Barbara

Another great tea and one of the five samples cteresa sent me in a swap. She included this tea for comparison to the Place Saint Marc of Theodore. Great choice, thanks!

Whereas the Place Saint Marc smells heavenly, I was disappointed by the taste when brewed. While not bad, the taste just was significantly less good than what you would expect based on the smell. This tea is the exact opposite. The smell – although not bad – was not exactly loose-your-socks-heavenly. The taste however exceeded my expectations.

In short: it is a very well balanced tea.

I just reviewed the 4 fruits rouges from damman freres. This tea is remakably different from that tea. The 4 fruits rouges is very fruity. The red fruits dominate the tea. This tea is more complex. The black tea base is much more noticable. In addition the flavouring doesn’t consist of just fruits, but also of flowers. It makes for a more complex and full bodied taste than the 4 fruits rouges.

Don’t get me wrong however: both teas are lovely. They just have amazingly different characters.

2013-02-07 17:07:51 -0500

205 °F / 96 °C

4 min 0 sec

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cteresa 2013-02-08 05:02:29 -0500

I do agree! And so glad you enjoyed this, I am very fond of Yumchaa teas and thought this was an interesting tea to swap for Place Saint Marc (just finished a cup of it, am now thinking about it!)

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What to say about myself and my tea drinking habits? I’ve been staring at the screen, reading other’s bio’s and still can’t come up with something worthwile. I’ll just stick to the basics.

I generally prefer white, green and oolong teas to black teas. As I read a scientific report that stated that black teas lower the level of stress hormones in the blood, I try to add a few cups of black tea every day.

Overall I prefer black teas to be flavoured. The white, green and oolongs may be flavoured or straight.

I brew my teas per cup, mostly in my – much loved – Kati mug with Cha Cult strainer. I’m rather a stickler for brewing time and temperature, so I use a tea timer and watercooker with temperature indication.

I also love a good cup of coffee and especially cappuchino. As far as I’m concerned, a good cappuchino requires a real milk/foam topping, not something made with skimmed milk, powder or the like. Unfortunately a lot of cafes still haven’t caught on to that one and serve low quality coffee and tea (type vending machine and bagged fannings). I hate it when, on a cold winter day, the choice is restricted to bad coffee, bagged fannings or a cold softdrink… :-(

As for rating teas, I more or less make the following distinction:

100:
Nothing is perfect. Probably won’t be using it ever.

98 – 99:
Nearly too good to be true.

90 – 97:
Exceptional.

80 – 89:
Excellent.

70 – 79:
Good. May rebuy depending on price and availability.

60 – 69:
Ok I’ll finish the cup and maybe even have a second, but probably won’t finish the entire package as I have other – (far) better teas in my cupboard.

< 60:
I feel cheated. I won’t ever be buying this again.

< 50:
This really is no good.

< 30:
I hate this. I want my money back.

1:
Beyond horrible!

PS: Recalibrated my ratings according to this index on 23 feb 2013.