Ysaurella

This is my first Lupicia tea. I had no idea where to buy this brand in France and sent an email to the Lupicia USA customer service two weeks ago. Still awaiting an answer :) – Maybe I should have wrote to Lupicia Japan but I felt more confident with my English rather than trying to read the Japanese writings.
Anyway I am very lucky because while discussing with the lovely Devilish she proposed me to send me out her Lupicia’s samples !
So my samples arrived from Hong Kong yesterday and I am now sipping Arabian Nights.
I wanted to try this one first because Devilish rated it with a 100 and mentioned in her post it reminds her Morocco.

I have too a beautiful teapot from Morocco and beautiful Moroccan tea glasses but didn’t use them neither :)

I am so grateful to have the opportunity to taste these Lupicia teas ! I should say I am not disappointed at all with this first tea, I love it !

The taste definitively is pomegranate and rose to me.The tea base is so mellow, this is fantastic.I am happy there is not mint inside – I love mint but almost each time a tea gets an oriental name, we have mint inside – Oriental teas are not just mint teas – this one probes it in a yummy way !
I am also happy it is a black tea base, often to mention Orient, a green tea is used – and I prefer black teas :)

I am definitively in Morocco tonight thanks to Devilish thank you so much :)

This is a very beautiful tea leaf : a lot of yellow flowers (sunflowers) are mixed in, and it smells delicious.

Drinking it, I had difficulties to isolate the flavours : for sure there is orange but don’t get especially a blood orange.
Originally, I bought this one because it was with chestnuts- I cannot really say I get a huge chestnut taste. It is quite weird. It is here, but light and very very mixed with the other ingredients.

Having said that there is no reason to be picky : the taste is delicious, everything is very well balanced and the tea base (always the same with perfumed black teas with B&B) is nice and goes very well with these flavours.
The tea name is perfect and you are really in Autumn with this blend.
As it seems Autumn in coming back here in the middle of the Spring…this tea is perfect today.

I think this one could have been a very great tea but just stops before reaching the top. A little plus of je ne sais quoi would have permitted it to reach the top.

I struggled with this one because of its name !
Zabaglione …typically italian…what’s zabaglione ?…hehe it seems to be what we call in French a Sabayon…Ok I know now what I’am going to drink ! yeah seems exiting now!
The dry leaf scent is absolutely wild strawberries to me. After steeping, this is a pleasant black tea base (not bitter) with creamy strawberries.

It’s a yummy dessert tea but it’s not a sabayon/zabaglione to me – I don’t get the typical sugared alcohol taste we get in a zabaglione, it’s quite different but good !

Not something I would stock but nice, thank you Azzrian for sharing :)

This is my first lavender tea ! Thank you so much LaFleurBleue for sharing it with me.
we are first hit by a wonderful scent of lavender, I mean a real true lavender exactly like the one you can smell everywhere in Provence (or in the grand’ma’s armory ;) ) this is really enjoyable.

Again, I love the high quality muslin sachet of this brand…so perfect that none tea leaf manage to pass though !

the tea base is pleasant and really good but I was thinking it may have been a little bit stronger – but it’s perfect like that either.

The taste of lavender is absolutely lovely.
While cooling, the tea becomes stronger and different but the wonderful taste & scent of lavender remains intact.

A very lovely tea

I’m so happy I received a big tin of this tea as present !
My mom visited the museum Cernuschi in Paris (dedicated to the Asian Arts) and this tea is a special creation from the tea company George Cannon for one of the exhibition so she bought me a tin !

The tea base is an high quality oolong.
The leaves are so beautiful with all these wonderful berries and flowers.
The scent is more fruity than floral to me, same for the taste of the liquor.
To me the leading role goes to goji berries and citrus in a second role.
A very pleasant tea for an afternoon.
Saying this, this is not my favorite Cannon tea but I only had 4 and all were very impressive :)
I must say I am more and more impressed and interested by this brand and I need to continue tasting their creations.

Thank you so much Sil for sharing this tea with me !
It was a long time I wanted to have it and you made my wish comes true.
I love the Butiki creations on flavoured teas and wanted to taste as well the unflavoured ones.

As you imagine the shipping costs from Usa to Europe don’t allow me to place an order as often as I wish so I need to be sure I love the teas before ordering.
I can say Mi Xian Black is a tea I really love : smooth and present, almost creamy with fruity notes evocating dried apricot to me.

