Adagio Custom Blends

additional notes: I forgot to write a note for this when I finished it on the perfect hot day a few days ago (I was waiting for a perfect hot day to finish this since last year!) If you want a perfect MOJITO tea in the cupboard, this is the one to go with! I love the perfect balance of citrus and mint on the refreshing green base. I really want to have this one around. Maybe in a future adagio order. There are a handful of teas I’d really like to get from adagio. On a roll with sipdowns lately but they have mostly been favorite teas!

This one is thanks to SkySamurai!  One of the extras used as bubblewrap packaging. :D  Turns out, I LOVE THIS.  Whoa.  It looked like there would be too much in the sample for my mug, but it was perfect.  It tastes like a mojito.  Spearmint and citrus.  All kinds of citrus.  A great balance on a green base.  It’s very refreshing.  I’m glad I have a second sample.  I’m saving it for summer.  I wouldn’t mind stocking up on this as a mojito type of flavor.  The only other one I can think of is Bird and Blend’s.
Steep #1 // 40 minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 35 minutes after boiling // 3 min

Geek Steep S2E16 – Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone

We had a lovely midseason break, but we’re back! And very excited to immediately dive back into more and more fandom discussions – this week (well, last week – I’m a week behind posting) week with our friend and coworker Celia as we dive into this suuuppppeeeerrrr viewer requested fandom!

I have no shortage of Harry Potter inspired teas so choosing which ones to focus on for this episode was incredibly challenging because, well, it’s not realistic at all to pair TWELVE teas with one movie. This is the one I chose for our recording though because I felt confident it would be very different from any other tea that anyone would have selected.

Truthfully, I don’t like this tea very much. As I described in our episode this week, the really tart and sharp citrus and hibiscus notes feel in so competition with the more malty English Breakfast style black tea. However, the weird unnatural pairing of these flavours just kind of feels right? It’s not a tasty tea but it’s killing the story that it’s conveying.

Like… for a horcrux tea to taste cohesive and natural would go against the nature of what’s it’s inspired by. Drinking something unnatural like this is putting me in the exact right mood for the inspo…

This was my second tea of the morning.

I didn’t love my first mug of Polo with The Prince, which is lemon/strawberry, so I decided to “switch things up”, I still didn’t know what I was in the mood for, but I decided it wasn’t citrus. Unfortunately, I didn’t look up the ingredients of this tea beforehand – I just saw the tin on my desk with all the other Adagio fan blends and I hadn’t tried it yet. I thought to myself… “Horcux, that must be kind of dark tasting, right?”.

Well, you know what flavour Horcrux is? Fucking lemon.

I mean, it’s not just lemon – it’s actually probably more hibiscus than anything else, but a kind of tart and drying hibiscus combined with shrill lemon and a bit of pucker inducing orange as well. Very fruity/citrus, which was the one thing I had established I wasn’t in the mood for. I actually don’t think the flavour was bad – probably would be great chilled or with a bit of honey or agave. It’s just not what I wanted.

Took a while to finish the mug.

This was the Community tea sample for 1/1/21. I didn’t write notes as I sipped. I was out camping and away from my computer and the phone is such a trying way to post tea notes. I really liked this tea. I didn’t get any puerh flavor, but what I got was dead on for gingerbread. It was really smooth and easy to drink. This is one I could see ordering.

I got this tea sample as an add on in my advent swap with SkySamurai, thanks!
There’s a lot going on in this tea, and not surprisingly it’s a blend of three different teas. The vanilla and chocolate flavors are subtle and not artificial tasting. There is enough spice to keep things interesting. I did two steeps and the dark chocolate was more pronounced in the first, but not bitter. The vanilla is coming through more in the second steep, along with the chai spices. A nice enjoyable warming cup that I might not need in my cupboard but I’d be tempted to add to an order.

Didn’t realize until just now but I must have been craving strawberries this week because I had this one on the weekend and it was the sweet strawberry aroma coming off the dry leaf that attracted me to the sample. Thankfully, despite my not timing the steep, it didn’t come off as bitter – I need to be better watching for that with Adagio’s black teas. The taste was a bit artificial/fake tasting, but still a pretty nice strawberries and cream black tea. Hot the spot in terms of cravings.

Another fandom tea I picked up a while ago…

I’ve never thought about what a Ditto blend might taste like – mostly because, given Ditto’s functional use in game, it’s not the best imagery that comes to mind if I dwell on it too long. That said, this tea is good! It’s a black tea mixed with some fruits like strawberry but also fun multi coloured sprinkles. I don’t typically love sprinkles in tea but for some reason it doesn’t bug me here.

The taste is basically strawberries and cream, with a hint of malty and tannic black tea. I like the strawberry a lot; after doing more investigation of Adagio’s teas over this last year I think the strawberry flavouring that they use might have been an overlooked hidden gem. The “cream” fluctuates for me between a more fresh cream or vanilla flavour and a cake-y sort of vanilla, and so this goes back and forth between strawberries & cream and a strawberry shortcake sort of vibe – the sprinkles pushing the cake feelings ever further.

I need to double check the ingredients for hibiscus, but I feel like this would be a tasty latte if I don’t have to worry about curdling!

