Adagio Teas

GCTTB Rd 3:

Jeweled Thumb was kind enough to add some of her healthy lemonade teas into the TTB for us all to try: a combination of Adagio’s Green Citron, Wild Strawberry, and Lemongrass. Being lazy and not wanting to wait for the water to cool to brew the green, I altered the recipe and did two parts wild strawberry and one part lemongrass and then poured it over ice. The result? A fruity start to the sip which slowly gives way to a touch of hibby tartness only to end on a crisp lemon note. It’s actually quite interesting though I feel I may have been better off going with a 1:1 ratio of each tea. Ultimately I probably won’t drink this again but it was certainly fun to try. Thanks Jeweled Thumb!

I received a sample of this in my Adagio box yesterday. I’m enjoying it for breakfast with a little steamed milk. I think it needs more than one teaspoon in 8 oz for the best flavor, especially when adding milk. I’m loving the woody puerh flavor next to the nutmeg/cinnamon. My second cup is steeping now….
Second cup: wow!…. It has chai taste, but the subsequent steeping is more puerh and flavorful… I think because the spice has worn off… Yum! This is fun

Sleeping dragon is a good name for this tea. There is just a hint of smoke, but it is subtle and rests behind layers of sweetness on a bed of subtle vegetal flavor. The subtlety of the smokey flavor does indeed make me think of a sleeping dragon softly exhaling smoke in his sleep.

It gets little astringent if you let it cool too much, so definitely drink it warm.

I actually drank this again last night before bed. I loved it so much that I got online and ordered more before falling asleep…..
I had forgotten that I already ordered some from whispering pines….
Oh well…. ;-)

I drank this before bed because I had just received the box from adagio and couldn’t wait to try something. This is the only non-caf tea that I bought.
…. I still couldn’t sleep… Maybe it was just due to excitement over all my new teas?
This is very delicious. Lemony orange chai, I suppose.

I got this back when it had first came out on Adagio. Thus far I have really enjoyed all the blueberry blends that I have tried. This one was another one that did not disappoint. It has a very distinct flavor with a blueberry aftertaste that really appeals to me.What I also love is that it is not overly fruity or tart, which would have been a no go with me. I can see this being a frequent attendant in my tea stash.

This is another adagio sample tea sachet I had in my stash and drank at work.

This tea is a medley of flavors – I can clearly taste the chamomile and peppermint. It all just kind of muddles together. While hot it was fine enough. However, as it cooled there was a cloying taste at the end of the sip that is very unpleasant. The flavor currently left in my mouth is almost annoying.

I had a tea sachet of this that must have been a sample from Adagio. I was looking for something without caffeine to get me through the morning as I cheated on tea with some iced coffee this AM. (Coffee, you are such a fickle mistress!)

On to the tea: I would agree with the other reviewers that this has a pleasant woody- vanilla taste. I am very picky about vanilla and this one was not offensive in any way. In fact, it was perfectly enjoyable. Yum.

Meh. I knew this tea wouldn’t hold a candle to my Rishi white peach blossom but I got it any because I had a gift certificate and it’s been on my wish list for months now. Glad I used my gift certificate. While delicious and refreshing cold brewed, this tea taste more artificially peachy and flat than I’d like. Similar to the oolong peach. Just not for me. Tuscan sun is another delicious slightly peachy -though to be fair I don’t recall there being any peach at all in river teas Tuscan sun – as well as mulberry white. I think I’ll try a few more white peaches before just giving in and grabbing a ounce online next time they have a promo or sale.

Received this as a sample from Cavocorax and decided to use it up as a cold brew.

Left it overnight, gave it a try this afternoon.
It was ok!
I have trouble with most peach flavoured things, because they always seem to strike me as overly artificial. This was was no different, but at least it wasn’t overly sweet.

I still have some left in the fridge to drink tomorrow, any cold fruity tea is refreshing these days!

Thanks Cavo :)

As much as I love pear flavored things and white tea. This did not do it for me. It has a very off taste that sits on the tongue that’s not very pleasing at all. The taste can be compared to the taste of rotten fruit. But that’s just my opinion to someone else it might be something else entirely.

