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Winter time tea to help out with the frickin’ chill of MSU’s campus. It helps out, but again, no panacea.

I have way too much of this. I got it for cold care treatment. Helps, but no panacea. Otherwise medicinal and herbal. The other reviews are accurate for this tea.

I liked this tea because it reminded me A LOT of a Thai iced tea. And it is very, very sweet….practically perfumy. I got this when I was up in college, and again, nerdiness. I can kinda see why Wash got this blend. Thai iced tea is a very tropical drink, one that you would drink while on vacation. Wash is one of the more laid back characters on the show, and he normally wears the same kind of shirts that I saw tourists wear on their vacation in Hawaii.
This is a little bit better iced, and not bad hot. I’m honestly biased to coconut, though, given that I grew up in Hawaii. I probably would have rated it lower now as someone who is starting to prefer purer teas, and like all the other Adagio’s that I’ve had, it depends entirely too much on flavoring. I am glad that I only had a sample, and that I drank it when I did to enjoy it a little bit more. I totally understand why people would be peeved as a fan-and again, not like it because of the rampant syrups.

Another one that I got from my discounted sampler while up at school. Out of the pack I got, this one was one of my favorites, having a truly alien flavor. One of my friends even called it out of this world, though Kasumi is one of the more grounded characters in the game-well, with the exception of her exquisite tastes. This tea was designed around her very well, though how can you accurately characterize someone based off of tea notes? Tis an art that I am partially curious of.

To describe this tea properly, I am going to talk about her character a little bit. Kasumi is a master, intergalactic thief and cat burglar, stealing pieces only of the “priceless” kind. She herself does have a Japanese heritage, and like a hooded ninja, she is incredibly skilled in stealth, hacking, and deception. Though adept, she is by no means hardened; more playful, and possibly insightful, really.

For whatever reason, this black and rooibos blend actually suits her well, and better than a green tea. Yes, she’s Japanese, but that cultural angle comes more in with dominant jasmine smell and taste. After the jasmine, the taste transforms into something creamier, and maltier, with a candy like sweetness provided by the cream black tea and the Earl Grey moonlight. The rooibos provides the remaining potent sweetness from it’s own mildly citrus like nature, and the amber color of this tea. Like her, there is a sweetness and decadence to the profile, but a lingering subtlety in how the flavors come together.

Now, this is not a tea for most. It is VERY sweet. It’s more for an amateur who would like the highly flavored nature of this tea. And definitely for a Mass Effect fan that likes this character. The extreme dependence on the extracts for flavor is the only other off putting angle of this tea, relying less on the natural, pure taste and aroma of the tea itself. That can be said for most Adagio tea, though: too much dependence on flavoring extracts. As you can probably infer from reading this, this is blasphemy for a tea purist; yet a new, foreign dessert to a newbie.

This was one of the first teas from Adagio that I got, and honestly, my geekiness begged me to get this one. River is one of my favorite characters although they did not develop her as fully as some of the others. There were facets of her personality that I could connect with oddly enough, and I admit that I enjoyed the crap out of how she fought the Reavers in Serenity.
Anyway, I got it last year as a sample for while I was up at school. I have had green and black blends before, and they are a hit or miss for me. Blending black and green normally result in a really mellowed out tasting black tea with the crisp green in the back ground, sometimes being too weak, or nicely balanced out. This one I had to be careful with because the black base is a cream Earl Grey, so I made sure to have the exact same amount of green tea, black tea, and rose petals in every cup. It turned out to be one of the nicer green and black blends after all. I am also really glad that distributed the rose petals in the detail that I did, because I would have not otherwise tasted them as a complimentary accent.

With that said, it’s a good tea, but not great. I am glad that I sampled this instead of getting a full tin. The tin for this specific one is also a delight to have, which is also one of the reasons why Adagio is so expensive: it’s for the dang tins. Worth a try, but not something I highly recommend. I honestly couldn’t imagine what the other adagios taste like: thank heavens I was picky and chose the blended ones.

Oddly enough, I normally like green chais just a little more than the blacks on occasion. I got this at one of the coffee shops I used to go to in East Lansing (now closed, which greatly irks me!) and I would get it with steamed almond milk. It is really good with that combo. I could see why it might be better with regular milk, because this latte mix is very sweet, gingery, and green. Yet that might depend on preference.

This is the chai for green tea lovers, especially green tea with some sort of cream and sweetener. The biggest drawback is how sweet it is, and possibly the ingredients for people who want to eat cleaner.

This is not a loose leaf tea, it’s a Tea concentrate used for lattes. I got the bottled version of this and it greatly satisfied me. I tasted both the black tea and the espresso, with the spices liberally dominating the body. It’s almost like a spicy, pumpkin pie that you decide to have with coffee on the morning after thanks giving. I’m not usually a chai fan, but I like this one more because of the coffee. This is good hot or cold. As for the concentrate, you blend a small amount, whether be a few taplespoons or a quarter of a cup, with your milk of choice.
I’d recommend this more for a substitute to Starbucks bottles if you get any tired of those. Otherwise, it’s a coffee drinkers tea, and a latte coffee drinker at that. Also not something you’d go off for in a thorough taste evaluation.

I am not a huge fan of chamomile, but I really like sleepy time teas from Celestial. Mom found this on discount at Big Lots, and got some for her and my brother. I’m drinking some it it was flavored just right. Grape, spearmint, blackberry, and herbaceous leafs are the taste, and the smell. The blackberry is blended as a background, and it certainly moves the grape along. It does not need any sweetener whatsoever.

Some people might be offended by the ingredients that include things like lecithen, especially with the inconsistent health risks of soy. But again, it tastes good, and it’s helping me sleep. It’s also satisfying my tea cravings, which are BAD and I’m resisting the urge to get some oolong or black tea right now…

Thank you Brenden for this sample! I liked this one WAAAAAY more than North Winds. North Winds is much lighter as a Gongfu, and though I am actually starting to prefer this method of black tea brewing, there were times where I had to do it western because I was off by a few grams and the particular leaf wasn’t as strong. I like my dark teas bold, but complex and full of flavor. That’s why I typically enjoy Irish Breakfast more than say English Breakfast because it’s got more umph. Along the same parallel, the Aliashan is bolder, and more complex to me. I’m getting all of the tasting notes that are on here.

Toasted, whole grain bread is the best, first comparison I get, coupled with a malt like red wine aftertaste. Caramelized plum, though, is what this tea fully tastes like, and what I get the most. Again, it’s a very complex black tea that is sturdy though done Gongfu. I actually did the first steep in ten seconds which is fairly impressive, and it certainly filled my cup. A part of me even prefers it to the Golden Bud Dian Cong. I wonder what it would taste like as the Jabberwocky or Cocoa Amore. I also drank this as soon as I finished Rivendell, and this is the Aragorn to Rivendell’s Arwen.

This may be a more medium black tea, but it is a man’s tea, dang it (so wish I could use the full profanity)! For black tea lovers and would be the best introduction to an Ailoashan black for a newbie. If you want something robust with three dimensions, this is the tea to try.