Adagio Custom Blends, Kerri Petrie

Iced Tea Sipdown (421)!

Finished this one off today at work – unlike the other Adagio blend I got at C4 I decided to not drag my heels with this one so I just finished it all off in one go as a large iced tea. It was actually very good, although I think to call this a “green tea” blend is really pushing it because it’s almost all fruit/tisane with ZERO green tea taste.

I couldn’t taste the ginger in it either, for that matter. No, it was mostly a very, very pleasant cherry heavy flavour with apple and orange undertones. It reminded me a lot of a cherry snow cone, with just a hint of tartness. I think it was the perfect blend for Cheryl Blossom too – very “cherry bombshell” with the sweet and tart kind of mirroring her swaying personality type, and the orange peel and bright red liquor of the tea actually mirroring her visual characteristics quite well too.

I think I’d actually order this one again – probably in the summer for iced tea, though.

Sipdown (409)!

Pushing my way through the final cup of this one tonight, with some added milk. I really wanted to finish this one off for two reasons – firstly, I need the sipdowns right now what with eight Black Friday orders on the way, and four others that were already en route. Secondly, my sister really wanted the tin that this came in. She’s a big Harley Quin fan and she’s over this weekend, so it’s the perfect opportunity to pass the tin off to her.

I will say, this tea seems to have consistently gotten better every time I’ve had it. I mean, to a certain extent that might just be a “stockholm syndrome” of sorts but if it makes sipping this one down more pleasant I’ll still take it.

Main notes this time around are chocolate and strawberry – and actually almost a surprisingly strong amount of strawberry? With the milk, it’s reminding me of those chocolates with the strawberry cream center you get in mixed chocolate boxes like Pot of Gold – somewhat low quality, though. Thankfully, I didn’t get any bell pepper notes in this cup but the finish did have a bit of a black pepper/peppercorn kind of taste which does feel really out of place to me. Also, no acetone!

So yeah – just a better experience all around. I would still never buy this tea again, though…

Cold Brew!

This was actually significantly better as a cold brew – for starters, it did not taste like green bell peppers and right off the bat that’s a huge improvement. In fact, most of what it tasted like was Hershey Kisses? Though it also had lots of strawberry too, so it made for a primarily chocolate covered strawberry sort of profile. Only major downside was the finish, which was a little acetone-like. However it was a VERY light acetone flavour, especially compared to how gross my hot cup was.

I mean, I’m definitely not saying acetone tastes good or that as a whole this was a good brew – just a better one.

One of the teas I grabbed from C4 when I was on vacation!

I’ll be completely honest; I think this tea was SUPER overpriced for what I paid for it, and I looked at the ingredients prior and I’m almost positive that steeped up I’m going to find the taste of this tea average at best. I still felt like I needed to buy it though; there was something about the idea of buying fandom inspired teas at Comic Con that just deeply drew me in as a concept. I was also thinking a little bit of my sister when I chose this one in particular; I don’t dislike Harley Quinn myself but I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan either. My knowledge of the character is probably pretty average. However, my sister is obsessed with Harley Quinn so I thought that this was something I could probably also share with her that she’d have a strong appreciation of.

Aesthetically speaking, the tea is pretty gorgeous! The sprinkles in the blend actually add a really stunning pop of colour – the greens/blues in particular really appeal to me since they’re something you generally don’t see in tea blends with this sort of pigmentation. It doesn’t stop there though; the peppercorns add an equally pretty red colour and I find that with how many there are in combination with the black tea base that it’s actually channeling that red/black colour pairing that’s so distinct with Harley’s traditional appearance. I’ve always loved that look more than the red/blue that’s associated with her so much now because of the Suicide Squad movie.

The aroma, but dry and steeping, is very chocolate heavy. Hints of strawberry and just candy in general. I guess that sort of sweet candy/dessert tea flavour makes a lot of sense to me with her character. For whatever reason I don’t think that’s what I would have chosen if I were making a HQ blend myself but now that I’ve been presented with it as a concept I’m on board. There’s also this sort of romantic connotation, I think, with the whole “chocolate covered strawberry” thing too, and while I don’t personally love Harley & The Joker together because of the abusive nature of the relationship I think it’d be remiss to not have some sort of nod to that relationship since it is a BIG part of her character. And the little bit of spice from the peppercorn also feels appropriate.

Taking my first sips now…

Yeah, it’s very chocolate heavy in terms of flavour. Like, the whole sip is just dominated by the presence of this milk chocolate taste. It doesn’t particularly strike me as a nice milk chocolate flavour though: quite artificial, and it even has that waxy quality that low quality milk chocolate has. The rest is a bit of a mess. Hints of strawberry in the top of the sip, but it’s a quick hint of flavour, and then it vanishes. I actually want more of it; a lot more of it – I think it could probably salvage some of the clusterfuck that comes next.

So, after that fleeting strawberry taste, I’m hit with the peppercorn and I have to say that I really don’t like it. It’s not that it’s too spicy or that it tickles my throat in a bad way or anything: it just tastes really dull and stale and I’m sorry but the taste of stale peppercorns is pretty fucking low on my list of preferred flavours. Then there’s this flavour that’s a little hard to explain: I don’t know where it’s coming from but it’s REALLY strong in the finish and quite lingering. It reminds me of… bell pepper? But also not as fresh/natural as a bell pepper. It’s almost like an artificial bell pepper flavour, than then was paired with cheap milk chocolate. It’s kind of awful.

I don’t know, in theory this had a lot of promise and conceptually I don’t think the ideas/ingredients were bad both in terms of character representation or with how they should have worked with one another. The execution is just awful though, and it makes for a mighty unpleasant cup of tea.

Song Pairing: https://youtu.be/BtvJaNeELic

So, I have a theory that you could pair ANY Lorde song with Harley Quinn as a character and it would work perfectly. However, I like this one in particular. Not totally sure why; just really vibes well with me. If the tea was actually good tasting, then I think this would have been an EXCELLENT pairing.