The dry leaves are very very long, impressive, shining and dark-very beautiful.
However it resteeps very well.

Tried it both with brown crystal sugar and after without any sweetener and both ways are gorgeous.

Thanks again Sil and thanks Stacy !

Sipdown !
Definitively not a tea for me but I know it is BECAUSE I am not very green tea.
However it may come from the tea base too.
I know this tea is a best seller of the Brand and people who loves greens really enjoy it.
The citrus flavours are really uncommon and unique, really nice.

I won’t rebuy it but I can understand why it is one of my best friends preferred teas.

Having this one tonight but I am not in the mood for it apparently.
I brew it the right way and time but get a slight astringency, very very very little BUT present…
This is what I dislike with green teas, this sourness, this almost hidden sourness, on the aftertaste…spoiling your tea joy…
Green teas can be perverse…
Sourness here is the Phantom of my Thé à l’Opéra…

I’m not in a good mood for tea tonight : Hugs from France for America tonight – We are crying with you tonight.

Thank you Azzrian for sharing this blend with me.
I really get the mango fruit taste, amazing.
The tea base is smooth and mellow but a little too weak for my taste.
I think I get the creaminess (a taste complicated to get and express for me)

Somehow it makes me think to a mango lassi more than a mango ice cream, very nice.
A very pleasant tea

This is a sample I requested while visiting B&B. I already had this tea in the past but not since at least 4 years.
The scent of dry leaf is just waouh…fantastic, the liquor is a perfect balance of citrus : orange, bergamot and lemon with a light smocky taste.
This is a nice Earl Grey declination in homage to Russian blends.
Delicious, goes in my shopping list, definitively.

You know I am searching for the perfect raspberry tea…I think I need to search again.
This one is not bad but still not my perfect framboise : the dry leaf scent is very very strong, almost like opening a perfume bottle.
This is a tea using only natural essential oils – I consider this is a pity not using real fruits as well.
The liquor is nice but just ok to me because I am expecting a lot from a raspberry tea…pleasant but not my hero.

The more I drink it the more i love it : It’s really an elegant earl grey spin off :)
I need to say it is near to mélange Hédiard regarding the scent of the dry leaf BUT so different after brewing – both are lovely but Aïda is the most elegant.

J’adoooooooooooooooooooooore les cerises !!!! I love cherries but less than raspberries.
While in Betjeman & Barton shop, I decided to go for fruity teas, Cerise Noire and Framboise.
No suspense around…I love this cherry tea so much, it’s exactly like drinking a liquid cherry. The aromas are so natural and the aftertaste is divine.More on cherry rather than on cherry blossom (but there is cherry blossom for sure).
The dry leaf was amazing but the liquor is even better – I am really enthusiastic about this tea especially because I wasn’t expecting very much from it.
Prefer it very hot rather than warm,the aromas are really better hot, with a light fruity tartness.
Yummy …

I’ve never had dragonwell before and this my first grapefruit tea as well.

I was expecting more grapefruit flavour but I get it both on dry leaf and in the liquor while sipping.

As many Butiki green teas, I find it better as it cools. The flavour is much more revealed.Really much more present !
I realize I never tried any BT iced…I think I should.

I really enjoy this one almost cold.

Thank you for sharing Sil !

Second backlog of yesterday while Steepster was down.
My second B&B of the day.
I prefered this one to Polka. While opening the tin,I get an incredible scent of alcohol, like a fruit liqueur.I had the same sensation in shop and asked if it was due to the grape presence, the saleswoman said it was due to the fig presence.
The scent is sooooo strong, incredibly strong on fruits and liqueur.
The taste is really more subtile, for the best.
There is quince in this tea, I got it. Hazelnuts as well but was unable to detect the flavour.
It’s clearly an Autumn blend, absolutely perfect for the weather we have actually in France.
A beautiful tea.
Betjeman & Barton may consider to change their tea base with the flavours they are using. I suspect they are using more than often the same for any flavoured tea. It makes teas less interesting to my opinion.
I love character teas :)

Backlog of yesterday while Steepster was down.
Polka was my afternoon tea. It’s an absolute fruity tea, opulent, greedy.
The orange used is not a classic orange but a blood orange, very present in the mix of fruits.
It is difficult to distinguish the difference fruits except for the blood Orange but it is a nice cup of tea.
The main difference of B&B teas with Mariage Frères ones to me is the heavy use of essential oils. They are not blending their teas as MF does. However I suspect they use the same black tea base for every flavour tea, which is not the case for MF blends.
That’s the reason why I think B&B remains a challenger only to MF and not a too much dangerous challenger.
Saying that, don’t get me wrong: B&B teas are using only natural ingredients and natural flowers and essential oils, nothing artificial in their teas. Polka is a very decent tea, pleasant.
But I won’t wake up in the middle of the night craving for a cup of this tea.

