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Tea Reviews  /  July 30, 2019  /  Updated October 1, 2021

Adagio Masters Tea Collection Review

by Tea Cachai

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Adagio recently launched their Masters Tea Collection intending to deliver the freshest and finest specialty teas. The teas offered are a limited edition from a small production and are launched as they are finished processing and shipped to the Adagio’s headquarters.

The Masters Tea Collection website is pretty user-friendly and very informative. They feature the farmers of every tea to connect the consumers and understand where the tea came from. They also showcase the regions where the teas come from, making it easy to learn a bit about some regions and the tea types produced there. You can shop by tea type, by farmer or by region. 

Adagio Masters Tea Tasting and Review(Please note this post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you if you click through and make a purchase. I only recommend products I’ve tried and liked. Thanks for supporting my blog!)

Overall, I am very pleased with the samples I got from their collection and the quality of the teas. I believe this is a great bridge for people looking to expand their tea knowledge, explore and learn more about tea. One of the things I appreciate the most about Adagio, which also applies to this Masters Tea Collection, is the fact that they sell samples. This allows consumers to try these specialty teas without having to spend large amounts of money and taking the risk of not liking them.

Adagio Tea Masters Collection

Masters Tea Collection Sample Reviews


All tea tastings were done using 6-7oz of Trader Joe’s Artesian water (read about different bottled water to make tea). The specifics of brewing times, steeping temperatures and the amount of tea leaves used are detailed under every tea review.

Green Teas

Green Teas from the Adagio Master Teas Collection

Shincha Gyokuro (April 2019)

Brewing: 6 gms at 140F for 3:30 minutes *using 4oz of water
Origin: Shizuoka, Japan
Dry leaves: Dark green needle-like, flat leaves with a grassy and seaweedy yet slightly floral aroma.
Liquor: Very pale and bright lemon-lime.
Aroma: Seaweed and green apples.
Texture & Flavor: Smooth and coating yet a little astringent. Brothy, umami and cooked greens notes.
Personal Note: This leaf to water ratio is my preferred way of drinking Gyokuro. This way you will get a power umami flavor from it unlike brewing let’s say 2 gms at 180F for 3 minutes using 6oz of water, where you’ll get a much thinner version of it and less umami. I recommend you to try both methods and see what you prefer. I used to drink it in a more ‘Western’ style with fewer leaves and more water and once I learned how to drink it in a more traditional Japanese style, I can never go back. If you’d like to learn more, I recommend to check out this video on how to brew Gyokuro. 

Yu Quian Anji Bai Cha (April 2019)

Brewing: 2 gms at 170F for 3 minutes
Origin: Zhejiang, China
Dry leaves: Sweet fruity and floral, cut grass aroma. Straight, spear-like shape, made from young leaves and buds.
Liquor: Pale, lemony yellow.
Aroma: Spinachy, vegetal, fruity.
Texture & Flavor: Fresh and smooth, medium-bodied. Light grassy and umami with some vegetal and floral notes.
Personal Note: Delicate and complex, this tea is great for those who appreciate delicate white teas, lightly oxidized Oolong and smoother green teas. Refreshing and calming. The second infusion is weaker, much more grassy and less creamy with a brisk finish.

Shi Feng Long Jing (April 2019)

Brewing: 3 gms at 170F for 2.5 minutes
Origin: Zhejiang, China
Dry leaves: Flat, large, light green leaves. Grassy and nutty aroma.
Liquor: Pale, greenish-yellow, almost colorless.
Aroma: Vegetal, brothy and nutty.
Texture & Flavor: Smooth, light-bodied with no astringency. It has nut and vegetable notes and a tingling finish.
Personal Note: Dragonwell is one of China’s most famous teas. This particular one is very light and delicate, aromatic and smooth. When brewed, it feels more vegetal and grassy, but when it cools down, it feels brothier and nutty. You are left with an empty cup that has a sweet candy aroma.

RELATED: Green Tea Tasting: Tea Bags from Mass Market Brands Comparison

Oolong Teas

Oolong Teas from the Adagio Master Teas Collection

Muzha Tie Guan Yin (April 2019)

Brewing:  7 gms at 212F for 3 minutes
Origin: Wen Shan, Taiwan
Dry leaves: Dark brown, ball-rolled leaves with a deep toasty aroma.
Liquor: Dark amber-copper.
Aroma: Chocolate, honey, wet rocks and slightly nutty.
Texture & Flavor: Medium-bodied, smooth with a lingering mineral aftertaste. Rich chocolate, hazelnut, and mineral notes.
Personal Note: This is an excellent roasted Oolong with chocolate and nutty notes but quite mineral too. After the first infusion, the leaves were not completely open so you can see that you have more steeps left that will yield a great cup. The second infusion was very toasty, nutty and still had chocolate notes with a mineral aftertaste. 

