Adagio Teas

I didn’t think I would like this one, as I’m usually not a fan of cream and vanilla flavored teas, but this works for me. I enjoy this one with my breakfast. It’s a warm, comforting cup.

The first time I tried this I followed the brewing instructions on the package, and it was too astringent for me. This time I tried it at my go-to green settings: a heaping tsp at 160 for 1 to 1.5 minutes. That turned out much better. I enjoyed this cup, though the second steep was unbearably bitter. I may try dumping the second infusion next time and trying for a third.

The first thing that struck me about this tea was its smell. As soon as I opened the package, I did a double-take. Was this a blend? I had never smelled a green tea before this with such a floral/herbal smell. The taste is very delicate. I imagine this is a love-hate kind of tea, but I love it. This is my favorite green tea I’ve tried. At 160, it can be steeped several times, and honestly the second and third steeps are better than the first. Really a pleasure to drink.

Well, my late night brew time has arrived. This is the Honeybush variety of Adagio’s vanilla tea. In bag, it smells almost too sweet. But there is an additional scent there, something akin to bourbon. It’s almost syrupy sweet smell, so we shall see how well that translates.
Steeping is western style. I will point out that I steeped this about 3 minutes longer than I usually do. I forgot to not listen to Adagio’s instructions and only steep 3 minutes. Water was boiling.
Flavor is… well it’s better plain than the vanilla rooibos, if that makes any sense. I can smell more sweetness then I taste. The sweetness with no added sweetener is very mild. The vanilla is there but isn’t necessarily bitter or sweet. It’s sort of a neutral vanilla note. I’m not getting any real flavor of that bourbon I smelled. I mean it may be there if you hold it in your mouth and search for it, but in regular sippage it’s missing. The tea overall is slightly bitter, but I don’t want to add splenda because I am afraid it will go too far the opposite direction. I suppose this is an acceptable tea. If you like vanilla, then this may be ok. But more than likely it’s probably too bitter and muted for most peoples tastes. Technically, when taken straight, it’s better than the Rooibos Vanilla from same company. But it’s really not the best. I will likely finish the sample but that’s about it.

This tea was included in a sampler that I got for free from Adagio for ordering over 49 dollars. That being said, anything that says “Skinny” in the title has my interest (I’m attempting to lose weight), so here goes.
The smell in the bag smells very strongly of custard. I’m guessing that’s the “Natural Creme Brulee Flavor” that it contains. That sugary custard aroma smells lovely so lets see how it translates into the brew.
Western style as usual, 3Min, Boiling Water (Which is what it calls for despite there supposedly being both green and oolong in it.)
Smell while brewing is a mild buttered popcorn scent. It almost makes me wonder if the oolong they used is a milk oolong, but I doubt it. It smells nothing like the dry leaf, unless you make the connection that there is dairy in both custard and butter.

Taste is… actually really good. I’m getting the ginger and honey notes, along with a buttery flavor and some cinnamon. This is really hard to judge at my level of tasting experience. There’s just so many competing flavors I can’t pick them all out. It’s very tasty, don’t get me wrong, and I almost want to make a latte out of it to really bring out the natural sweetness. But that complexity is almost too much. Think “Jack of all trades, Master of none”. All those different ingredients lead to a cup with 101 flavors, but almost none really stick out. It’s the “Mutt” of tea. Still decently tasty though.

Note: It says to not overdo it on this tea or (to un-euphemism them) you may get the runs. I’m guessing that some of the herbs may cause that as this is technically a wellness tea. So I doubt I will resteep this. No clue how it is supposed to help you lose weight, but if it works, great. If not, it’s decently enough flavored that I will finish the sample but probably not buy more.

Well, I wasn’t sure if I had reviewed this one before. Apparently I had. However, I reviewed it before I got my YS order. Now that I have tried good quality silver needle, I feel I need to re-evaluate this. No, it’s not awful, but the difference in quality between Adagio and quality tea is so noticeable. Yunnan Sourcing’s Jasmine Silver Needle is everything I said about this tea, with the tastiness ramped up to ELEVEN. It really isn’t fair to go back to this after drinking that for two months, but now that I have… this tea just doesn’t stack up. It’s like looking at those WWE Replica belts (bear with me here). Adagio is the standard “Replica version”. YS is the “Ultimate Version”. Sure, they have similarities, and they have much of the same flavor. But when you really look at it in the light, YS just glitters and sparkles more. It’s the different between a belt decorated with cut Cubic Zirconia and one with gem shaped PLASTIC. In the end, you get the same base effect. But the quality and detail is just incompatible.

I guess what I’m trying to say in general is, Adagio charges a bunch for this stuff. You can get much better elsewhere, likely for less. Don’t dumb down your tea experience. Go for quality!

