Adagio's Aquarius Blend (review)

Name: Aquarius

Brand: Adagio Teas

Type: Flavored oolong and black tea blend

Form: Loose leaf

Cost: $10 for 4 oz

Review: Adagio is an extremely customer-oriented tea company that produces not only some great tea and teaware, but also several online resources for tea lovers such as a newsletter, tea reviews, a tearoom guide, and a very lively forum.

One of Adagio’s niftier innovations is its Signature Blends program: Adagio customers can design their own blend of tea (using Adagio teas) right online, upload a graphic to become the blend’s logo, and Adagio will sell the blend from their website (the formulator of the blend earns points from its sale that can be redeemed for Adagio merchandise).

The Aquarius signature blend is one of twelve “Zodiac” teas formulated by Adagio customer Inguna Trepsa. Aquarius is a blend of vanilla oolong and hazelnut flavored black tea, and I was fortunate enough to get a free sample when I ordered Adagio’s clever tea infuser, the ingenuiTEA. At first sniff the dry Aquarius leaves seemed a bit over the top: The hazelnut scent in particular was over-strong and perfume-y. I also didn’t help matters by using way too much leaf in infusing my first cup.

(I won’t do that again.)

After the first fiasco I was more judicious with the tea leaves and discovered that once infused, the hazelnut note in this tea tones down considerably, and its nose was no longer “too much”. The resulting tea was tasty and naturally sweet with roasted notes that were warming, satisfying, and somewhat reminiscent  of  hazelnut-flavored coffee. (My co-workers loved the samples I doled out.)

Recommendation: This is a very tasty flavored tea which ought to please hazelnut lovers as well as anyone with a sweet tooth. The vanilla, hazelnut and “roasted”  make this a good coffee substitute.

Affiliate links in this Post?: Yes

Tagged as: adagio, Black Tea, flavored tea, hazelnut, oolong, signature blend, tea, tea reviews, vanilla