Tamm

Many thanks to Teavivre for this sample!
The dry leaf of this smells very similar to the Xiaguan toucha I was drinking earlier. I prepared this tea per Teavivre’s instructions of ~1 min. steep times. Pouring this tea was really interesting! I noticed that at first the water was very russet/copper colored and then ended with very deep browns and reds. I guess I never paid attention to that before.
This pu’erh has a distinct hay and bread like quality. There is some sweetness, but it is at the back end of the sip. It also kind of reminds me of cream of wheat for some reason; so farina like. Something about drinking this makes me think that it’d pair well with almonds and crystallized aged gouda cheese bits. I think that the mouth feel of this reminds me a bit of almond skins and that’s where I’m getting this. That sounds really weird when I write it down! Overall this is really easy to make and it is a great pu’erh for newbies like me.

This tag seems to work for my toucha for now. I’ve had this tea for some time now and I love it so, so much! It was my very first pu’erh purchase and I could not have picked a better one. The toucha was only $3 at a local Chinese shop that I love.
I always do 1 quick rinse and then 2 steeps. Today I used just a bit less leaf than usual and slightly cooler water. This tea is so amazingly sweet. I am really struck by how honey like and fruity it is. At longer steeps it tends to be more leathery and thick. But today’s cuppa was very juicy and almost left my mouth with that feeling you get after eating/drinking mint. It is pretty interesting as I haven’t noticed this before with other teas. This was a really great find and I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase it again.

Today has been such a great tea day! Sencha, pu’erh, matcha, and dancong?! Who wouldn’t be happy with that? :p I’m trying to stay hydrated because it is so dry here now that I’ve had to have the heater on.
This tea is really only good when cut with my other matcha powder. This one tends to be more bitter than what I’d like. It also does not mix as well as other matcha powders that I have tried. The foam is beautiful though and I love the easy to store tin.

This second steep is getting its own review because it was so different!
This was a little under boiling for 1min.
The second steep reminds me of stones in summer for some strange reason. The texture is really evident in this tea. There is a great deal of mineral in this cup and it is followed by light fruitiness. It almost reminds me of the insides of grapes. This cup is also more green tasting than my past one.
Still a really unique tea and one that I’m looking forward to drinking again!

I love this oolong. There is something distinctly mineral in the flavoring that I find interesting. But the main attraction is this almost lychee-like flavor. It tastes more like lychee than artificially lychee teas I’ve had! This tea also seems to have more body than other oolongs that I’ve tried. There is a sweet, honey,and fruity juiciness to this tea that makes it one of my favorite oolongs.

I’ve had this sample for quite some time now and I feel bad that I’ve waited so long now that I got a good whiff of it. The dry leaf smells very sweet and I used extra leaf because I wasn’t sure I should be using for such a small amount of tea. My ceramic pot is ~5oz. This tea is very sweet and pea-like. It tastes crisp. In the back of the sip there is something deeper and more umami. This is a really great green and is reminding me how much I love Japanese greens.

I have to admit that this tea tastes a lot better when you’re able to mix the ingredients around a bit more. Until moving it into a larger container (instead of the bag) I hadn’t realized how much rooibos was in this tea. It really separates and the flavors are far more balanced this way. It has a really sharp edge to it. This isn’t really a bad thing, but I really have to be in the mood for it.

Backlogging.
This was the last of my samples and I have to say I enjoyed this one the most. It is far more toned down than other berry blacks that I have and it is such a good thing. The Adagio mixed berry tea came to mind because for some reason it tastes a bit chalky to me. We used to have these awful candies when I was a kid that was just fruit flavored powder in these plastic fruit. They were awful, but super common. That is what other berry teas remind me of. This one is more heavily a black tea with notes of berry. I can’t quite pick out what berries it should be, but raspberry came to mind.
To be honest, this is the only Twinings tea I’ve had that I’ve actually enjoyed and I’d buy it if I ever saw it in a store.

