Vanilla Green

I have a soft spot for Adagio’s vanilla teas. That being said, this is my least favorite of them. I think that the main issue is that green tea seams to work better on its own than flavored to me most of the time. It can work with fruity, but I have yet to find a creamy flavored green tea in which the vegetable flavor doesn’t seem to get in the way of the tea as a whole.

The dry tea leaves are bright green and a joy to look at. They look green, fresh and inviting. The vanilla aroma is very strong (points in favor!) followed by the familiar green tea plantiness. In fact, if the vanilla flower (it is an orchid) smells like vanilla (I am not sure it does…) it probably would smell a lot like this tea.

While brewing, my 2 tsp of leaves unfurled quite nicely and gave of a smell very similar to that of the dry leaves except that once wet, the vegetable in them gets a tad bit stronger.
The liquor is a nice golden/green color.

The unsweetened tea is overwhelmingly vegetable that clashes with the vanilla. The individual flavors are great, but together they just confuse me. Sweetened it works much better. Why? Well, sweetened the green tea vegetable taste is highly disguised as, well…, sweet. This way the vanilla becomes the protagonist and the the green tea is like a pleasant little reminder that you are drinking more than just vanilla sugar water.

I enjoy it, don’t love it. I will happily finish what I have of it, I will just keep in mind that creamy greens just are not my thing.

NinaVampi shared this one with me, along with a few other vanilla flavoured things. Vanilla and green tea struck me as a funny combination. It wasn’t one I would ever have come up with on my own. Vanilla is simply something I associate with darker teas.

The aroma of the dry leaf surprised me. It didn’t really smell like just green tea and vanilla. In fact I couldn’t really find either super easily. I thought it smelled much more strongly like brown sugar.

I love brown sugar. It’s so much more rich in flavour than ordinary sugar, and it’s excellent when used in baking where it gives an almost caramel-y flavour. You should have tasted the apple crumble I made the other which had lots of brown sugar in it.

Brown sugar. Not a bad thing to smell like. I hadn’t seen it coming in this tea at all, but there it was. Loud and clear.

Interesting, thought I. I wonder how a tea sweetened with brown sugar would behave, thought I. The latter in spite of the fact that I never ever sweeten my tea ever. Then I wondered how coffee would turn out if sweetened with brown sugar as opposed to ordinary white, because I do sweeten coffee if I can. I haven’t tried that yet, though. I might.

Anyway, after steeping the aroma has sorted itself out and is no longer brown sugar-y in the least. Not even a little bit. I can’t work out if I think that’s a disappointment or not, considering how it seemed such an outsider note to begin with. Now it actually smells like green tea and vanilla, and as I suspected, it’s a most peculiar combination. It smells a bit creamy too and very very familiar.

I am certain that I’ve never had a green vanilla flavoured anything before, at least not when counting back to a time where I can actually remember what my experience with it would be, so this is something that really made the little wheels and cogs turn in my head until finally it came to me.

I used to have a rhubarb flavoured green tea from AC Perchs. This one smells very like that one. I can’t remember if the rhubarb one had vanilla in it as well, but I’m almost certain that it must have. This aroma has developed into something almost as pink and bubble-gum-y as that rhubarb green.

I liked that one, so this is a heartening discovery.

And then comes the actual taste. Well, it’s most definitely green tea, although I can’t tell which sort. I get a sort of yellowish colour from it, so I would guess that it might be Chinese. Japanese greens tend to feel more dark green, and I have no idea of colours for other green tea producing regions. Quite vegetal and somewhat butter-y, but other than that I can’t really decipher it. It’s just so… basic, really.

As for the vanilla, it’s… not there. There’s something vaguely dusty in the flavour, but it’s not very distinct and it might as well just be a floral note in the base tea itself. There is a certain sweetness involved but again that might as well just be naturally occurring in the base. I get no vanilla in the sip and I get nothing in the aftertaste as well.