This is my first experience with Silver Needle, and once more it is Adagio. I do have some Jasmine Silver Needle on its way from YS but that hasn’t arrived yet.
Anyway, Western style, 3 mins 180F. Smell in cup is of warm buttery croissants and faint floral aroma. Taste is… rather nice. The buttery notes I smell only subtly translate over into taste. I’m getting a more grass/floral flavor to it in its place. I swear I taste melon, is that weird? The aftersip is more of that dry grass flavor with the floral and melon. As it cools I’m getting a very mild wood flavor. Overall I would say this is a win for me. The complex flavors, while noticeable, are not overpowering. It’s a nice soothing calming flavor. Good for the end of the day when you want to unwind.

So this is my second of Adagio’s Jasmine Greens. I already reviewed and finished the other so we shall see how this one pans out.
Western Style. I got distracted and steeped it a bit too long (about 3:30-3:45) but the water was 195F.
I can definitely taste the oversteeping. The Jasmine isn’t nearly as overpowering as the other one I tried, so that is a plus. However, with the oversteep, it is ever so slightly bitter. I can taste the green tea more in this one, so those vegetal flavors are totally there. The bottom of the cup where some of the flavor settled was super bitter, but again, oversteep so that is probably why. I will try this one again fresh later and pay more attention so I can get an accurate bead on it. But for now, what I am getting from this one is I think it is better than the Yin Hao (I think that was what it was called). Not as super-jasmine, and a better blend of flavors.

Well what do you know? My first added tea!
40 Winks wasn’t anywhere on the site so I had to add it. Believe me I looked. Nowhere to be found. Anyway this is one of Adagio’s wellness blends. It’s supposed to promote sleep. We shall see…
Upon cracking the package, I get a strong pungent aroma. I’m guessing that’s the valerian root. It’s listed as the first ingredient so it must be prevalent. I’m also getting an aroma of chamomile and mint, which are also both ingredients. So onto steeping.
Western Style, 212F, 5Min.
Upon drinking the first thing I notice is that the pungent valerian aroma doesn’t fully translate over. It’s definitely there, but the tea is still palatable. There’s a slight tingling sensation in the mouth that I suppose would be the mint? I can totally taste the chamomile as well. Grassy notes are apparent as well. They become more and more noticeable as tea cools. Surprisingly no sweetener is needed in this one, although some people may wish to put a bit of honey in it for medicinal value. I can’t really have honey anymore so I am grateful it does not need any sweetener to drink. I don’t know if this will put me to sleep or not (I have weird sleep patterns) but it is certainly soothing. I would totally recommend this for a last-cup-of-the-night kind of tea. It’s flavor is nothing to write home about, but it’s not horrible and who knows maybe it will help you sleep.

So this is a supposed desert tea I was really looking forward to. They say it has chocolate and caramel flavorings along with black tea. So we shall see.
Brewed western style as usual, 212F, 3min.
My first thought about drinking this is “I thought this was supposed to be sweet???”. The natural flavor of this tea is quite bitter, like dark dark cacoa and caramel that has no natural sweetness to it. That second part is weird to me because I always thought Caramel was basically cooked sugar. So no, this tea is really kinda bad in its natural state.

You know what that means… LATTE TIME.

So after adding the almond milk and two splendas, the darkest cacoa and bitter caramel flavors suddenly turned into “Candy bar”. Frankly that’s what I wanted in the first place, as this is supposed to be a dessert tea. I drank two steeps worth of this in latte form and have decided that, if you can stand making a sweetened latte, go for it. But once again, I find that so many Adagio teas just do NOT taste right unless you add either milk or sweetener to them. I really wish they could get their act together on their flavored blends because the potential is there. They just keep falling flat.

So this is my first experience with any type of Wuyi. Smells good in bag, lets see how it tastes. Western prep, 3min at 195F.

Totally getting that famous mineral flavor, followed by a mild earthy and strangely peppery? flavor. I don’t know what that flavor is. It reminds me of black pepper, but there’s no pepper recorded on any previous tasting notes. It’s bitey in my mouth and leaves it tingling. About a minute or two after sipping, the remaining after flavor changes to and stays as a massive grape flavor. I have no idea where or how that happened, but suddenly my mouth is full of grapes. As it’s cooling I’m getting a mild wood flavor, but still plenty of that rock taste. Overall I do like this. It’s not my all time favorite, but it is a totally acceptable tea. I would gladly drink this again.

