Vanilla Green

I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to write about this here since I’m eating this tea and not drinking it but I think it’s fitting so I’m gonna go for it.

So earlier this week, I talked about turning this tea into food. Today, I made cookies. with this tea. More specifically, I made lemon ricotta cookies with this tea pulverized in my food processor. Among my ideas, I listed lemonade and cookies, and I sort of wanted to both but only had enough leaves for one. So I combined the idea. Vanilla-y lemons sounds really appealing to me. And while these cookies are awesome, the green tea flavor is overwhelmed by the lemon zest (home grown meyer lemons!) The vanilla flavor was present though, and tasted awesome!

I think next time I want to bake with a tea that’s not matcha, I’ll have to brew some tea real strong and see if that works better. But I’d probably taste the tea more without the lemon. But lemon is great too! And I get all the health benefits of consuming the whole leaf. Everyone wins!

Today has been an awesome teaful day!

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.

Tea #34 from Another Traveling Tea Box

Vanilla and green tea strikes me as really odd, which is why I needed to try this one.

It surprisingly works better than I’d have thought. Adagio uses a pretty solid vanilla flavor; it’s sweet, creamy and natural tasting. None of that alcoholic tasting mess. It’s also nice and warming. Every once in a while I’d get a sip that was more vegetal than the rest — the crisp veggie of the green pairs about as well as I thought it would — and that was the only unpleasant thing about this cup.

It wasn’t that amazing, which makes it strange that I could see myself craving this one from time to time.

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.

Can we just all take a minute to acknowledge how much Khamul the Easterling sucks. You know the Nazgul that is sniffing for the Hobbits and completely misses them (maybe he had a cold that day) that is Khamul, the only Nazgul that Tolkien names. No, the Witch-King doesn’t count since that is his title. He failed to catch Hobbits, failed to attack Lorien (three separate times), was beaten up by Ents, slapped around by Thranduil, and lastly pummeled by Eagles. One wonders why the Witch-King keeps him around. Ok, ok, enough geeking out and on to tea.

Today’s tea is Vanilla Green Tea by Adagio Teas, blending Chinese Green Tea with Vanilla Flavorings for a sweet and creamy treat. And let me tell you, the aroma is certainly sweet and creamy! It smells very much so like a bowl of vanilla ice cream with slight vegetal tones. A hint of artichoke with my creamy ice cream, it is a little odd but not unpleasant.

Once the leaves have taken a nice bath and the ice cream melted (or it would if it was actually ice cream) the aroma becomes more green and vegetal with notes of spinach mixed with vanilla sweetness. There is a tiny, almost indistinguishable hint, of citrus as I pull the leaves away from my nose. The liquid is fairly mild, mostly having notes of nuttiness, creaminess, and sweetness with little else.

The taste is sweet, creamy, and mild. This is a flavored tea that does not overpower, more like tucking you into a warm bed with a cup of warm vanilla milk and a plate of cookies. With a side of vegetgal. This is still a green tea afterall, and the aftertaste is mildly vegetal, so mild I cannot really tell what vegetable it tastes like, just a general green, veggie broth, aftertaste. As the tea cools it becomes sweeter and the vanilla becomes richer, certainly a tea that does not need any help from sugar to get your sweet kick.

For photos and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/01/adagio-teas-vanilla-green-tea-tea-review.html

oh no. i’m still not at my computer today and i have about 10 tea notes i still need to write AND i’m about to drink even MORE TEAS!
this is a really basic vanilla flavored green. i got a tiny bit to see if it would work in a personal blend. i’ll probably use what I have left of this one to play around and try another blend.

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.

Not a lot of positive notes on this one but I quite liked it! Maybe they’ve changed it since because a lot of reviews seem to be from a while ago. Finished up my sample of this about half an hour ago and I wasn’t thinking a whole lot about it while drinking it so no in-depth notes. That said it does have a lovely vanilla flavor that reminds me of DAVIDsTEA’s Vanilla Orchid (one of my favorites from them). It blends with the green tea nicely and is nice and warm and relaxing.

Tea: 1 perfect teaspoon
Water: 8 oz
Additives: none
Brewing method: Perfect Tea Mug

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.