Actually, I’m finding myself sitting here and missing the very pink rhubarb note that I remember from aforementioned rhubarb tea.

I’m marking it low, not because the flavour wasn’t pleasant, but because it doesn’t deliver what it promises.

I’m rather fond of vanilla so I had high hopes for this tea. Vanilla is a good complement to almost any flavor. I even had vanilla tomato soup at a fancy French restaurant once and it was quite tasty.
I think that the flavor is well done here. I sort of wish it was a little stronger. It also reminds me a bit of 52teas’ famous Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha, only not toasty and with a lesser quality of leaf. The quality of leaf here is quite subpar. With a subtle flavor like vanilla, I’d think you would want a good quality leaf since it’s flavor would show through pretty clearly. The mouthfeel is nice though. A bit creamy and a bit bitter to balance the sweetness of the vanilla.

Overall, this is comforting and enjoyable, but I think I’ll use this to blend with other teas or for baking and cooking. Vanilla green mint tea? Vanilla green pancakes? Vanilla green lemonade? Vanilla green hot chocolate? Could I pulverize the tea in my food processor and use stir the powder into cookies? Looks like my weekend will be filled with experiments. :)

Many thanks to MadelineAlyce for the generous sample of this tea.

Disclaimer I was stupid and hate vanilla pudding before steeping this tea (I know, i know… but it looked so good!) So my palette was definitely compromised by the time I sat down to enjoy this cup of tea.

The leafs of this tea, while very sweet, aren’t overbearing as much as you would think. Good size, great color, very impressed with the look of this tea.
Steeping for 3 minutes @ 175 degrees, I realized that my sweet tooth while over saturated by the pudding was in for a treat.

The aroma… a little sweet, and ends up smoothing out the grassy smell of the green.

The taste: It’s exaclty how you think it would taste… however I must admit one must be mindful of steeping time, as it easily can become bitter. A little sweet for my stomach right now… but again my disclaim proves this is my fault.

Lesson learned: What you eat can and most likely dictate how your tea tastes.

Yay!

It being so hot here in the desert, I drink a lot of iced tea. It breaks up the monotony of just water and it’s an excuse to drink more tea!

This is one of my favorites for iced tea. It’s uncomplicated, consistent and very smooth.

The vanilla in this tea holds up very well in both fragrance and taste. There’s just enough to round off any lingering bitterness that may have snuck into the green tea through imperfect brewing. If the glass gets watered down a bit, the tea flavor dissipates and you’re left with something that resembles a watery cream soda. However, a glass rarely lasts long enough to reach this point.

An important iced prep note- make it stronger by using more tea leaves. Keep the steep time short and water temperature low.

Thanks Marcel Duchamp for the swap!

I quite like this. It doesn’t taste as strong as it smells, but I still like it. It’s nice and sweet, with a subtle vanilla. Numnumnum.

Like most adagio flavored, this probably works best when blended with something else. I can see it being good with White Peach or maybe even a nice strawberry flavored tea. Basically something fruity. Luckily there’s enough left for a bit of experimentation~

Edit: Okay, this note is doing weird things. Stop it note.
EditEdit: And now its fixed. that was weird.

What happens when you fall asleep at 8 p.m. while watching TV? Well, you wake up at 2 a.m., if you are me. Three hours later, I’m ready to start testing some tea : )

Starting with this one this morning. The aroma in the package is sweet. Haven’t had much luck with Adagio’s flavored black teas so far, so starting off with a green.

My first impression is that is a bit weak (need to add a little more leaves I think). But the taste is very nice. I can taste the green tea first and the vanilla second. I added about a tsp. of honey, so it is on the sweet side to me, but not overly so. I wish it had more of a vanilla taste, so this falls squarely into the “ok” category for me. Will keep sample and play with it again (if I can ever get through all my samples).

