-steep.