Adagio Teas

i was craving something sweet and cold so i brewed this tea and added a dash of coconut milk. it was nice and refreshing but i feel like there could have been more of a punch…

Haven’t had this out for a while … and now I remember why. Artificial plastic fruit flavor. But it smells nice. Can’t decide if a tetch of sugar would help or just bring out the Robitussin qualitites.

This brew, my dear tea-drinking neighbors,
Reminds me of cherry Life Savers.
I left it too long,
So it came out quite strong,
But I don’t look on it with full disfavor.

(Will give it another whirl iced. Sometimes the strong fruity stuff just does better cold.)

Well, due to not paying attention and accidentally putting the initial teaspoon into my ingenuitea while it still had the previous tea’s leaves in it, I have finished another sample! Yaaaaaaay….?

I like how this tea looks, with the long curling leaves – very different from the Scottish and Irish breakfasts! Today was one of my “forget until the last minute to make tea” mornings so short steeping time, and I think it really shows. The taste is a little malty, a little smoky, but only a little of both, and in general, it looks like it doesn’t do well with short steepings. Clearly it is meant to be brewed up properly. All in all, I have to say I’m pretty meh on it. I’ve got golden monkey for maltiness and Baker Street blend for smokiness and as I said in one of my earlier notes, smokiness just isn’t for me in the mornings. Honestly the only reason I even had it was because I wanted to have an unflavored simple black tea around just in case a friend of mine who hates any sort of flavors in her tea visited. But now that I’ve got a plethora of Upton black teas, it’s kind of lost it’s purpose in life.

Adagio just released a brand new Maestro Collection on April 10th. The Maestro collection consists of 8 teas that I will be reviewing in the coming days. Read my first six reviews here: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6). This tea is an oolong tea from the Fujian province of China and comes from the Wuyi mountains surrounded by rocks.

The Nose and Color: The leaves are loosely twisted and look fully oxidized like a black tea. After steeping, the leaves really open up and reveal that the leaves aren’t too oxidized and still maintain some green and brown colors. The nose is pretty strong off the leaves but not so much off the tea itself. The most notable thing about the nose is the roasted, almost burnt, aroma.

Tasting: This tea has a strong roasted flavor to it but I detect some slight sweet notes as well which isn’t something I expected. This tea has a really unique taste that’s hard to describe. Adagio says it’s like wet stone but I liken it more to burnt stone. The taste of the tea is fairly complex and I liked it to help develop my palate.

Steep Instructions: 3 grams at 205 F for 3-4 minutes

Price: $29.00 for sampler set.

Summary: Read my rating here: http://www.indieteas.com/home/2010/4/27/tea-review-20-adagios-wuyi-da-hong-pao.html

Read my full review here: http://www.indieteas.com/home/2010/4/23/tea-review-19-adagios-anhui-keemun.html

How does this tea compare to Teavana’s Citron Green? I’m using Teavana’s green for a blend, but Adagio’s is sooo much cheaper.

Finally drinking some tea ! I spent all weekend visiting a friend, and even though I brought myself Pomegranate Oolong bags from Harney, I missed my loose teas! I also ate a months worth of food (and greasy fast food) in two days and my stomach is hating me, so I went for some of my silver needle sample. Just wanna finish these white tea samples from adagio up!

I mixed this with a tiny bit of snow geisha from teavana. Yes, this is definitely a “drink some kinda bad tea to make room for other tea” kind of cup.

But surprisingly it came out really well! I added the tiniest amount of snow geisha, and since the cherry flavor of that tea is ridiculously strong, and the flavor of the silver needles is fairly vegetal it is a nice combination that cancels out the vegetable taste but doesn’t have cherry overkill.

I think I may have discovered how I’m going to finish my snow geisha ;)

I’ve had this sample for a very long time, and I usually use them to just add to the Teavana flavored white tea. but today, I decided to try drinking the sample again and see if i still don’t like it, or just simply because my sense of smell has been non-existant, and so my taste has been off.

The color is very light, though I think it’s a little more yellow than it should be. Hard to tell. The taste is very bland, I’m probably dealing with really unfresh tea here. guess the adagio tins aren’t that great for long term storage. Definitely drinkable, and since I need a major detox right now it’s perfect.

I remember when I first had this sample tin, it tasted very much like vegetables, and vegetables that I’m not fond of. The aftertaste was odd as well, and all I could think of is I hope that not all silver needle tastes this way. I love flavored white teas to death, but if this is what true white tea tastes like I guess I won’t be drinking any…ever.