Ali Shan Special (April 2019)

Brewing:  7 gms at 200F for 4 minutes
Origin: Ali Shan, Taiwan
Dry leaves: Tightly rolled dark and bright green. Delightful fruity-floral aroma.
Liquor: Bright light yellow.
Aroma: Starts with a spinachy, nori and a bit floral aroma and it gets more floral when it starts to cool down.
Texture & Flavor: Thick and creamy with no astringency. Fresh and sweet with a clean finish, complex. Vegetal and floral notes. 
Personal Note: This is one of my favorite teas! A complex, silky, buttery rich and such fresh tea. The second steep feels even creamier and more buttery with less vegetality to it and more floral notes.

Formosa Fancy Bai Hao (May 2018)

Brewing: 5 gms at 195F for 3:30 minutes
Origin: Wen Shan, Taiwan
Dry leaves: deep fruity aroma.
Liquor: Golden orange.
Aroma: Honey and sweet, floral with a slight woodiness.
Texture & Flavor: Smooth and thick with no astringency. Floral and sweet with some wood and mineral undertones.
Personal Note: Also known as Oriental Beauty, this tea is a treat! This particular one has mid-oxidation levels and the specific processing this tea goes through increases the aromatics and fragrance. For the second infusion, I forgot I was steeping it and left it for close to 5 minutes. Such a forgiving tea! This second infusion was again very smooth with less woody and more fruity and honey notes with a lingering mineral finish.

Oolong and Black Teas from the Adagio Master Teas Collection


Black Teas


Jin Kong Que (April 2019)

Brewing: 3 gms at 205F for 2:30 min.
Origin: Yunnan, China
Dry leaves: As soon as you encounter the leaves you’re blown away by their strong caramel, honey, and fruity aroma. The wet leaves have a deep chocolate aroma.
Liquor: Bright copper.
Aroma: Honey, sweet potato, apple pie.
Texture & Flavor: For a black tea, it is soft and just slightly astringent with a medium body (as are many other Chinese black teas). It has chocolate and honey notes and a hint of toastiness.
Personal Note: I really enjoy smoother and less astringent black teas, so if this is your jam it’s an absolute must! For the second infusion I only steeped for 2 minutes and the liquor was a much darker color.  This infusion was smoother and even less astringent, earthier with a more pronounced chocolate aftertaste, it felt like a different tea!
I also tried this tea at 212F and let it steep for 3:30 min. I got more pronounced chocolate notes and a bit more body but it didn’t get too strong, so here’s another option. As always, experiment with different temperatures and steeping times to find what you like best.

RELATED: What Teas to Choose When You Want to Switch from Coffee to Tea

Balasun First Flush (April 2019)

Brewing: 3 gms at 200F for 3 minutes.
Origin: Darjeeling, India
Dry leaves:
Floral and fruity, fresh apple aroma.
Liquor: Light amber.
Aroma: Floral and fruity, sweet apple tart and slightly citrusy.
Texture & Flavor: Brisk, dry and slightly astringent, floral with a clean finish.
Personal Note: This first flush Darjeeling is complex, light and refreshing. A true ‘Champagne of tea’. The second infusion is slightly milder, less astringent but still floral and brisk with a sweet, fruity-floral aroma. Since I enjoy lighter teas, the second infusion was my favorite.

Pu-erh


A
ncient Tree Green Puerh (April 2019)

Brewing: 3 gms at 212F for 3 minutes.
Origin: Yunnan, China.
Dry leaves:
Floral and fruity, honey peach aroma. Large leaves with some white buds.
Liquor: Light golden-amber.
Aroma: Wet forest, mineral, slightly floral.
Texture & Flavor: Medium-bodied, smooth with a bright and lingering finish. Mineral and smokey with notes of cooked spinach.
Personal Note: I would probably steep it for a shorter time next time. The second infusion was smoother, less mineral and more fruity and it gets even smoother with subsequent steepings. This is not my preferred tea type so I wasn’t very excited about it. Within raw Pu-erh, there is such a big variety of teas and this one was not a favorite.

Adagio Masters Tea Tasting and Reviews

Overall, I’m very pleased with Adagio’s Masters Tea Collection. They are very good quality teas at reasonable prices. They curated a great selection to give a good overview of different specialty teas to people who are just getting into single-origin teas. The best part is that you can easily try many different teas because they sell sample sizes of all of them. 

I use professional tasting cups to taste tea. In case you’re interested, these are tasting cups I use.

I hope these reviews give you a good overview of a selection of their collection and help you better decide which ones to try. Please let me know if you’ve tried any of these teas and what were your thoughts!

