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This tea is almost flawless. No bitterness; just the dreamy, delicious combination of strawberry, papaya, and pineapple, and green and black tea. Lovely without sweetener. Without a doubt, I will repurchase this tea. For a more thorough review, see my last tasting note.

I’ve been craving some kind of strawberry kiwi high fructose corn syrup disaster all week, so when I saw this at the store this afternoon I immediately snatched it up. The smell of the leaves is unmistakably sweet strawberry kiwi high fructose corn syrup disaster, which I’m actually happy about!

Steeped up, the tea tastes like sour strawberry herbal tea. I’m not tasting any of the green tea, nor any sweet kiwi flavor. I’ve gotten used to drinking my teas without sweetener, so I was a little surprised by the fact that I wasn’t able to drink this tea, a fruit tea, on its own. I added a little Splenda, but unfortunately that didn’t work out. The sweetener didn’t blend into the flavor of the tea at all. Now the tea just smells like strawberries dipped in Splenda, with that characteristic “Splenda” taste. It tastes like Splenda in hot water mixed with strawberry juice. While I don’t hate Spelnda (I actually like it) I’m not really in the mood to drink Splenda Tea. So down the drain this cup goes.

I’ve found that it’s really hard to compare this to plain, unflavored matcha—they’re two different animals. Even though Mandarin Matcha isn’t the same as regular matcha, it’s still wonderful in its own way. The powder is olive green, rather than the bright, radioactive green of fresh matcha. I’m guessing the color is due to the pulverized dried orange that is mixed in with the matcha, and not just the quality of the matcha itself. The smell is flowery and sweet.

Today I’m using two scoops and 4 ounces of hot water. The color of the tea is a murky green, and quite a bit different from that characteristic jade green color of regular matcha tea. Mandarin Matcha does not foam, no matter how hard or how long I whisk it. Only a few weak bubbles appear at the surface.

The taste is a bit weaker and sweeter than regular matcha is at this concentration. I’m guessing this is because of the orange that’s mixed in with the matcha dilutes it. The orange taste is light and not artificial tasting. There is a strange sharpness or sourness near the back/middle of my tongue, but it’s bearable. Happily, there is no bitterness.

In exchange for the orange note, you do lose some of the vegetal/grassy flavor of regular matcha. At the same time, there is an interesting blossomy component to it that I didn’t taste in the plain matcha I have on hand. And oh, the smell! The smell of Mandarin Matcha is divine. Juicy orange, tart and sweet, cream, and matcha.

I think it’s a good change of pace from regular matcha. The novelty of the orange flavor certainly makes it worth trying. While I don’t know if I’d consider it the best matcha I’ve ever had, it has earned a place in my cabinet.

Huh. Today this actually hit the spot. It is very sweet, but it’s not “yucky” the way my last cup was. At the same time, this was so sweet that I had to chase it down with some water. I definitely won’t repurchase, but I may be able to at least finish off the carton.

Sadness! I’ve tried this twice so far using my Zarafina, and I never got the caramel taste. Instead, I got smokiness—almost like the black tea version of Shanti by The Simple Leaf. The cup I made at the “green” Zarafina setting was not bitter at all and went down easily without sugar or milk—a rarity for me. I didn’t get to taste the tea made at “Oolong” setting until 5-6 hours after it had been brewed, and it was cold and super bitter (there was a lone tea leaf in my mug, so maybe it kept steeping).

Sigh. I need a thermometer, I guess.

This is the first “plain” Irish Breakfast tea I’ve had (that I can remember) and I have say…I am not fan. It brewed up very dark and looked like coffee, which is neat. Surprisingly it wasn’t bitter at all.

But the flavor….gag me. I love English Breakfast and black teas, but this just didn’t work for me. To me, it smells and tastes like salty yams and garbage. Someone else’s tasting note said “sewage”, ha. I had tried Adagio’s Aries blend, and it had the same yucky taste, which I assumed was from the chai…nope. It must have been from the Irish Breakfast mixed in.

If this is was “malty” tastes like…well, I don’t think I like malt, then.

I’ve been on a milk tea kick lately, so I thought I’d open up this tin and churn out a tasting note. What can I say? It tastes a whole lot like caramel, and not much like anything else. The caramel is similar in taste to homemade, slightly-burnt, caramelized sugar. The caramel flavor component is quite strong and can be easily detected by tongue, but it balances well with the black tea flavor. Luckily, the tea doesn’t taste fruity the way Adagio’s black base often tastes. It’s just a nice, solid black tea flavor that supports the caramel. It is a bit astringent (drying) but not particularly bitter. However, I would imagine that oversteeping this one would lead to a very bitter cup.

I know some teas are all smell and no flavor. Adagio’s Caramel is not one of those teas. This tastes just as much like caramel as it smells. With a little milk and sweetener, it’s almost as though someone melted a milk caramel and stirred it into some black tea.

While there’s not a lot going on in this tea, I rather like it. It’s simple, and seems like it would be great for mixing with other teas.

Just made a super-sweet dessert shake using this. I mixed milk, a very ripe banana, some egg custard powder, and a scoop of this in a blender. It came out very sweet so I’ll probably forgo the custard powder next time, or use less. This would probably be better with ice, too. I’m actually going to try and make a banana matcha custard out of this…I wonder if it will work.