When I opened this today I was instantly taken back to my childhood. I used to spend most of my time at my grandmother’s home. She had lots of fruit trees and a really wonderful garden. My favorite part were the raspberry bushes. The dry leaf smells just like those bushes somehow.
When steeped this has a darker amber color and smells mostly like white tea rather than flavoring. If someone preferred their flavoring light I’d suggest Adagio’s white tea blends because they are a lot more toned down. This mostly tastes like plain white tea with a slight sweet edge to it. Mostly honey like to me. This might as well be a plain white tea, but not a bad one by any lengths.

Here is another sample that I got!So recently I got a journal and I’m loving it. I mostly draw, write random quotes, and tape things in it, but it has actually made a huge improvement in my mood.
When they say lemon they really mean it! I just opened the satchel and it smells really strongly of lemon and mint; much more than chamomile. This tastes mostly of chamomile and some almost popcorn overtones that remind me of the dreaded melange tea from Teavana. This has very little lemon and I wish there was some more. If I was going to have this regularly I’d be tempted to add some. Not a super impressive tea, but not a bad one either.

This tea is simply awesome. I could smell it before I even opened my package! I was worried that it would taste boring because it’s a pretty simple premise: hazelnut and cream. But it is so good. I think that I’ve already used 1oz of the tin simply because I’m favoring it over the rest of my stock. I can’t believe that Adagio is selling these blends for only $9/4oz AND they come in a tin. The tin itself is also beautiful. It also has steeping instructions, description, and is going to be a nice tin to have around after I finish the tea.
As for the tea itself the cream is much more obvious than I thought it would be. It really balances this flavor out. It reminds me a bit of yellow cake. This tea is much less temperamental than the other black by Adagio that I’ve been drinking.
So overall I’d really suggest this out of the two new versions of the Zodiac blends that I’ve tried. I’m so impressed by the amount and quality of the tea that they give you for this that I’m planning on trying at least two others in the series. This tea is on my “must haves” for Adagio.

Free sample time!!! I ordered 3 samples awhile ago and they just arrived the other day. I’m surprised there isn’t a review of this one yet. It smells extremely similar to the Government and the Inspector blend from Adagio. Just a little more anise/clove seems to be the biggest difference. Steeped this smells a bit like hazelnut, but with those dried cinnamon sticks in it.
Dang. This is more cinnamon than anything! It says ginger on there, but I’m not seeing any of that. I am pretty sad that this is so overwhelmingly cinnamon stick. I’m really not liking this one.

Normally I really love this one, but I just realized that I was mindlessly drinking my cuppa and it was really astringent. I do have to warn people by saying that this one is finicky. I’d suggest always steeping on a very minimal to no boil and for only 3 min. or else the results are pretty terrible.

Wow, I think I forget I have this one a lot of the time. I don’t drink it very often due to the mate. This one tastes much better at lower temps, steeped for ~5 min. This tea tastes more chocolaty than Adagio’s chocolate chai, that’s for sure! Lots of nut notes and a small amount of cinnamon.
I would suggest people just buy the mocha nut mate because the cinnamon in this does not influence the flavor enough to really warrant the blend.

Sipdown!
This one was really great as long as you don’t steep it too long. The base tends to get very bitter, very fast when brewed at higher temps for too long. I kept hearing about chocolate with this one, but never got a lot of chocolate notes. This is a great after dinner tea and I’d be pretty tempted to say that it’s one of the better blends that I’ve tried from Adagio.

I believe this product has changed some as the graphic is different than the one displayed here and is no longer listing white chocolate. Cocoa is still an ingredient, but may be very different than what the other posters rated.
For me this is a ho-hum premix chai. For me many of these mixes are too sweet and honey-like. This one has some sweetness, but it is less than the Oregon brand. This has a lot of nutmeg in it and it is really apparent in the smell. I didn’t notice at first, but this has a very strange undertone. I think I may be the cocoa. It smells and tastes a bit artificial/odd to me. Overall it is pretty nice. I’d suggest this to someone new to chai/tea in general. But for me this has too little kick and too much weird whatever it is I’m tasting.

It took a bit for me to warm up to this tea, but you know what? It is perfect for this time of year. It has been a bit rainy today and I had to trudge through my last readings of the semester today; but now I can relax with a nice, fall inspired cuppa. This tea has some good spice flavors that are less of the mainstream hot cinnamon and clove and more of something that reminds me of nutmeg.