I had a very busy day yesterday so I didn’t end up having time to watch the Simulcast for the Fruits Basket series finale, but you best bet that when I woke up today the first thing I did was steep up a mug of this delicious orange creamsicle Kyo tea and watch that finale. I cannot fucking believe this series is over – it was so, so good and I just cried so, so much as I watched. Such perfection!!

I guess next adventure is to read the manga!?

Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m a big fan of the Fruits Basket anime. I watched the original when I was in highschool, and have been closely following and obsessing over the reboot – some day I will get into the manga, but right now I’m holding back from diving into that rabbit hole…

Kyo is my favourite character in the series – and the most recent episodes of the second season have been some really good Kyo episodes. I love soft, tender and gentle Kyo. The Kyo underneath all the anger and resentment, and the defensive shield he puts up to hide that. I’ve wanted to sample through this Fruits Basket inspired set of teas for a long time now, and while I didn’t go all out and order the whole sampler I did toss in this Kyo blend with my last order.

The teas picked for the blend seem perfect for the character – Tiger Eye, Blood Orange, and Cream. Kyo is possesed with the cat zodiac spirit, which ties in the Tiger Eye. Blood Orange fits because, aside from his orange colour scheme/character design, this seems appropriate for his fighting spirit as well as the bracelet he wears fashioned of blood and bone. Cream for the soft person underneath it all, who had his childhood stolen from him.

The bonus for all of that!? The blend tastes really good! I often forget that the black tea base Adagio uses for most of their main assortment is a bit more fickle/sensitive to oversteeping and as a result I usually get astringency in bitterness in my cups because I tend to not be the most attentive to steep times when I’m working. However, even with a long steep time I’m finding this blend reaalllyyy smooth and enjoyable. I’m not tasting as much of the Tiger Eye as I thought I would – but I’m not mad at that because the result is essentially a rich, deep Creamsicle type of flavour that it so scrumptious! Feels like tasty, sublime relief on a hot summer day.

Plus, it just feels righ for Kyo as a character.

It’s always so fun when a fandom blend not only makes sense for the character in the teas that were composed, but is also just really tasty to boot!

Sipdown (2320)!

Like a softly spiced strawberry pastry of some kind. Love how cozy the cinnamon notes in this are and, how despite the mixed based, it’s just so smooth and consistent. I could very easily finish this one off myself, but it’s fun to share fandom teas so I’m adding the last couple cups of it into the SVTTB for others to enjoy!

Geek S3E3 – Twilight

So, there isn’t really a world where I see myself spending money on a Twilight fandom blend from Adagio – if I’m buying a fandom tea it’s going to be for a fandom I’m actively exploring or already deeply invested in. However, this tea (which is from a creator’s Halloween inspired collection) is probably the closest thing I owned to a ‘Twlight fandom’ blend so that’s what I went with for me pairing while rewatching the movie…

There’s I think four different teas in this blend, but the ones that actually come through in the taste are the cinnamon black tea and Hazelberry Pu’erh. It’s full bodied and pretty smooth and thick, with lots of earthy malty base notes. The slight nuttiness, delicate strawberry and warming cinnamon are all really cozy and have a comforting quality that makes me think of cinnamon pastries.

It’s also just a bit muddy and that kind of awkward kismet of flavours felt sort of appropriate for the clumsy highschool romance portrayed here, which just oozes cringe about as much as it does “meet cute”. Ultimately, there are elements of Twilight I love that are equally balanced with elements I loathe and somehow this tea just seems to find that crux in the middle and nestle right on in there, which is why it made such a good pairing.

Steeped up on Friday and I think I enjoyed this more than my first go with it. I kept the steep time pretty short, and the result was that I got a little less cinnamon and no astringency. What that left was a delicate strawberry note, hints of cinnamon, and a tiny bit of a chocolate note – so more like a gentle chocolate strawberry tea with some cinnamon instead of a cinnamon blend with strawberry. Less weird, at least for my own palate.

Another Spooktober appropriate Halloween tea!

This is a really pretty looking fandom blend; the pop of bright red from the small cut strawberry and the cinnamon chips contrast so lovely against Adagio’s black tea base. It smells cinnamon forward, with undertones of ripe strawberry. The taste is a bit weird? I think I’d get used to it with more cups; I guess I just find cinnamon and juicy strawberry a little strange. A creamy or baked strawberry fits a little better in my head. There’s some nutty flavours, but not as much as I would expect from the ingredients list – the focus is definitely strawberry/cinnamon. A little drying – I think that’s just Adagio’s more finicky black tea base.

On top of the ripe pineapple and distinct smoke notes I thought the cinnamon in this blend especially came out to play in this cup. As a hot tea it was good, though it felt more like some sort of throat soother type of vibe that I could see, maybe, a pirate drinking on their ship on a cold night at sea. Sort of a tropical hot toddy, if you will. I let the latter half of the mug cool and drank it chilled, and I liked that a lot too – it was a little more of a tiki/cocktail sort of vibe but with the smoky edge.