This tea truly is about what you would expect in terms of “vanilla” + “green tea” = “vanilla green tea.” The scent and taste are largely dominated by the vanilla, in my estimation. It produces a very nice amber color. I don’t terribly care for the vanilla however. It’s ok, but not really my, uh, cup of tea, so to say. My wife loves this tea, however, and it’s one of her favorites, so we keep it around and I do drink it from time to time.

Smells yummy. The vanilla scent is very strong in the dry leaves. I quite like it. I don’t taste the vanilla so much in the tea, though I’m not sure. I think I got hints of vanilla, but nothing to sweet or intense. A nice after dinner tea, I think. I don’t know that I’d order it (I got a sample from a friend), however.

The vanilla aroma is very strong while steeping, but the taste is not overpowering. The tea is actually very balanced and nice. As others have noted the tea will get bitter if steeped for too long, but I wish I could make it just a bit stronger. As it is, it is good, but not astounding.

I didn’t think that I would like vanilla green on its own, but it’s surprisingly good. This may, in fact, be one of my new favorite flavors. I’ll have to try blending it with some other flavors.

Not sure about this—I might like it better with different timing or quantity of leaves. My opinion improved slightly when I added some sugar. (I don’t usually sweeten green teas.)

As is, it seems like this particular green tea wasn’t quiiiiiiite the right match for the vanilla.

Well, this one was a bust for me. Someone else described it as “dusty”, and I have to agree. I knew I would dislike it as soon as I smelled the dry leaves because it smells of vanillin and not vanilla beans. The smell is very flat, lacking the subtlety and full bodied-ness of the beans.

Once brewed, the leaves look great. Full green leaves. Definitely a Chinese green base, and the tea itself actually tastes great but the fake vanilla smells terrible. I even tried adding a piece of vanilla bean that I had, and some vanilla sugar, but the damage was done. The only reason I didn’t give this a lower score is because if you let it cool so that the smell goes away, it’s actually an ok green tea.

I might have steeped this a little too hot, since my kettle doesn’t really have a temperature guide. 190F is a rough approximation. I also may have used more leaves than required, as I did not realize how compact the leaves were.

The smell is at the very surface a subdued vanilla, of course, with a stronger overtone of earthy green tea leaves. Very nice, and being a fan of vanilla I sat for ten minutes taking in the aroma.

The taste of vanilla is even more subdued than the vanilla, but it is there over the delicious standard of green tea. Not as sweet as some reviewers have noted—I only really notice a hint of sweetness in the aftertaste.

All in all, a very satisfying tea.

About time – after being bored by nearly every sample I ordered, I finally enjoy one of Adagio’s teas! This still isn’t the delicious vanilla milkshake beverage I’m seeking, but this blend has a lot to offer.

The leaves are full and bright, with an unfortunately artificial vanilla scent laying over the grassy green notes. This vanilla scent sticks out even more when steeping, but fortunately loses some of that ‘vanilla extract’ edge the leaves had. The liquor ends up a pale golden tone that more resembles an oolong than the green I was expecting, but oolong is obviously the One True Tea (or Many True Teas, I suppose) so that’s not a complaint.

The flavor is downright great. It’s unfortunately still weaker than I’d like (which seems to be the Adagio story), but I’ll just use more leaves next time. It’s got a crisp mouthfeel and tastes exactly as its name implies; both the sweet creamy vanilla and grassy tea are present, starting more with the former and leaving the latter behind as it goes down. The flavor doesn’t stick around long, and I ended up drinking my first cup of it in a very short time as a result. I was pleased to find the vanilla flavor managed to taste more like a dessert than the bean I’ve learned to expect from vanilla teas without tasting artificial, despite the unfortunate scent of the leaves.

This one’s a winner, and is the first Adagio tea I’m likely to re-order. I expect it to be fantastic iced when I try that tomorrow.
-Cash

I liked, but not on its own. I liked it better adding it to another tea, preferably a fruit-flavored tea.