Adagio Teas

This tea has super subtle fruit notes which balances nicely with the white/green tea. It has some light floral notes as well.

Sipdown! (8 | 138)

Yay, this was the last of my Adagio holiday teas!

I think this might be my favorite of the bunch, though. The lapsang adds a bit more flavor, whereas the rest of these have had exceedingly bland black bases. And it does rather make sense for a roasted chestnut tea, having a nice light savory smokiness and also a hint of nutty flavor.

Not bad! Not something I would order, but it’s an improvement over the other five.

Now I’ll have to pull out my Simpson & Vail holiday sampler to sip down next…

Exactly what you would want and expect from an Earl Grey. Love the extra bit of citrus.

Sipdown! (56 | 129)

Well, there’s not a lot to say about this one…

It mostly just tastes like a Chinese sencha – dry and grassy. I think it’s supposed to be pomegranate and vanilla or something? I get a hint of powdery-ness that I often find in berry flavoring, so maybe that’s from the pomegranate. But I don’t really get the pomegranate itself, and I definitely don’t get vanilla.

MEH!

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This has a lot of ingredients for something that doesn’t taste like much.

I guess I’m getting a vague sort of orange spice flavor profile? But mostly I just taste the generic black tea base. It’s fairly woody and earthy with a bit of astringency thrown in as well.

So mostly it’s a crappy black tea with clove. But the sprinkles are cute! XD

The first time I had this, something about it tasted a little like lunch meat to me? Probably just my imagination. I didn’t notice it on future cups. The overall flavor is quite mild. You get the bergamot a little. The rooibos isn’t overly distracting. Rooibos EG will never match regular, but this isn’t one of the better rooibos EGs I’ve had. It tasted best with milk at room temperature.

Sipdown! (41 | 114)

Another cute holiday mini tin!

This one is slightly better than the gingerbread version. It’s a bland black base tea, but the peppermint leaf adds a bit of herbal interest, and there’s also some creaminess from the added flavoring.

It does feel like there’s not enough flavoring though, as it ends up mostly being a blend of black tea and peppermint leaf. A little more sharpness from the candy cane flavor and creaminess from the vanilla would be nice.

Not bad, but not good either!

Sipdown! (40 | 113)

I figured I should probably work on sipping down these little Adagio holiday mini-tins that I mostly bought because CUTE. This was randomly selected as the first to go.

Meh. Bland black tea with just a tiny bit of spice flavor. There’s not really much else to say about it… The base is somewhat earthy and woody.

But there are cute little gingerbread man sprinkles! :P

Not feeling super into this one. There is a light blueberry flavor, but there is an ashy taste that distracts. My mouth is left feeling dry after each sip. Meh.

I’ve had a bit of a rollercoaster experience with this tea. The first time I had it, the maple came off as a weird synthetic smoke. The blueberry flavor is pretty fake as well, like the blueberries in store-bought muffins. I had it with milk, and I sort of liked it, but it was also fake and weird. Then I started having it with almond milk, which really draws out the nuttiness of the honeybush (plus a bit of pepper, but not too much). I don’t really notice any maple now, but I’m still getting the fake blueberry. It’s not bad in its fakeness, just not fresh tasting. It’s hard to know how to rate this because I quite enjoy it now, but only with almond milk. I only have one serving left, and I’d actually consider purchasing this one again now that I know the best way to drink it.

SIPDOWN 43
It’s going faster than I thought, but well… I just keep drinking last session teas recently. It’s important to get rid of all the pouches and bags and everything.

This tea I got from Izzy, thank you!
A white base of a chai sounds interesting and so does tastes! I let the last small amount I had (it could be hardly two teaspoons!) steep for 3 minutes as suggested.

Well, it’s very mellow. I noticed a coconut and little of pineapple (rather like a very watered down juice, or just its sweetness) with hints of tangy notes as ginger and peppercorns.

I guess it was way more tasty, maybe I really prepared it quite weak, but certainly it was a nice experience. I would gladly order more one day. It’s mellow, but something is lacking to call it chai.

