Adagio Custom Blends

Tastes spicy in a bad way. Bitter. Tried 10.2018

Steeped 3 min. Tastes very bitter. Very faint almond and cherry flavors, but the bitterness over-powers it. Could maybe improve with less steeping time, but not good enough to try it again. Tried 10.2018

Fairly plain tasting tea. The only richness came from the hint of vanilla. The orange really didn’t come in to play. Steep time not posted on tea tin. Tried 10.2018

Aria is sweet and spicy and really doesn’t need any sweetening (if you don’t oversteep). I love the warm cinnamon and cardamom flavors accented with the ginger. The coconut, orange and lemon grass help keep this blend from becoming overwhelming, cooling and brightening this tea.

Hmmmm…not what I was hoping for as I entered in this tea’s information to the database. It’s not a BAD tea, but I’m not really picking up on much more than the standard black tea, other than a hint of chocolate and some bergamot as well. Not bad, but not as good as some of the other Kingsman teas from Adagio.

Accidentally oversteeped this one a bit – got distracted finishing up my “chai” review from last night – and I’m hoping it doesn’t bring in too many tannic notes due to the assam.

This definitely has the smoke I was lacking in my last cup. The assam/ceylon provides a bit of body in behind the lapsang souchong so that it fills your mouth and leaves the smoke as a lingering flavor at the back of your palate.

It’s like it took my breakfast tea and waved it over a peat fire to warm it up…I’m really into this. I can’t help but think a little milk might help to balance it, so in the name of science, I’m going to go experiment.

I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out, but milk really does something to this tea that I find quite pleasant – it mellows it out further so you can pick up the rounded notes of the black teas without dulling down the smoky bits at the end.

This…may not be a daily drinker, but it might’ve just earned a place in my cabinet.

Mixed with a bit of sugar, and very good. The raspberry jumped out first, but it kind of had a bit of a chocolate flavor after a bit. Very tasty. Watch the caffeine on this one. :)

Ok, so my first review here is this tea. It’s pretty good, but maybe a little generic on the taste. Nothing really jumps out at me. I feel like I’d finish the cup wherever I was, but would probably need to blend it with something that has a stronger finish to it. It isn’t a bad tea, but may just need more steeping time for me. But then again, I am a neophyte to the tea world, so take my review with a grain of salt….or half a shaker.

Brewed this up as part of my “introduction to tea” for a friend of mine.

Brews up light amber, smells delightfully warm and peppery. There’s a gentle spice to it that seems to come along with some smoky notes. It’s interesting – like a sweeter lapsang souchong.

Brewed this up as part of my “introduction to tea” for a friend of mine.

It’s surprisingly malty with a gentle sweetness at the end of each sip that lingers. It gets a bit tannic after a few sips, but nothing unmanageable.

317/365

The first tea I picked out from the Game of Thrones fandom blend sampler. I figured it’s October now, so legitimately time for chai! This one’s a blend of Green Chai, Ceylon Sonata, and Caramel. I did the usual dithering when thinking about brew time and temperature, since it’s a green/black blend and I never know quite what to do with those. I went for boiling water in the end (there looked to be more black tea than green…), but kept my brew time fairly conservative. I may try it the other way around next time I have a cup, since it came out much more subtle than I expected. The spicing in particular seemed very light; mostly clove with just a hint of cinnamon. The caramel felt like an unusual addition, but it seems to work. It adds a sweet smoothness to the background that would be lacking otherwise, and it didn’t feel particularly out of place despite my reservations. The green tea is fairly innocuous, mostly I can taste the Ceylon Sonata, which is lightly citrussy, but also strangely “flat”.

I felt this was an interesting blend, but I can’t actually decide whether I like it. I don’t dislike it, but it didn’t make much of an impression on me; certainly not in the way I thought it would. It was okay; possibly I need to tweak my preparation to really get the best from it. Based on today’s experience, I’m not sure I can see any of the Starks drinking this one…

298/365

This is the last of the teas from the Magic Potions sampler, and is a blend of Adagio’s Pumpkin Spice, Vanilla, and Caramel with (apparently) added apple pieces. I wasn’t expecting a lot, for some reason, but I was actually pretty impressed with this one. It has a nice, soft pumpkin spice flavour – although more spice than pumpkin, as is usually the way. The clove and cinnamon dominate, but in a pleasing way – they’re not jarring or out of place. The vanilla and caramel help, I think – they’re very smooth and creamy, and they help to give the overall profile a bit of a lift. They certainly add a sweetness that would otherwise be lacking. I can’t taste much in the way of apple, but that’s a pretty minor complaint.

