Custom-Adagio Teas, Aun-Juli Riddle

Home – 9:30 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 23

The last one from Tales and Tea Leaves! This is a combination of almond oolong, vanilla black, and cream black (again) with orange peel and cinnamon.

I mean, it’s fine. It’s inoffensive. I can taste malt from the black tea, and then woody vanilla. I’m picking up some dried leaf-y notes from the oolong, and perhaps a little bit of marzipan. It’s all quite subtle though. There’s also a touch of bitterness and astringency from the black tea, even though I only steeped for 3 minutes.

Just meh on this one.

There were some from this sampler that I would consider keeping and finishing off, but I think I’ll leave them all together and pass the whole sampler on to someone else, so they can try the full set.

Home – 8:30 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 24

Time to finish off these Tales and Tea Leaves sampler blends. It’s a bit odd to me that this one is called “The White Tea of Kings”, but is mostly black tea? Strange. Anyway, it’s a blend of Earl Grey cream, cream black tea, and straight white tea. I feel like these designers tend to overuse the cream black tea – it shows up in so many blends.

This one’s actually not bad. The Earl Grey is the strongest flavor, and it actually has a nice orange-y note to it as well. I can taste the cream as well. Somehow the cream and orange are combining to make me think of coconut, which interestingly enough goes nicely with the bergamot. I can’t taste the white tea (no surprise), but maybe it serves to lighten up the black tea a bit?

Anyway, this is better than some of the others. Not great, but drinkable!

Someone should make a coconut Earl Grey… I want to try one.

Home – 9:30 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 30

Hmm…

This is kind of just a generic, unexceptional chai on a weak black tea base.

There’s maybe a hint of vanilla, but certainly no apple.

Mostly it just tastes of generic black tea and clove. Sad face.

Home – 3:30 PM

It’s been a while since I’ve tried a blend from my Tales and Tea Leaves sampler, mostly because it’s new to my cupboard and I’ve been trying to drink mostly older teas.

This one is rather disappointing to me. I was hoping for more blueberry, but I’m not really getting any at all. Mostly this just tastes like a rather bland vanilla-cream tea with some hay notes.

Meh.

Home – 4:30 PM

Daily tea from the Tales and Tea Leaves sampler!

This one is much better than the Wizard’s Grey I tried yesterday (in my opinion). It’s a blend of green chai, cream black tea, and apple black tea. I would say the chai is the strongest flavor, though I wouldn’t necessarily know it was green-tea-based. Clove is the most prominent, followed by ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and a touch of orange peel. I can taste a bit of the caramel apple in the middle (although I would like more of it). The cream is present throughout but really shines at the end.

Mostly it’s a tasty cream chai tea. More apple would be nice, but it’s still pretty good without it. Definitely can’t tell that there’s green tea in it.

Home – 4:30 PM

Well I finished tasting all of the teas from the Wicked Teas sampler, time to start on Tales and Tea Leaves! I just watched one of The Hobbit movies last night, so this is perfect timing.

In theory, this tea sounds like a tasty combination! Earl Grey cream, chocolate, and blackberry. Unfortunately I’m not generally the biggest fan of Adagio’s teas and only get these samplers for the “cute & fun” aspect so I’m not expecting greatness. ;)

Meh, it’s okay. The flavor is very muddled – I can definitely pick out bergamot and chocolate, but it’s definitely a cheap and waxy chocolate. Perhaps there’s some bitter cocoa as well.

I feel like I never like any tea that combines bergamot with berry – they all taste chalky to me and remind me of Tums chewables. Needless to say, not a great association. I do like Kusmi’s St. Petersburg, but I suppose that’s red fruits which isn’t necessarily the same as berry.

Anyway, it gets a meh from me.

230/365

Another from the Game of Tea fandom sampler, this time a blend of Spiced Apple Chai, Cinnamon, and Coconut. I like Adagio’s Spiced Apple Chai, so I was always going to like this one. It’s an excellent pairing with the cinnamon, which helps to heighten the sweetness without becoming overpowering. It does mean that a lot of the other spices get lost, but it still has a nicely earthy background flavour so it’s not too far gone. The downside is that I can’t taste much apple, and there’s no coconut to speak of at all. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a cinnamon chai – but that’s okay. I can get behind that.
Drinking this one puts me in minds of deserts, for some reason. I think it’s the combination of cinnamon and the earthiness. I suppose that’s fitting when considering the beginning of Dany’s journey with her dragons, but otherwise there’s not a lot that’s dragonish about this one. It’s an enjoyable blend, though, so there’s that.

325/265

Another from the “Game of Tea” fandom sampler. This time, it’s a blend of Green Chai, Vanilla Green, and Gunpowder.

In taste terms, it’s fairly mild – a lot milder than I was expecting, given the name. The green base is lightly grassy but not overpoweringly so. The vanilla adds a soft creamy sweetness, which is nice but a little out of place here. I don’t think soft, sweet and creamy aren’t adjectives that come to mind when I think of dragons. The chai is more muted than I expected, too. There’s a bit of background spiciness/heat, but nowhere near enough considering it’s a dragon blend. I can only assume Rhaegal’s fire has gone out.