I’m so happy so far with my finals results! I even got 100% on my presentation last night and I’m not one for public speaking; so that was a miracle!
This tea was another of Teavivre’s generous samples. Unfortunately, my lid fell into my cup when I was poring so some leaves got more steeped than others. This steep reminds me mostly of deep greens like spinach. It is just a bit sweet. There is also a back flavor of a bit of barley like baked-ness that reminds me of Rishi’s Tie Guan Yin. The major difference between the two is that this one exhibits more creamy flavors than the Rishi version.

mmmm. This tea is saving me from finals weeks stress! I know I’ve been absent, but I appreciate everyone on here so much and all their wonderful tea notes! I have exciting news! I am going to Peru for an Archaeological dig summer 2014!!! So I raise a celebratory cuppa caramel.
I purchased this over the Black Friday weekend so I got free shipping. Who could resist 3oz of tea for almost the same price as shipping?! I think I’ve mentioned this before, but price wise this is a wonderful tea. At $6/3oz it is my favorite “cheap” tea. This requires a much shorter steep time when compared to my other blacks. But when done correctly this is a creamy, sugary tasting caramel tea. When I use extra leaves the black tea notes come out a bit stronger than other caramel teas I’ve tried. This tea is great with or without milk/sugar.

Sipdown!
What a wonderful sample. Seriously Teavivre, thank you for the sample! I have decided that currently my favorite milk oolongs go: Teavivre, Teavivre (flavored), and then David’s. This is mainly due to the fact that I like the floral/sweet/fruity notes in Teavivre milk oolongs as compared to David’s more creamy version. All are wonderful though.
I normally do 3, 3min brews of this tea and it stands up quite nicely. This is a very sweet, smooth tea that would be great for anyone looking for milk oolong.

The leaves unfurl very quickly in this tea! It smells primarily of jasmine to me, with some orchid-type notes sneaking in. I do really enjoy this one. I accidentally oversteeped it and although it did not become bitter/astringent the flavoring of the leaves comes off a bit stronger than I’d like. I only have one more tsp of this one left, so I should probably enjoy it at a lower steep this time! It may be the fact that I just ate an orange, but the last notes that I get on this are fruity and kind of dry (dry? I don’t really drink wine, but something in this is bringing something like that back).

Thanks Teavivre for this sample!
This is not something I would have picked for myself, but gosh, I love this one. I love the sweetness paired with the roasted flavors. It matches really well with toast. :3 I think that this one is great to have with lunch and I really enjoy its uniqueness.

sigh So I totally burned my lunch (a grilled cheese sandwich). So back to tea then! I haven’t mentioned this, but my tea shelves are a mess. A total black hole of piles of assorted bags, near empty jars, and just not fun to look at. Maybe that’s why I have been drinking less tea lately. But this is the very last of this tea! I got this in a contest, and like I’ve mentioned, it may have not been stored in the best way possible. So although it smells quite nice, the flavor really isn’t there.
There are lots of buttery notes in this one and it is the predominate flavor in this cuppa. Besides that I get lots of sweet, green tea flavor which is really good. Other than that I don’t have a lot to say about this one and I don’t think that it is fair for me to rate the tea off of the sample I was given.

Thank to Teavivre for this very generous sample!
I feel crummy today and I still have almost 2hrs. before I have to start my homework so I thought I’d relax with some nice, pure tea. I’ve been in quite the flavored tea stint so all this plain tea tasting has brought me back to what I really love to enjoy.
Dry, this tea smells almost similar to a Bai Mu Dan; especially the light hay notes. There is also an almost nutty smell coming through. I’m not sure how much to add to my tiny cup, so I’m just eyeballing it as covering the bottom. I’ve only had one other Dragon Well and to be honest, I hated it. It smelled and tasted swampy.
Wow! Even though I only steeped this for 2min. the smell is very strong. There are lots of pea notes in the front of this brew. It is very crisp and I’m really loving the nutty notes. This particular steep is reminding me a lot of sencha. There is almost a milky-ness to this tea, as I saw other reviews state. Compared to my last run in with Dragon Well this is amazing! This is easily one of my favorite greens and I would really recommend it for anyone new to green teas.