I was excited about the concept of this one, but I brewed a pot and I wasn’t a fan – it was too watered down – maybe you’re not supposed to double steep this? I’ll give it another try and just steep it once, and see if I like it any better.

I do get sour apple from this one, but I also get other sour elements like rose hips that distract from the apple. I feel like this is a blend that’s almost there, but could use a bit more tweaking. On subsequent cups, I didn’t really get sour apple, just generic red tartness, too much tartness. For my very last cup of this, I cold brewed it, and the sour apple flavor returned! I don’t think I’d order this again, but I wish I’d cold brewed the whole package. It makes me want to find a better sour apple tea.

Ah Hojicha. My all-time favorite tea. I wish it weren’t so hard to find in my area! I’ve only tasted two brands of hojicha so far. But it was the first type of tea I fell in love with. This hojicha taste is classic (no frills). But it’s roasty, toasty, slightly nutty taste and aroma are quite lovely. I can’t help but smile when I have a cup of hojicha to enjoy.

2021 SIpdown #28
One of the last few tiny samples from Adagio
This one has a not so pleasant tasting oolong base much like the Almond Oolong that I tried from Adagio. This one mostly tastes like dirt/unpleasant with some cinnamon. The base is definitely stronger than the cinnamon. The cinnamon isn’t spicy which is nice because I don’t love the spicy cinnamon flavor when it’s the main note in a tea. I do get the maple syrup a tiny bit but you have to really look for it to find it. Overall it doesn’t really fit the description and the base tea isn’t good so it’s a no for me.

2021 Sipdown: 27
(First sip down of February!)
Another tiny sample from Adagio
The dry leaf of this one smells good
This one definitely has that sort of artificial coconut flavor. It’s making me think of DavidsTea’s CocoMint Tea. So if you like that tea you’d probably like this one as well. I’m not loving this one I just don’t love the flavor profile of the DavidsTea and this one is very similar tasting to me. I am a huge fan of non-flavored Coconut Pouchong teas. Which is why I ordered this one I don’t think I realized it was flavored. So that’s totally on me but I’m still glad I got to try it.

Our foster cat had her first prospective adopter today. We’ve been fostering her since last June, and I was a nervous wreck preparing for the visit. She’s almost 4 years old and not everyone wants an adult cat, so I was feeling hesitantly hopeful. I’m an overthinker and work myself up easily, so the last 24 hours have been stressful. It turns out it wasn’t a good fit – they wanted a cat with shorter hair – so that was a bit of a disappointment, but it’s better we find someone who is sure. Anyway, now my body is coming down from its steady state of anxiety, and a cozy tea is in order.

I’ve had this one for a while. I don’t remember much about it, but this is the last of the sample so I know I’ve tried it before. I added some coconut milk to it, so now it tastes like a coconut chai. I’m a real lover of coconut chai, for sure. I won’t say it masks the other flavors, but I know it’s certainly changed the profile by adding the coconut milk. I really like it and would certainly drink it again, though I’m not sure if it’s something I’ll repurchase.

On second thought, I don’t know, it is a good option for a caffeine-free chai. The rooibos isn’t very noticeable. Maybe I’ll add another sample to my next order after all.

The spices in this one combine to smell like some sort of cleaning product, and the taste is sadly reminiscent of that too. The fruit flavor is sort of generic, not tart, a bit thin, and the spices really aren’t that pleasing to my tastes. I’ve had it cold twice now, and I don’t think I want it again.

This has that same spicy cinnamon as Harney’s hot cinnamon spice. It’s pretty one dimensional and a bit thin due to the rooibos base. If you go in expecting basically just cinnamon with a bit of rooibos, you won’t be too disappointed, but I’d suggest overleafing to get a fuller flavor. And I prefer more complexity in my chai, so I won’t be ordering this again.

Another Sample from Adagio
The packet of this one smells like chocolate-covered cherries with maybe some almond in there.
Brewed up this tea tastes like well cheap dirt with a hint of cocoa and a hint of almond. The resteeping ended up tasting the same. This is probably the first real miss for me from Adagio so far.