That aside, whoa I have not been on here in ages!! Mostly because I have been uber busy. Plus I have not been drinking a lot of tea due to the hot weather that has been soaring as of late. That aside I am now out from underneath my father’s roof and living with my fiancee’. We’ve been moved out for two or three weeks now. She’s been down here for almost a month now, after having moved out of her parent’s home in Ohio. It’s been great having her down here and so close. Fixing up the rent house and having to buy things for the house has been very hectic. While there were certain things I didn’t have to buy, there was a lot that needed to be bought still yet. Through all of that we somehow managed to get settled in and have gotten the chaos under control. Thus far actually having to pay bills has not become too overwhelming. Now that we’ve put down roots here I am actually enjoying my time on my own. Which helps having her here, because there’s no way I would adjust to a new place so soon. Especially after having lived in my old house for almost 10 plus years.

Happy Monday everyone! Thanks to Typoon Neoguri pushing arctic air (aka the Polar Vortex) most of the Midwest has nice weather today. In fact we are going to have record low temperatures tonight and unseasonable cool weather for the next couple days. Break out the party gear because I am celebrating, you all know by now that I loath temperatures above 80 degrees, so I am practically giddy with the prospect of comfortable weather. I plan on celebrating by sleeping through the night for the first time in days, so maybe instead of party gear I should break out the pillows.

Today’s tea is from Adagio Teas, Yunnan Noir. An adorable fuzzy golden tea from Yunnan, you might know it by its other more popular names, Golden Bi Luo Chun or Golden Snail Tea. I adore fuzzy golden teas, something about them always puts me in a good mood just by looking at them, of course tasting them also helps. The aroma of the dry tea is rich and quite sweet, with notes of cocoa, roasted peanuts, yams, honey, and a delicate finish of dried cherry. It is nothing short of mouthwatering, but I do have a great love for this kind of tea.

Even though Adagio only has Western steeping instructions, I decided to brew mine in my gaiwan. I used 195 degree water with steeping times of 30s, 60s, and 90s just in case anyone wants to give it a try. The aroma of the now quite soggy (and no longer gold and fuzzy) leaves is rich, with notes of malt, molasses, roasted peanuts, and a sweet cocoa finish. The liquid is creamy sweet with notes of cocoa butter, a touch of yams and a hint of roasted peanuts.

The first steeping is light, a creamy blend of sweet cocoa, roasted peanuts and a rich aftertaste of molasses. The mouthfeel is smooth, almost creamy, it fills up the mouth with sweetness. It is pretty on par with other golden Bi Luo Chun teas I have had (though that number is fairly small, I really need to get more!) though a tiny bit sweeter.

For the second steeping the aroma is much richer, the same notes of sweet cocoa and roasted peanuts, but with an added kick of molasses at the finish. The taste is also much richer, there are strong notes of cocoa at the beginning this transitions to a rich mid taste of molasses, with finally a finish of malt. There is a roasted peanut and honey aftertaste that lingers for a bit.

Last steeping time, the aroma is almost identical to the first steeping, light with sweet notes of cocoa butter, yams, and roasted peanuts. The taste is as rich as the previous steep, but instead of being creamy is starts off with a briskness. There are notes of cocoa and roasted nuts that fade to molasses, at the end there is a slight metallic taste. The aftertaste is one of honey, it does not linger as long as the second steep. I really like this tea, it might be my new favorite from Adagio, but I would have to compare it with my other favorites to be absolutely sure.

For photos and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/07/adagio-teas-yunnan-noir-tea-review.html

From the Small Big TTB

WOW there is soo much tea stuffed in that little box. Because half the samples were wrapped in foil that actually forced me to actually go through the entire box to find things. I ended up sticking labels on the outside of the foils for easier access, but it’s actually a pretty smart idea, it forced me to look at what I was looking at instead of just wandering through the box randomly or skimming just the top of the box.

Mango green. Sadly it seems after a few months on Steepster I’ve developed this view of Adagio in my head that isn’t entirely complimentary. The least of the offenses I’ve heard them cited for was under-flavoring and entirely artificial tasting additives. Well this tea didn’t entirely dispel those ideas, but the result wasn’t as bad as I had feared either.

I was distracted and boiled water. I think I had intended to make a black tea but for some unknown reason went with this instead. Surprisingly the results didn’t taste burnt at all. So ~210*F for 1.5min, then into a happy little thermos. I told you I was distracted. Usually the thermos is pretty leak proof… but not so when the lid isn’t properly secured. Hot water all down my leg. Ouch. Surprisingly I didn’t lose that much tea, but I decided that hot water wasn’t my friend this morning. I had some cold tea from the fridge and came back to this later.