Want to learn more about how to do a proper tea tasting? Get my FREE guide when you subscribe and stay in the loop for more tea information, recipes, coupons, and ideas. Thanks! 

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Adagio Masters Tea Collection Tasting and Reviews

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🙋🏻‍♀️ I often get asked what's the bes 🙋🏻‍♀️ I often get asked what's the best way to sweeten tea, and I guess the right answer is whatever works for each person! ⁣
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Personally, I only add a little Monkfruit when I drink lattes, but I drink unsweetened, unflavored tea most of the time.⁣
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For a special treat 🎁 , I sometimes make naturally flavored simple syrup. I was #gifted this travel electric kettle with temperature control by @buydeem_global and I love that you can use it to infuse too because of the strainer on its lid. ⁣
It has 3 temperature settings and 3 timer options to hold the temp.⁣
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🌹 I made a honey rose simple syrup by boiling water, then steeping the rose petals for 7-10 minutes in the kettle, and combining the steeped rose tea and honey (1 part each). I immediately used it to sweeten my Earl Grey Latte (aka 🇬🇧 London Fog!).⁣
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The kettle is perfect for travel and moving it around, and the 60•C temp is perfect for making Japanese Green Tea (and I love that it holds the temperature so I can use it instead of my thermal bottle). The only downside is that it takes a bit longer to boil water, but the practicality of it is unbeatable!

If you ever do so, what’s your favorite way to sweeten your tea?
✨Advent Calendar season is almost here! (You sti ✨Advent Calendar season is almost here! (You still have time to get yours if you haven’t for this year).⁣
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Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, it is a great opportunity to try different teas  and explore from several companies who offer them (if you not into the countdown, wait for after season sales!).⁣
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💓 I have my favorites for this year ➡️ (link in bio!). ⁣
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Did you get one? If so, which one did you get or are excited to try?
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I don’t think I can live without Matcha 🍵(can you?).⁣
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For real, if you want to try 3 different and excellent types of Matcha from @naokimatcha for FREE (just pay $0.99 for shipping) go to the link in my bio (𝘯𝘢𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘢.𝘤𝘰𝘮/𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘴𝘦/𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘢-𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘳-𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘬) and order with the code 𝐍𝐀𝐎𝐊𝐗𝐓𝐂𝐂. ⁣
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Great for drinking on their own, in the morning or for that post-lunch slump (my energy pill 💊 !) or for making a hot or iced latte. ⁣
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I personally love, drink and recommend @naokimatcha a lot and love collaborating with them because they have really good Matcha 💚 if it’s good, I gotta spread the word!⁣
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Lmk if you’ve tried any of these blends
A new tea book is out and it’s by my friend Nico A new tea book is out and it’s by my friend Nicole from @teaformeplease !! 🎊🎉⁣
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I’m super happy to be one of the first to get this book (you can get yours on Amazon - release day May 17th).⁣
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✔️ It’s full of super fun tea based drink recipes and some baked goods too. You can find iced, hot, lattes, cocktails & mocktails and boba too. It’s a great book for tea lovers who would like to explore more ways to enjoy it and learn how versatile tea is. ⁣
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If you’re building a tea book library 📚 , this one is a must, and a great book to gift to any tea lover 💜.⁣
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🔥 Congratulations again Nicole on this amazing achievement!
Over a month into Spring 🌸 and I can see my te Over a month into Spring 🌸  and I can see my tea preferences starting to change. I’ve been drinking fresher feeling and more cooling teas, such as green, lightly oxidized Oolong, etc. (Here I’m enjoying a lovely Dragonwell green tea).⁣
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Now that I live in FL, so many people ask how can I drink tea with the heat, but when inside I’m always always drinking tea, same as before! Still, cooling teas can be great to regulate body temperature and even reduce the perceived heat 🥵.⁣
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💝 Love serving tea to friends who come by my place for any reason. This lovely kettle + cups set is from @kitchen_kite and I LOVE it. It has a big stainless steel infuser to steep the tea and 4 delicate double-walled glass small cups to serve tea. So elegant! (It is also stovetop safe and dishwasher safe) #gifted ⁣
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What have you been drinking this Spring?
👉🏻Here’s a super interesting one:⁣ Sweet 👉🏻Here’s a super interesting one:⁣
Sweet potato plant leaves tea 😮 . It’s a herbal tea made from sweet potato plants in the Laoshan district in China, and processed similarly to black tea.⁣
It’s the first time I tried it and I was blown away by it. I love trying rare teas and herbal infusions and this was a special one! ⁣
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🔎It is roasted 5, yes FIVE times to stop oxidation, so it’s a very time consuming tea to produce. Farmers in the area are shifting from harvesting crops to making tea because it’s more profitable as demand for this type of tea is increasing 🥔.⁣
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☕️ I brewed it at 200•F and it had a strong sweet potato and savory aroma. I would have expected more sweetness to it but I was surprised with its brightness and how soupy/brothy it tastes. I also found some cooked spinach notes. Overall a fantastic experience ⭐️. ⁣
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I got this tea from @verdanttea (#gifted) which I sincerely can’t recommend enough.⁣
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Have you ever tried this tea❓
Happy last Matcha Monday 🍵 of the year! Wishing Happy last Matcha Monday 🍵 of the year! Wishing you all a wonderful 2022 filled with joy and health 🙌🏼.⁣
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Matcha is one of my favorite things to help boost my energy⚡️. Besides loving its flavor, color and preparation process and ceremony, the calm alertness and energy that it provides is so appreciated! ⁣
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Do you take Matcha to boost your energy or just because you like it? 💚
👋Happy Monday!⁣ I wanted to share about one o 👋Happy Monday!⁣
I wanted to share about one of the most luxurious tea gifts I’ve ever received. If you’re looking to really 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 someone and want to splurge, then I absolutely recommend this @samovartea gift box (You, Me and a Cup of Tea).⁣
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It comes with a 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 well curated variety of 5 loose leaf teas, including a herbal blend that works amazing as a cold brew and a chocolate Pu-erh that makes a killer latte!⁣
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It also comes with one of my favorite tea brewing accessories, the brewing teapot, a tea scoop and a lovely tea guide with brewing directions.⁣
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Pictured is one of my favorite teas of the box, California Persian: a black tea blend with cardamom, rose blossoms, jasmine and orange zest. It is a beautiful, elegant and well balanced blend that works perfectly well for an afternoon tea setting. It has strong rose 🌹 and some citric notes (I like brewing it at 195 F for 3 minutes).⁣
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Again, I was wowed by the luxurious tea experience of this box #gifted. Everything is so well put together and the packaging is designed with an amazing eye for aesthetics and attention to detail.⁣
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Would you like this as a gift? (Hint: I promise you would! 😜)
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✨ I wish I had a resource like this one back in the day when I was starting with my tea romance. Now you have it, enjoy!
Does this Monday feel super slow or is it me? 🙌 Does this Monday feel super slow or is it me?
🙌🏼 I’m recharging my energy this morning with a delicious latte from @favatea ‘s holiday sampler (#gifted). This tea is called Frosty’s Brew and it is a black te with white chocolate and orange… very indulgent! I feel the holiday season calls for exploring blends that I wouldn’t try often and of course, making them into lattes!
This sampler box had several teas that make great lattes, even some Rooibos ones that my kids enjoyed! (After my 6-yo son tried a tea latte he would’t go back to regular tea! 😂)
💡 Remember: for lattes use at least double the amount of tea that you would usually use to make a regular cup. We’re looking to make a concentrate. Always add more leaves, not more time!
✨Matcha tasting time 🍵 This was a fun one! @ ✨Matcha tasting time 🍵 This was a fun one!

