Adagio Teas Custom Blends

Not a fan. Not a fan at all. It smells and tastes like burnt nuts and butterscotch.

Gone for ages; back; etc.

This tea has a very very bright, citrusy smell. The tea itself is not as bright, which is expected but a shame! It’s very light, and still bright, but there is a heaviness/drabness to the taste throughout that brings it down a little. I can’t think what would lighten it up more to keep the freshness of the citrus throughout.

Regardless, I did quite enjoy this tea, which is a first for me with citrus flavors in tea. Also I’m sick right now, and a cup of this is a great thing to have around when you’re sick. I will probably drink this whenever I’m sick, and maybe on other occasions too.

Oooooooooo….. This one is lovely! It smells strongly of maple and walnuts and it tastes like maple Mini-Wheat cereal. Yummmmmm. I get notes of sweet caramel too.

The liquor is the typical deep red characteristic of rooibos. Very very nice. Easily the yummiest Adagio blend that I have tried to date.

This is a comforting sort of cup – it’s nutty and tastes kinda like fall leaves look, although at first taste it’s a bit thin, flavour-wise. A hefty slosh of soymilk helped to balance out the toasted hazlenut notes and left me with something that reminds me vaguely of cookies.

It’s not the cup I expected to get from this tea, but it’s definitely delicious. Better suited to an evening cup than a morning one, though, so I’ll save this for my pre-bed ritual from here on out.

“The Prince” (by Kristina Moy) is the first Severus Snape-inspired custom tea from Adagio Teas I’ve sampled. I was afraid that the not-quite-a-heaping-teaspoon wasn’t quite enough for my two-cup teapot; I was right. I let it steep longer to help make up the difference. It was still a little weaker than I would have brewed it earlier in the day, but for evening it was fine. It had a good deep green tea flavor (not surprising, since its makeup is hojicha and gunpowder with lemongrass). The lemongrass was nicely balanced, not overpowering or intrusive. I liked it, and will definitely be drinking it again—soon! Kudos to Ms. Moy for an enjoyable blend (Severus in a rare good mood—a little stern with the depth of green tea flavor, but relaxing nonetheless)!

I had this one earlier this week.

I think though that I overdid it on the coconut that day as I ended up with the worst upset stomach after having this tea. I don’t know what it was exactly and maybe it wasn’t the coconut, but I had a lot of it and that’s why I’m wondering… anyways, will try again and see how it goes. Hoping it’s better the second time.

I made this tea a loooong time ago when I first found Adagio and I was trying out their tea blend page. I never thought it would go anywhere because I wasn’t even trying to sell tea. I had never even tried it. Then two people bought it. I was ecstatic but I also was slightly nervous that it tasted horrible. So when I discovered that I had a gift certificate, I bought the sample tin. Its actually pretty good. The black tea provides some body while the peppermint and the cocomint green provide chocolatey mintu flavor. I probably need to drink some more to provide better tasting notes.

jump62359!! i drank this!
i made a giant cup at work and drank it all before i met oddree for tacos.
i’m not a big green tea drinker so that’s why it took so long for me to get around to brewing it. but the oriental spice definitely pushed the greenieness out of the way, so i really should have brewed this much sooner duh.
i stalled on watching Merlin. not really sure why but it’s still there in the queue when i’m ready to go back to it.
but listen, Colin Morgan is also in The Fall. and you MUST watch The Fall. i think about it every day and i finished watching it over 2 weeks ago.

I mixed up these two teas this morning to go with the gluten free blueberry scones I made. I really like how the cream tea tones down the lavender in the earl grey. Don’t get me wrong I like the EG Lavender just fine, but some days you want to tone it down a little. So good!

Performance in a Leading Role is one of my favorite AU Sherlock/John (BBC) pieces. So when I saw there was a tea based on said fan fiction I had to try it. I was not disappointed. Well, I was at first sip as I didn’t add anything to the tea (I like to try a few sips straight before I add in any cream or sugar). Without the add-ons it tasted VERY bland. However, once I added a little cream and vanilla sugar it tasted like a nice dessert tart that was actually more sweet and low on the tart. There were even some hints of cheesecake as I sipped this one. Very good!