Steeped this up on Friday while working from home but then only got around to drinking it when it was cold – delicious, though! Starts off with a sweet and tangy tropical note that reminds me of the ‘juice’ in canned pineapple tidbits. That’s followed up with a lightly savory, woody smoky note from the lapsang. Gives “grilled pineapple” in taste in just a really unique but satisfying way and it was surprisingly refreshing even when room temp!

Oh Seahawk…

I’ve basically just been waiting for my next Adagio order to get a big bag of this, and so that’s exactly what I did. Also the first thing that I steeped up once I recieved and unboxed that order. I know I’m super predictable with my love of lapsang, but how can you possibly not love this smoky Thai influenced pineapple blend. It’s scrumptious.

Oh Seahawk… What do you even say about Seahawk!?

He’s definitely a character that annoyed me a bit at first, but he kind of grows on you in an irritating sort of why where at the end of the series he was in my top three favourite characters. I particularly love his relationship with Mermista. It’s hard to verbalize why their relationship is so endearing to me, but I think a huge part of it is how completely supportive he is of her in everything she does and also how he is ALWAYS completely honest about how he feels about her.

So lets talk about this blend! It’s one of the most clever Adagio fan blends I’ve seen in a long time! You have a mix of tropical fruit heavy teas along with Lapsang Souchong. This confused me at first, but then I realized the tropical fruits are because he’s a pirate sailing through exotic locals and the Lapsang is because one of his reoccuring character traits is that he burns down ships. It’s genius, and hilarous!

More than that, though, it also tastes incredible! I swear something magic happens basically whenever you use Lapsang in flavoured tea blends, but the combination of really sweet and fresh pineapple notes with hints of coconut, cinnamon, lemongrass and then a really lingering finish of woody pine smoke from the Lapsang tastes fucking incredible together! It’s the perfect marriage of this very Thai inspired tasting tropical chai/pina colada vibe mixing with the savory smoke. Yum yum yum!!

I swear, this is giving my long standing favourite Adagio blend (The Woman) a real run for its money!

#mugtober

Theme for this day was black tea/black cats. I captured the black cat part with my mug pick, so plan was to just pick a more Halloween themed black tea blend. I was actually going to do a different fandom blend from Adagio but my tin of it is in a shelf behind a bunch of stuff I couldn’t be assed enough to move out of the way, so I settled on this one instead.

I added some cashew milk because I thought the cream might mix with the chocolate and cherry and make for a sort of “Black Forest Cake” profile, but instead it masked most of the cherry and made for a cup that was kind of just like drinking milk chocolate with a subtle nutty undertone. Fine enough, but I was a little sad about the missing cherry notes and I mostly ended up drinking the mug after it was cold because I didn’t feel super pulled to the hot profile.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQwCoMq5br4

I recently binged the entire She-Ra and The Princesses of Power series on Netflix, but about halfway through my binge I placed an Adagio order for Halloween teas and I decided to add some She-Ra blends into the mix too…

It was tempting to buy a tea for each character I loved (which is A LOT of the characters), but I was smart and only bought blends for characters I loved that also sounded like teas I might enjoy. That ended up being two characters; Scorpia and Seahawk. Scorpia is actually my favourite character in the entire series so I was excited to get this blend! I also love Catra/Mermista/Entrapta, but their blends didn’t speak to me the same way. I ended up drinking this tea, and the Seahawk tea which I’ll write a note for after this, while binging the final season – and it made that last season feel SO SPECIAL. I could gush about She-Ra for hours, but I wont. Instead lets talk about the tea…

This is essentially a chocolate and cherry blend, which is a tricky combo but always nice if done well! In particular, it uses Dewy Cherry which is a blend from Adagio that I actually really enjoy. My all time favourite Adagio fandom tea (The Woman) uses this blend so I had high hopes. Maybe too high, honestly. The flavour of dewy cherry comes through and, as expected, it is the best part. However I don’t like it with the milk chocolate notes and very tannic black tea; it just doesn’t mesh well. The idea for this blend, I think, was to combine to sweet and bright/cheerful things – which is perfect for Scorpia as a character. She’s drawn as the most masculine/tough and intimidating of the princesses and covered in sharp armor, but in reality is the gentlest and kindest and most cheerful of the characters. So either a sweet and soft milk chocolate or a bright and cheerful cherry would have been perfect for her! But creamy milk chocolate and vibrant cherry just don’t couple well, sadly.

But it’s a Scorpia tea – so I was happy either way!

This was one of the first teas I steeped up at the start of October! I definitely was very quick to pull out all the Halloween themed Adagio blends I bought last year – this is their time to shine! Truthfully this is probably my favourite candy corn tea if only because it doesn’t actually taste like candy corn…

I like the idea of candy corn soooo much more than I actually like the taste of it in practice. It’s like thick sugar paste/fondant and I just don’t enjoy it both texturally and flavour wise. However, the visual! Man, this visual! Something about looking at a bowl of candy corn immediately gets me HYPED for Halloween. It’s just so… aesthetically perfect.

So the more Creamsicle leaning flavour profile here that pays homage to the colours of candy corn coupled with that brisk black tea base is just delicious to me. I get the best of both worlds in terms of stunning taste and fun Halloween spirit.