Well, durning funeral trip, I discovered I like citrus green. This is one of my attempts to find the perfect green tea with citrus.
Sadly, this isn’t it. Maybe I just didn’t steep long enough. I went for 2 minutes with 180F water. The flavor isn’t as strong as I would like. It’s a mild citrus green and I like a very flavorful one. The perfect citrus green would be strong but not overwhelming. This is way too mild for my tastes. It does have a good citrus green flavor. I can taste the orange zest and the slight vegetal of the green. It just isn’t as pronounced a flavor as I like.

Oh wow. This was a free sample from Adagio Teas. They basically said if I like golden monkey I would like this.

Boy were they wrong.

It’s a very complex cup, I’ll give them that. Woodsy, Smokey, Mushrooms, Earthy… But that smoked flavor and I are not getting along. Between that and the heavy mushroom flavor it’s like drinking burnt portabella mushrooms. This is getting dumped. Sorry Adagio.

A green tea, so not my favorite, but for a green tea it doesn’t taste too green, not tart, good for a change from a steady diet of blacks.

I was surprised by this tea. The post-steeping sent smelled like I had burnt the leaves, and I was dubious. However, it was nutty and rich. I really enjoyed the deepness of the flavor, and can’t wait to try this tea with some cream. I’ll definitely be finishing what I have left, but not sure if I would repurchase.

Very similar to Adagio’s Vanilla Green, the Vanilla Oolong was similarly synthetic and unpleasant. I still could not finish the cup, but it was slightly less unpleasant than the Vanilla Green.

Very artificial tasting. The synthetic taste overwhelms the mouth and makes it quite unpleasant. Couldn’t finish the cup.

OKAY! New Rule. All chai teas will be reviewed using the same prep method- With Almond Milk and two splendas. That being said, time for the review.
WOW! This is certainly a… DIFFERENT tea. I don’t think I have ever had tea with coconut in it before and it shows. I really don’t know if I like this at all or not. The Coconut is pinging in my mouth along with the chai spice and it is really a weird combo. It’s almost like combining sweet with spice and getting sour. I don’t what to do with this. It is kinda tasty, but just really too odd a flavor combo for me. The flavor is very strong even with the almond milk and sweetener. Nope, don’t think I can recommend this one. It’s different in a bad way.

I couldn’t remember if I had reviewed this, and when I saw I did, i reread my tasting note. It basically boils down to “I lost it, I found it, I drank it, it was too mild for my liking.”

Well, surprise surprise, that is almost exactly what happened a second time. I did lose it again, and I did re-discover it, and of course I tried it again. However, maybe it’s the refining of my palate in the past year but despite brewing this the exact same way as last time, and the tea being a year older, I like it much more. It’s still a very mild tea, but I appreciate it far greater than before. The same profile is present. Vegetal, fruity, a touch floral, lingering sweetness. However, it’s no longer “too weak” for me. Instead, I find myself enjoying the subtleties of it. The flavors blend pretty nicely and for a good-night cuppa before bed, it hits the spot.

So upping my rating on this. I really think a year ago, when I started my tea journey, I simply couldn’t appreciate a tea that didn’t smash you in the face with flavor. I still tend to go for those face smashers, but I have much more range these days.

Another tea I misplaced, and found again. My first cup of this, I had to look up recommended steeping instructions as I am not yet skilled enough yet in tea identification to eyeball this stuff. So 2:30 at 180F it was. The aroma is very lovely. Fruity and sweet. The flavor, however, eh- not so much. I taste a faint sweetness to it, but not enough for my diabetic mouth. I’m definitely getting some vegetal notes from the green tea and a SLIGHT fruitiness. The flavor overall is very mild. I just don’t think it is for me. I almost want to add sweetener to this to see if it will bring out the peachy fruity notes. Really not my cup of tea. I will likely finish the free sample but probably not till there is nothing else to drink again. I mean, it’s better than Grocery Store, but not by much I feel.

I think I got this one from meowster… Hot, I didn’t like it much, but once it cooled down, I could really taste the candy cane flavor. It makes my tongue feel tingly and minty. It needed a lot of sugar to make it taste like a candy cane instead of just strange. The black tea is also pretty musty. So… I’d say this tea is just okay. The candy cane flavor is authentic and fun, but the musty base is too distracting.

This was nice, not bitter, and very mild.

Tastes like a black tea, but still distinct

I have a sample, but I don’t know if I’ll repurchase.

I’ve tried a lot of almond teas in the past few months. While not the worst, this is also not among my favorites. There’s some bitterness, which I had to cover with milk and extra sugar. While it was hot, I actually couldn’t taste any almond flavor. It tasted mostly like a malty black tea. Once it cooled, the almond flavors came out, and I’m enjoying this cup. In the future, though, I imagine I’ll continue to purchase caffeine-free almond teas instead of ones like this.