So it’s a mild green with milder mango flavoring. Honestly I could barely smell the mango, and I pretty much didn’t taste it at all. The tea was still hot, so it’s not like its composition changed all that much in the time I left it in the thermos. That being said, it’s so entirely average that I would be hard pressed to call offensive. It has no WOW factor, and lacks even enough interest to consider it as a good daily drinker (for me). I might offer it to a child or someone that doesn’t like strong teas.

Backlog
Thank you Marzipan for a sample of this. I could brewed this and took it to class earlier this week, and forgot to log it, so I don;t remember everything about this tea. I do remember that it was fruity and delicious and that I finished all 28oz about 30 minutes into class and really regretted it when I had to spend the next 90 minutes holding back the urge to go to the bathroom!

Enjoying the Herbal TTB, this afternoon. This one smells almost…bitter.
The flavor is a bit like that, too. Not a huge fan.

Another Herbal TTB…
The aroma of the dry leaf was heavily bergamot’ed, but the flavor was quite smooth.

Gaaaaaah! This is not my cup of tea. It might be yours though. This Yunnan offering from Adagio is a darker leaf than the usual Yunnan, and rolled into wee balls. The smell of the dry leaf is musty and tealike. I missed the yam and apricot smell of my usual cup of Yunnan. First sip was Gaaaaaaah! I wasn’t expecting smoke and oak in my cup of Yunnan, but there it was. There is also more astringency than I like.

Another blend from the Herbal TTB.

I brought a number of samples from the traveling tea box with me to work, and, as it looks to be a quiet day in the office, I should have good chances to do some sampling (without the internal pressure to review them, like I put on myself).

Slightly oversteeped (if that is even such a thing with rooibos), and it did not negatively impact the drink. Lemongrass and rooibos…not something I had ever tried, but definitely one of which I need to make a habit. As others have described it, this does carry a creamy taste/texture – not bad!

Sipping this certainly beats solely listening to the droning presenter in my current work meeting.

From the 2014 Herbal TTB, I accidentally steeped this for ten minutes, rather than five, due to a coworker, who would not stop talking, but…strong rooibos is good rooibos. Not overly sweet, and the vanilla merged with the rooibos wonderfully.

Samples-Only Small TTB

So I wanted chamomile last night, and I picked this one from the TTB. Arshness said to add sugar, so I did. Sorry, Arsh, I wish I hadn’t listened. It was way sweet, and I only added a little bit of sugar. I think I would have liked it way better unsweetened.

That being said, I liked it.

Pepperminty, chamomile, comforting, delicious. I think the added sugar covered some of the chamomile. Ah well.

I would drink this one again.

I was one of those precocious children with the tendency to stick my little nose, literally, physically into anything I found even remotely interesting. It was because of my innate curiosity, and inability to process a lesson until I’ve had to cycle through the worst of it some three-five times that I’m able to categorize so many different scents today. That being said, the moment I stuck my still little nose into this bag of Lapsang souchoung – a tea which I gave never even heard of until visiting this site – I was immediately brought back to the first time I’d hovered my face over my uncles barbecue during an annual neighborhood block party and inhaled a black lungful of burning hickory wood. I don’t recall actually liking that smell, something that naturally didn’t stop me from sticking my head in the barbaque some three more times before the end of the day. I still can’t pass by southern or Jamaican barbecue in Brooklyn in the heat summer with out taking in deep breath —just to smell that charred wood smoke. Memories.

Babbling nonsense aside; I haven’t tried this tea yet. I bought it with the sole purpose of creating a custom Russian caravan blend. So I won’t be giving this tea a rating, yet. -it’ll be far into the clutches of New York winter before I so much as glance at a black tea to drink again. shrugs Mostly I just felt like telling a story.

This tea is my idea of heaven. I discovered it at a local tea room in Delray called Shaffer’s and it’s now the only thing I drink whenever I go there. Apart from the lovely moniker, the taste and aroma are spellbinding to an Earl Grey lover. Even the blue hue of some of the flowers in this loose tea are breathtaking. I could seriously compose a sonnet to this tea.