So full disclosure — Adagio lets you mix and match their teas a bit to make your own custom blend, and this is one I “blended” myself. I wanted to make a tropical tea to go with this tropical coral picture I’d just painted. I really didn’t have high hopes for my blending experiment (having never done this before) but it’s actually pretty good!

Dry, the tea smells amazing. Really really fruity. At first sip, the Ceylon base seemed stronger than any of the fruit flavors, but once I added a generous spoonful of sugar crystals, the fruit was a lot more obvious. I could recognize the mango but didn’t distinctly taste the passionfruit or the grapefruit — still, they work well together to make a tropical fruit flavor.

The base tea is decent. I like it much better than, say, Upton’s bases, but it’s not as mellow as Harney & Sons or David’s. I do wish it wasn’t quite so sharp, but it doesn’t ruin the tea.

All in all, pretty happy with my first experiment. Plus the tin is cute!

It’s been a LONG time since my last review here. But I’m baaaack…did you miss me?. Changed the name as The PurrfectCup blog no longer lives. But my regular blog, Gal in the Grey Hat, does. And sometimes I post reviews there. But I’d like to return to doing that here. Anyway…to the review:

This tea (prior to steeping) smells devious. It is totally up to something. Once steeped it smells mostly of the earthy pu erh…nothing at all like Moriarty…but wait for the sucker punch of surprise of the strawberry, cream, candy cane, and peppermint. All of these flavors work so well together even though they hit you at different time in each sip! Truly one I need to have around in the cabinet!

My new favorite Mycroft tea. At first I wasn’t sure the flavors of apricot, vanilla, and hazelnut would go together. I was happy to find I was very wrong and it is indeed very good. I drink far too much of it for the good of my wallet. Which reminds me it’s time to re-order

SIPDOWN!

Finished this one the other day. Again, it was good, but I wish it had more strawberry flavour to it. Oh well… we’ll have to see what the new Davidstea strawberry tea is like next.

I’m almost done my sample sized tin of this one. I brought it with me to the hospital when I had to stay overnight before they would discharge the munchkin, and now I’m thinking I should review it as I’m having it again.

This tea has a fair bit of strawberry flavour to it. And when you look at the dried leaf, there is quite a bit of dehydrated strawberries to it.

I think a three minute steep is a bit too long for this one though. I should have done for 2 or 2.5minutes instead, as I’m getting just a bit of bitterness to it.

But other than the strawberry taste, I’m not really getting much else to it. I wish that I could make out some cream or something smooth about it, but i’m not… Again it could be ’cause of my steeping…

The smell of this one is fantastic though. I love the smell.
And either way, I’m going to finish this one up and love every minute of it ‘cause it’s a pretty decent tea.

This tea is pretty good. I wish the strawberry was a bit stronger, so I might rejig the mixture a bit. I am enjoying it though. It’s pretty good!

Green rooibos always makes a great tea. And who doesn’t love strawberries? I was attempting to make this one similar to Davidstea’s Swampwater. I think I’m on the right track. Just must make it a bit more strawberry flavour. I have added some now so hopefully next time it’ll be a bit closer.

THE RUNDOWN
1) Pre-Sip: The scent of clove is strong, but that’s what you get when whole cloves are infused. I smell a faint cinnamon and cardamon scent as well, but they are overpowered by the intense clove.
2) First Taste: I think I’m tasting green chai, and that’s cool. Never had that before. But again, in such a small amount of tea there were probably 3 or 4 dried cloves. It’s impacting the flavor too much and I’m missing the coconut, the ginger, and the thai chai. Not an unpleasant aftertaste, though I can’t imagine this being a non-winter tea.
3) Second Taste: I got a little ginger that time! This feels like the spices should be spicier though. I wanted to taste this thai chai (I’m begin to love all things Thai so I was excited about that) because of the spice. It’s like a spiced chai, but all spice and very little chai.
4) Final Thought: There’s a lack of sweetness and a overwhelming amount of spice. I wouldn’t recommend this to someone unless they love clove and ginger. But it’s good to try new things.