I like this one. It makes for a really enjoyable autumnal cup, and is a nice twist on plain pumpkin spice. I have a feeling it would make a decent latte, but at the moment I’m happy with it just as it is!

266/365

Another from the Magic Potions sampler, and another confusing name. Draught of Peace, to me, would absolutely have to be a caffeine free blend – probably something with valerian, or chamomile at least. This one’s on a black base, which is never going to put me into a deep – or irreversible – sleep…or any kind of sleep at all, if we’re honest. I like the flavour idea – apricot, cream, vanilla – but surely there’s a more appropriate name to be found somewhere in the HP universe?

I’m drinking today’s cup hot, although I think this would potentially be excellent either iced or cold brewed – something to try when I finally get around to sipping down some of these challenge teas, rather than accumulating!

I tried Adagio’s Cream ages ago, and didn’t much like it – I found it too cloying and heavy for my tastes. In a blend with other flavours, though, it’s pretty magical. This one is rich, and super-desserty, and I wouldn’t necessarily want a huge cup. The combination of cream and vanilla is very sweet and decadent, with a definite dairy quality. It reminds me a little of melted ice cream, although obviously without the texture/temperature differential. The “apricot” is a little more muted than I expected, although what’s there tastes more to me like peach. Either way, it makes for a nice stone-fruity pairing with the other flavours, although I wish it were more prominent. My one complaint is that it doesn’t add much in the way of contrast – all of the flavours here are sweet, and together they’re almost OTT.

As with many of the flavoured black blends from Adagio, the base tea here becomes a little bitter/astringent, even with a relatively short steep time. It’s more noticable to me when it’s piping hot, but it seems to settle down a bit as it starts to cool. I’m wondering whether milk would help here, or whether it would drown the apricot/peach completely – something else to try, I guess!

I like this one, although the mismatched name irritates me. Surely someone creating fandom teas – which likely arises from a passion for the thing itself – would have more concern for something like that? Why bother, otherwise? Setting that aside, though, this is a decent flavoured tea and one I’ll doubtless return to for future experiments.

264/365

This is one of the Magic Potions blends that might actually live up to its name, although what I can’t work out is whether that was intended. This one’s a blend of three Adagio chai – Thai Chai, Rooibos Vanilla Chai, and Chocolate Chai. It seems an odd mix, but then Polyjuice is an odd potion – it’s supposed to be complicated…and potentially disgusting.

In practice, it’s not great…but it’s not quite as bad as I thought it might be. There’s too much of some things – cardamon and cinnamon chief among them – but I suppose that’s to be expected since they’re likely common to all three chai blends. I can taste chocolate, but it’s muted and fairly watery, a decent quantity of vanilla, and a touch of coconut. It’s kind of bounty-ish, but with a background of chai spice. I suppose that means I can taste something from each of the individual blends, but I can’t say that it’s a particularly successful combination. It’s not bad, as such, but each time I take a sip I’m struck by the fact that I’m drinking three different things and not one coherent whole. It doesn’t hang together very convincingly.

One consequence of this blending that’s more disappointing is that none of the ingredients are there in enough quantity to make any real impact, so although there are flavours I recognise, they’re all a bit weak and muddled. The exception here is the spices, which are too heavy handed – I expect that’s largely because they’re there in the most significant quantity, having come from three separate blends which have each contributed some of the same things, along with their something different – with the result that the ingredients in common have become dominant at the expense of the more unique flavours.

I feel like I’m not making sense, but perhaps that in itself a fitting tribute to this blend. It’s an odd duck – not unpleasant by any means, but confused for sure.

262/365

This is the third of the teas I’ve tried from Adagio’s Magic Potions sampler, and the one that makes the least sense to me. It strikes me that Veritaserum, being colourless and flavourless, would not make for an interesting tea. Only in terms of its effects, perhaps, but I doubt it can replicate those.

I read a bit more about this one before I tried it, and it turns out that it’s based on the ice cream Hagrid buys for Harry in the first book – chocolate and raspberry with chopped hazelnuts. So why call it veritaserum? Colour me confused.