@naokimatcha launched a very limited tasting set of 3 Matcha where only 1 will be added to their line. The blends are named after their region of origin: Uji, Wazuka and Nishio. 

It was really hard to pick a favorite because all 3 were delicious, fresh and good quality Matcha (#gifted). But overall my favorite was Uji Harmony: It was delightfully sweet, smooth but thick and creamy with little grassiness and a perfect umami balance. Its color is a bright, vibrant green that only reflect freshness and quality.
The two other blends were excellent as well, I found the Wazuka blend great for beginners because it was less umami, smooth and ‘cleaner’.

Have you tried any of these? (Get their Matcha tasting set with 20% off on their website)
I’ve been obsessed 🤩 about Nepalese Black tea I’ve been obsessed 🤩 about Nepalese Black teas lately, and when this came in the mail I was soooo happy!⠀
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I got a new #teasubscriptionbox to try (#gifted 🎁) and I was very excited about their concept. @atlasteaclub does monthly boxes focused on a single origin and aims to take the customer through a journey around the world 🌍. In my box came a Black tea, Kumari Gold (pictured) and a White tea. You can choose 1 or 2 teas with your subscription plan and each tea pouch contains fresh and good quality leaves 🌱 and a brewing guide. There’s also a beautiful postcard that comes in the box with information about the current month’s origin.⠀
⠀
On to the tea ☕️ ➡️ This Kumari Gold was sweet and smooth with strong cooked fruit notes and some slight woodiness. It is delicate and elegant, like manny Nepalese Black teas.⠀
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If you haven’t tried Nepalese teas, I would recommend you to try its Black tea. (Try 190-195 F for 3.30 min)
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