SIPDOWN!

Another tea bites the dust. I had a little more than a cup worth of this left so I used the whole thing up. It tastes pretty good, but for some reason I didn’t enjoy this cup as much as I expected to.
I don’t think I’d get this one again after all. It was great to try and the idea of it was good, but I don’t know. I feel like it just wasn’t quite what I was hoping for in a tea.

I’ve been craving spearmint tea, but went for this one instead. haha
Only steeped up a small cup of this one as I’m really trying to watch the caffeine a bit more as apparently my baby is measuring small… Hopefully everything will be okay in the end…. the doctor is keeping an eye on me, so hopefully it’ll be okay.

I’m not too sure if I’m getting Irish Cream or not, but it’s close. I think this one would hold up to milk very well also. I think that would make it even more like Irish Cream. I’ll have to try that next time.
But all things considered it’s very, very good. I love the cream and the almond… and the coconut is a nice touch.

I’m not too sure if I’d get this one again, but I’m glad that I tried it.

THE RUNDOWN
1) Pre-Taste: I remember trying this tea when I initially got the sampler pack and loving it (but not reviewing it here). My tastebuds are a little more in tune now so we’ll see what happens. I’m switching up my swetening profile to one packet of Stevia in the Raw. And I’ve begun infusing as opposed to bagging/sachets.
2) First Taste: Before I taste there’s a big bouquet of caramel, vanilla, and a hint of chocolate. The chai spice is faint but not fake-smelling. I can also tell there’s no sucralose (Splenda) in there, which is pleasing. When I taste, this dark chocolate actually comes through first, which is good since the base is a chocolate chai. A nice aftertaste and mouthfeel and again – I can’t stress this enough – so pleasant to taste more tea and not sucralose.
3) Second Taste: I can taste the cinnamon bark! This is amazing tea. And not too sweet to make it scream “after-dinner” or dessert tea (like most of the chocolate teas I’ve had). There’s a hint of the caramel too, almost like there’s a vanilla-caramel (like Tahitian caramels you might buy at a gourmet candy store). The only thing I don’t get coming though is the ginger. Maybe my sample is a bit ginger-light.
4) Final Thought: So far, this tea and The Heir are the two tins I would buy right now (since I’m reviewing from a sampler stash) and stay stocked on. I’m glad I finally tried them again with a less strong sweetener and a no nonsense brewing system. I’d really like to try all her Wizarding World and Whovian blends to see what I like. I’m excited to try my final sample of the Wizarding sampler soon and I’ll probably get a tin of The Saviour soon.

THE RUNDOWN
1) Pre-taste: Good steep. 3 minutes and it ran clear. Lots of great scents coming from this. As for color, it’s dark but not too dark.
2) First taste: Good mouthfeel, not great. There’s a muddled cinnamon confused with the chocolatey flavor. And as with her other almond oolong blend, I’m missing the almond or it’s very quiet.
3) Second taste: It’s warming, without any added “mulling” type spice like clove, which is nice. I guess I expected a little more from the cinnamon and the cocoa nibs because right now I get Irish breakfast, I get a hint of the malty assam, but not much in the way of the food flavors.
4) Final thought: You know, this smelled great before I brewed it, as loose. And when I brewed it smelled great too. But scent isn’t everything. Maybe the proportions in my sample were off, but the leaf scent didn’t represent the taste adequately. I liked the warming taste of it, but I wish it had more of a punch of the food flavors.

THE RUNDOWN
I just had to retype this whole thing so I’m going to make this brief cause I am p-o’ed.
1) First Taste: Definitely tasting caramel, apple, cinnamon. Like an apple pie scented candle, except not as artificial.
2) Second Taste: My friend says she tastes the almond, but I don’t. I get the cardamom and clove on the second go around though.
3) Final Thought: Yummy, but I wouldn’t recommend unless I knew someone who liked apple pie flavors. Very much a dessert tea, so I would drink again but not stock it.