Setting the misnomer aside, this is actually a pretty decent blend. It’s a lot better than Ripe for Romance, which is the other raspberry/chocolate Adagio blend I’m most familiar with. That one was artificial and (on bad days) somehow contrived to taste of plastic; it reminded me most specifically of the scent of 80s Barbie dolls. This one is a much better prospect. The raspberry is actually fruity and quite juicy, and tastes like an actual raspberry – possibly the rosehip is helping with that. The chocolate is more of a background flavour, but there nonetheless. It tastes like dark chocolate, to me; the kind that balances on the edge of bitterness. The hazelnut is clear and prominent also, and adds a pleasant nuttiness that rounds out the flavour and seems to bring everything nicely together. It’s quite a harmony! What I’m reminded of most, drinking this, is a Raspberry Ruffle – a dark chocolate coated raspberry truffle that Woolworth’s used to sell when I was young. They’ve both fallen by the wayside now.

I don’t know whether this is a blend I’d repurchase, necessarily. It’s nice, but so are lots of other raspberry and/or chocolate teas. Also, let’s be totally honest – I bought this one for its name and its fandom connection, and the disconnect there kind of bothers me. Silly, but true.

Returning to this one today, because last time I tried it I was right on the edge of getting a cold and I wasn’t sure I’d done it justice. My main concern was that (I thought) it was supposed to be a citrus fruit flavoured yerba-oolong-rooibos blend, and I was getting…caramel.

Turns out it wasn’t a case of wonky tastebuds, because I’m still tasting caramel. It’s distinctively sweet, with a background of hazelnut, a touch of honey, and a little vanilla. It’s nutty and creamy; a little like butterscotch, a little like nut brittle. Very much not citrus, but lovely just the same.

As it turns out, I must have been very confused last time I looked this one up. The description clearly says rooibos caramel, rooibos almond, and honeybush hazelnut, which makes a lot more sense! I’m not sure which tea I thought I was drinking, but it wasn’t this one. (ETA: Actually, I do know. I thought I was drinking Chantel Isaacs version of Felix Felicis, when I actually have Robert Pirlot’s. Mystery solved.)

Now that order has been restored to the world, I’m going to say that I think this would make a decent latte, once autumn comes around again.

174/365

This is an odd one, at least in terms of ingredients. According to Adagio’s website, it’s a blend of Yerba Mate, Rooibos, and Oolong. I can safely say I’ve never tried all three of those at the same time, although judging by appearance it’s mostly rooibos. The flavouring is a whole lot simpler; orange, grapefruit, and lemon. I’ve a lot more confidence in that combination!

Possibly my cold is getting worse, but I don’t actually find that this one tastes of a whole lot. The creator’s description says he was going for colour over flavour, and admittedly it has come out a fairly impressive orange-yellow. Not quite liquid gold, maybe, but close enough for government work.

I can tell there’s Yerba in here, because it has the slight earthy-sour background tang. Other than that, it’s mostly rooibos; I can’t find the oolong at all. The rooibos isn’t bad, as they go. It’s a little woody, but the flavour I taste most is caramel. I actually think caramel would be a pretty good flavour for felix felicis, since it’s kind of gold in colour, and liquid luck should probably taste nice…I don’t really taste citrus fruit, except perhaps the tiniest bit of lemon towards the end of the sip. It brightens an otherwise dull cup, but it’s not particularly prominet or lively.

I’m a little surprised and disappointed by this one. I expected more from it, and at the moment it’s just not delivering. I’ll try it again once I’m cold free in case that’s part of the problem, but I’m not that sick yet, and I can taste other things just fine, so I don’t think my own tastebuds are solely responsible for this one.

To be continued…

May Flowers! This is another Adagio custom blend, and ultimately the one I restocked after drinking Padme because I loved the rose and cream flavors that came out in that tea from the Summer Rose/Cream combination. Since the Rooibos Jasmine component of that tea was completely missing, I saw little reason to get more of that tea when these were the two teas that left an impression, and a repeat blend might actually have enough Rooibos Jasmine to change the flavor profile. So I hunted around on Adagio until I found a custom blend that was simply a mix of Summer Rose and Cream, and found one, titled White Rose… which I’ll admit, is a bit of a confusing name. I have a white tea in my collection mixed with roses with the same name. A black tea called “White Rose” just sounds misleading to me… I guess the cream component made them think of white-colored roses. Whenever I see “white” in the title of a tea I always think of “white tea,” heh.