Seriously, though, this one’s pleasant enough and easy to drink, but it’s nothing outstanding. I wouldn’t say it captures the spirit of the name particularly well, which is always a disappointment when it comes to fandom blends. Half the attraction is the connection, after all.

319/365

My second pick from the Game of Tea (Thrones!) sampler set. This one’s a blend of Tiger Eye, Cinnamon, and Almond.

My initial thought is that I like it very much – there’s a lot of caramel and chocolate at the forefront of the sip (I guess that’s the Tiger Eye…), against a pleasingly spicy background of cinnamon and the merest hint of almond. I drank two cups over the course of the day, one with milk and one without. The cup with milk was a little more muted, and causes the almond to disappear (it wasn’t strong to begin with…), but still has a nice chocolate/cinnamon vibe. I feel like you lose some of the caramel smoothness with milk, too, so going forward I’ll probably drink it without.

My first cup – without milk – was really smooth and very easy to drink. Part of me feels it should be “redder”, or somehow brassier, if it’s to really represent the Lannister’s – maybe a touch of hibi wouldn’t have been amiss here? I was imagining something a bit more like Butiki’s Ruby Pie, but obviously this is quite different! This probably isn’t the most unique tea out there, but the cinnamon adds a little twist and it’s nicely indulgent and desserty. I’ll happily drink up the rest of my sample.

Tea for wizards who like earl grey, so I HAD to try it. The scent very nice and mostly bergamot. There is also a little chocolate, and berry. Blackberry, chocolate, and earl grey make for a very nice flavour. Pairs well with certain fantasy books.

Mine has kind of an odd, sourish note to the scent when I open the package, but the brewed tea smells nice, rather like chocolate and cake (yet somehow not chocolate cake!). The flavor is pretty meh to me – a bit astringent (Adagio black for the win there), not much spice flavor in my bag, and I’m usually pretty sensitive to “spice.” It has an earthiness that I think is from the chocolate. There is a hint of chocolate aftertaste but not much. Same goes for the cake taste. Just overall, a basic black tea taste with a hint of chocolate and a hint of cake. I’ll probably finish the bag, but won’t buy more.

I only get a very faint chocolate aftertaste with this one. It comes across mostly as a mild chai. Basically, nothing remarkable, but nice enough. I did use a bit more tea than ordinary.

This tastes like steeped cloves to me! I don’t get any of the flavors anyone else is tasting, although as it cools it has a bit more complexity. However, I don’t get anything apple out of it at all. I may try again with shorter brewing and cooler water, but I don’t think this one is going to be for me!

Sipdown (216)

This is tasting really artificial and astringent today. There is caramel and cinnamon and then drying flavors that I could do without. So, probably best to say goodbye to this blend.

I made this as an eggnog latte and I forgot about it so now I tried drinking it cold except something went really wrong and there’s a weird artificial sweet lemon-cinnamon component. Kind of disgusting tbh.

Holy cinnamon, Batman!

Sipdown.

I don’t think this aged well. I got a generic fruity flavor and … nothing else. Oh well. It was decent.

This was a creamy strawberry chai, which doesn’t sound like it would work, but for some reason it tasted great to me! The chai was light, which helped, and the creaminess of the strawberry was in the forefront. A truly unique blend I feel. I would consider picking up more, perhaps.

Sipdown

This is a classic, warming chai. Really enjoyed the spices. I did not, however, enjoy the way the apple contributes a bitter/sharp flavor.

so i got this tea in today along with a lot of different teas from adagio teas, and i have to hope this will be the only time this happens. i opened up the little $4 tin and the first thing i saw was a meal worm. Does this happen often for them or is it just me? Im to afraid to even open it again honestly. and i was really exited to try this tea….. i sent in an email about my problem so hopefully they’ll replace this one with a bug free tin. Ill update this review if i ever get to try it!

Hmm. Jury’s still out on this one, as I’m not really tasting anything. I’m only getting a hint of sweetness, which may or may not be from the bit of rock sugar that I added.

This was actually quite yummy! Adagio blends can be hit or miss for me….but this one has warm hints of spice without being too spicy. I may steep it a tad bit longer next time just to see what happens. I can imagine Bilbo serving this for second breakfast at Bag End :)

As far as chocolate teas go, I like this one. It isn’t one that I will need more of or anything. Really can’t see myself reaching for it, but that is just because I am not a huge chocolate fan. I do highly recommend cold brewing this one. I read on someone’s review recently that they cold brew Adagio’s black teas to avoid that muddled flavor they often have when hot brewed. After trying this method I completely agree! I have a ton of signature blends that I’m excited to try now. Ones that I tried different methods of brewing, but the flavors were just blah. These flavors popped when cold brewed. The only flavor I didn’t pick up was the blackberry. But for what it is, not a bad cuppa.

http://www.cuppageek.com/index.php/2015/05/14/tea-of-the-day-wizards-grey-from-adagio-tea/