Backlog of my first cup of the day.
Mélange Hédiard is a very good citrus tea : strong, really robust-It’s a quite malty tea but without any bitterness.
An ideal tea to begin the day, it wakes you up very well.
I have a drawback to point out but a very light one : the scent of the dry leaves is amazing, fantastic and powerful, there is a difference in the cup, the aromas aren’t so strong – don’t get me wrong : they are absolutely present and divine but a degree under the scent.
A very lovely tea

This is a tea I had with my brunch in a Parisian café this afternoon.
No real tea choice, so had this one.
Nothing special to say, it’s not bad,it’s not good, it’s meh !

The kind of tea just a little bit better than Lipton yellow

I am silly…this is a sample I requested to 2 persons …so thank you both Azzrian and Sil for sharing with me.
Now I am an happy silly woman because I really love this tea and it means I have more to enjoy !

The tea base is really nice and absolutely not bitter. The fruits aromas remind me the type of mature fruits you can find at the end of summer.
They may have used mirabelles for the plum flavour, this is a typical plum in the area (not far, in Lorraine), I get the cherry very well too , a little less for apricot.

I should confess I never went in Alsace (probably one of the lone areas in France I didn’t visit yet) but I would love to.I know many Alsatians and this tea is a nice tribute to the region I think, especially because it touches the high traditional side of this French region.
I am not so much surprised by *momo*’s anecdote with the Alsatian woman, there is something really special with this area of France, something really much more traditional vs the rest of the country.

Phénix is not a very well known MF blend, no idea why because it is quite good.
It reminds me about Thé du Loup of Theodor EVEN IF there is no chocolate in Phénix but caramel.There is due to the presence of Hazelnuts I think and the smoothness of the both tea bases.
I get honey on aftertaste, really well blended.
I wonder if the tea base is a keemum…we never have these informations with MF. But it’s a very mellow tea.
cteresa this is a tea I would love you to review…if you are still continuing to drink tea at this period of the year (it’s cold in France perhaps the same in Portugal ?)
A very greedy tea.

I was a little worried seeing the ratings of this tea but really wanted to try by myself too.
This is clearly a mild tea base, but not weak. Inversely, the aromas are strong and especially on citrus. There is a kind of je ne sais quoi really joyful with the citrus here.
The vanilla adds something very interesting to the blend.
Saying that where is the crème brûlée promised by MF ? in the air I would say, like a spirit, an inspiration : there but not really too…

I really like Thé de Pâques and I’m happy to have bought 100g today.
It smells like a mystery blend to me…blended by the Easter rabbit ? arrived with Rome’s bells ? I just surrender to the fantastic aromas especially due to the fantastic way the citrus come with vanilla.

SIPDOWN – I really loved this tea as you can read in my previous review but I am happy to clear my cupboard as I bought almost 1kg of teas today :S
I kept a little sample of it if a steepsterite wants to try it.

This is my first plum tea, I have the chance to taste it thanks to Sil
It’s a very mild cinnamon-y tea perfectly balanced with the plum aroma.There is a slight tartness on aftertaste.
The tea base is really nice and present, not too strong neither.
I preferred it very hot rather than just warm, so I need to hurry up to finish my cup !

This is my second George Cannon Tea and I should recognize I am quite impressed by this brand.
Le Petit prince de Kharkov is a marvel : everything is so well balanced, so perfectly blended, it is really amazing.
The tea base is a very good quality one, robust without being strong.
If you don’t like cloves, try this tea, because you may change your mind.
It is a very cloying tea but citrus work perfectly with, on a very special way, unique to my opinion.
It is clearly an holiday tea, but not another one,not an additional one to the long existing list of spiced teas.
It is really a very very good surprise.

The tea name made me dream as well when I bought it…who is the little Prince of Kharkov (Kharkiv in English) ? No real nor official answer but to me, it may be Alexander Siloti, the famous Pianist as this tea is a perfect spiced symphony.

I may be wrong because a lot of famous people were from Kharkiv (Chess masters especially) if someone has the answer…I’ll be happy to know it.