Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups.. Happy Matcha Monday! I’m back today with another Stateside Steeps post and this time around I’m going to be reviewing Adagio’s – Oolong Matcha sticks. If you saw my Matcha Monday post from last week you’ll know that tried the Black Tea Matcha sticks from Adagio and I loved them. So ever since, I’ve been really excited to try these oolong ones and see if they were going to be as delicious as the black tea ones. Just like the black tea sticks there is no matcha in these and instead just ground oolong (Adagio’s Tie Guan Yin) I understand that it is not technically matcha but I choose to review for Matcha Monday because it just fits best underneath that title.

Here’s what Adagio have to say about their oolong matcha sticks over on their website: “No longer is matcha limited to just lovers of green tea. Our Matcha Oolong uses the same time-honoured process and replaces it with oolong tea leaves. Now available in our convenient stick packs, simply tear open, pour into any 500ml bottle of water, shake and enjoy!”

Ingredients: Tie Guan Yin (Ground)

Tea Tasting Notes

For this tasting session I had this matcha two ways: on its own hot and on its own iced. I know with matcha I will normally experiment but after I took the first sip of this I loved it and how it is unmistakably oolong and I knew that I just didn’t need sweetener or milk added. It’s absolutely delicious as is, but I do think that out of curiosity I will probably try it with milk just too see how it changes. Out of the two different ways I tried in on its own I will say that for me it worked better iced and that’s probably how I will drink it from now on. I was just able pick out so many more notes when I had it iced and its flavour profile just had so many more layers of depth to it.

As soon as I had added in the water to this matcha I was hit with a mix of vegetal and floral aromas, the latter of which was definitely the strongest. The vegetal notes reminded me somewhat of the way that cucumbers smell and the floral notes were like those of orchids. I was expecting the floral notes to be present like they would normally be in a tie guan yin but I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting them to smell as strong as they did and I was a little bit worried that this oolong matcha was going to be way to floral for me, but in the taste the vegetal and floral notes did seem to both even out in term of strength

It has a smooth mineral texture to it mouthfeel wise and the floral notes did cause a little bit of dryness towards the back of my mouth. There was a little bit of astringency to it but neither the dryness or the astringency really effected my enjoyment of this tea overall as I was expecting both to be present. The vegetal notes were definitely reminiscent of cucumber which I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting at all and I think they were amplified a little because I had this iced as they weren’t nearly as prominent in the hot cup that I had. I was able to get it to build a little bit of a froth but it didn’t hold for long and was quite thin but I wasn’t expecting it to froth much at all going into this session, so it was a nice surprise that it managed to hold any at all.

Adagio say this can be just thrown into a bottle of water and shaken but honestly if you are wanting it to be clump free and as smooth as possible I would recommend either using a matcha shaker with a shaker ball in it or a bowl and a whisk. The last thing you want in your drink is clumps and it’s worth the extra time making sure there no way they can make their way into your cup. Again just like the Black Tea Matcha sticks these would be really convenient for tea lovers who are on the go be it either for work, school or travelling because they are quick, easy and absolutely delicious. They are perfect for me for when I’m hurting too much to prepare anything else as they don’t take up much effort and time in terms of preparing. They are definitely something I will consider buying again in the future.

Overall Teacup Rating: 5/5

If you want to find out more about Adagio and buy some of their Oolong Matcha to try yourself, you can do both here. As always if you have questions at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter/Instagram @teaisawishblog and I’ll do my best to answer them all as soon as I can.

Speak to you all again soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley

*the tea featured in this post was gifted to me for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own and have not been paid for*