Confusing name aside, this is a tea for rose lovers! You open the bag and it has such a thick, rosey scent. I’ll admit, it has a lot of rose oil flavoring, and it may be overpowering or obnoxious to some, but since I really love this flavor note and sometimes find the rose in my teas too subdued, I really enjoy that I have a really strong rose tea option. Usually strong flavorings in my teas are really off-putting to me, but this is just a rare exception for me. The rose comes out as a strong top note, but mid-sip to the finish there is a notable sweet cream flavor beneath the rose, and I just love the way the two flavors pair. It adds a sweetness to the strong black base, which is — admittedly — a bit more on the bitter and astringent side than I typically care for in blacks (the one thing Padme had over this is that despite the Jasmine Rooibos carrying no noticeable flavor, it did mellow out the black tea so there was no bitterness or astringency in that blend). I tend to add some vanilla almond milk; it helps take some of the edge off the black tea, but doesn’t affect the creamy rose flavor at all. It also adds some nice creaminess to the cuppa. This is definitely one to take British-style!

May Flowers! And May the Fourth Be With You! This was the only floral Star Wars themed tea I could find on Adagio’s fandom blends, so though it isn’t one of my favorite characters, at least it fits the month’s theme. This particular fandom blend is a combination of Adagio’s Summer Rose black tea, Cream black tea, and Rooibos Jasmine tea, and has added lavender and cornflower accents.

This tea has a very lovely floral bouquet scent, with the most dominant scents being the rose and cream. It steeped up rather red in color, likely from the rooibos in the blend, and the aroma of the warm brewed cup was simply wonderful, and reminded me of taking a walk through a summer garden! In fact, I’d say the aroma was probably my favorite part of this tea. It isn’t that it didn’t taste good, I was just a little… underwhelmed. This one certainly turned out better than the Khaleesi of the Library fandom blend I tried during National Library Week, in which all I tasted was the Vanilla Rooibos Chai in the blend and none of the other teas; here I get a very strong presense of roses and cream, so I can definitely taste the Summer Rose and Cream black teas in the blend. But where is the Jasmine Rooibos? Other than the tea having a more reddish-orange coloring, I don’t pick up any noticable rooibos flavor notes, and I couldn’t taste the jasmine or lavender in the tea at all. The black tea, rose, and sweet cream was a wonderful flavor combination that I adored, but it was too overwhelming and washed out any potential for the other floral notes in the blend… either that, or Adagio didn’t mix this well, and given how my last fandom blend was mixed, that is entirely possible, too. Still, I have to mark this blend down for not holding up to its potential. The scents of a full summer bouquet were there, but the flavor was not.

In any event, after I sipped down this sampler, I found a different fandom blend that was just Summer Rose and Cream (called White Rose) and stocked up on that instead! My opinion on the taste I was getting from this will reflect more accurately there, since it, well, tastes as advertised!

Full review: https://teatimetuesdayreviews.wordpress.com/2017/05/02/tea18/

Iced Sipdown (584)!

Sadly this last cup was the worst I’ve had of this blend to date; nearly no presence of fruit notes in the sip which was a MAJOR loss of flavour in the blend as far as I’m concerned. What was left was a lightly bitter and astringent white tea base with lots of straw notes and a lavender dominant finish. I can’t do the taste of straight lavender; I need something like vanilla or fruit to break up that powerful floral profile. On its own it just reminds me too much of soap/lotion…

So this was a sad finish to this otherwise very fun and pleasant blend.

Revisit.

So, I had a near identical experience with this tea to my first time trying it. Strongest note was bright, sweet and succulent ripe peaches and then there were supporting apple and floral element. I feel like the lavender was a little stronger this time, and more weighted towards the finish of the sip so that this played out like a bright peach transitioning cleanly into soft, comforting lavender. No weird muddling in the middle. I saw A LOT of coconut in the leaf for this, though, and just didn’t taste it.

Really loving the peach/lavender though – makes me want to see that combo in more blends…

It took me far too long to try this one after I bought it – and that’s totally on me.

However, now that I have had it I think I’m going to be finishing it off sooner rather than later. It was very good. Like, surprisingly good. Napstablook, for those not familiar with Undertale, is a soft, sweet, polite and melancholic/sad ghost. He’s a precious character who is very beloved within the fandom.

This blend is mostly white tea, with pear, peach, and lavender however there are other things in it as well like oolong, coconut, and apple. I found that the strongest flavour overall was actually the peach; it was the brightest, sweetest and most flavourful element of the tea. The rest was pretty gentle/mild and easy to sip on; hints of the other orchard fruits and a soothing, peaceful floral undertone. Not super distinctly lavender, but definitely there.

I actually felt pretty strongly that the overall balance of intensity in the blend (smooth, soft, unassuming with a brighter, sweet top note) and the flora/fruit elements were a really nice choice for the character – making this a blend that I think tastes great as a stand alone tea but that also really fits with the inspiration behind it too.

Napstablook’s theme (in game): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuGnK4t4cp0