Betjeman and Barton

No notes yet.

Lovely sample-sized sachet sent to me by Ysaurella, who thought I’d like it. You were so right, Ysaurella! I have a somewhat uneasy relationship with Earl Greys, as I love the flavour of bergamot, but often find it so overpowering I can’t get enough of the base tea tea-ishness, so it’s more like licking a bottle of essential oil than it should be. This, however, is delicious! The other citrus flavours make a huge difference, as you get orange, lemon and bergamot flowing over your palate, but they’re all restrained enough to keep them from being too dominant. And the touch of smokiness is surprisingly right with the citrus – well, it surprised me. I could see vanilla with Earl Grey immediately, but wasn’t sure about smoky.

I’ll definitely be getting this when I order from B&B again – thank you so much for introducing me to this one, Ysaurella!

Have been so busy lately that I haven’t properly enjoyed tea for a while! I am now having a long weekend, and I decide that it will be perfect to start it with a tea sample that I received in a recent tea swap with the very generous Steepsterite Ysaurella. :)

One thing I really love about French teas is that they always have pretty, poetic names! This tea (“A day in the countryside”) is no exception. I was expecting a really floral tea (cos there should be lots of flowers in the countryside right?), but it’s nothing like that. Rather, the dry leaves have a tangy smell of cinnamon and dried fruits.

When brewed, this is a warming tea with dominant flavours of cinnamon and orange. Both flavours are very natural, which is good news as I am normally put off by artificial “Fanta”-like orange. But seriously I can’t detect any chestnut in the tea… a real pity. The black tea base is fairly astringent so I am happy that I have kept the brewing time short.

Overall, I am glad to have the chance to taste this tea, which is not available in Hong Kong. Thanks again, Ysaurella! Sharing tea with people around the world is such a beautiful thing. :)

I have requested a sample of this tea when I went to the Betjeman & Barton shop last week.
I wanted to buy this tea but as I was unsure if I would like it.
As you can see on the picture, the blend is really lovely with all these cornflowers and mixed colours.
The scent is very strong and perfumey. As many B&B teas, we shouldn’t steep it too long because otherwise tea becomes bitter, I may be due to a major use of essential oils in their blends.
Once steeped, the scent of the liquor was horrible to me, too strong, like a hot beverage with alcohol, pouah ! I was reticent to taste it but did, I am brave :)
And surprise, I like it ! the tea base is so mellow, incredible to see how it works with the flavours.
It is a very greedy tea, orange, chocolate and vanilla work perfectly together. A strong taste of rum remains here to my opinion, that’s quite funny.
A very well named tea, I almost can see rabbits and bells with this rum taste :D

nice taste

Have some diffrent

Thank you again Ysaurella for this lovely tea.
Tony just fed me a raspberry. Now THAT’s an awesome boyfriend! He’s been really nice to me all day. Of course, he’s always nice, but I have a terrible kink in my neck, & am laying around with alternating ice packs & heat. I’ve been doing tennis ball therapy on myself, laid back on the yoga ball, done reiki, really gentle yoga, lets just saying I’m no fun today & the only saving graces are tea, Tony rubbing my neck & shoulders, & St. Louis cardinals baseball.
This is a tasty tea, with the flavors that remind me of mince pie: apples, cinnamon, raisin, & spice!
Another sipdown!

This is a lovely tea! The only teas I can recall having before this with cherries were greens and they were always very tart and didn’t seem to blend well. This is wonderful. The tea base is nice and smooth and melds well with the cherries. A tiny bit of tartness but not nearly as much as with the green bases in other teas.

I would keep this in the cupboard. Thanks so much, Ysaurella, for sharing this!

No notes yet.

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.

Have had several cups of this now, and I’ve decided it’s a nice black tea base with essence of confusion-to-your-senses. Sorry, candied essence of &tc. I rather doubt the flavouring is all natural, and I feel I should dislike it for that reason, but it is such a happy smell/taste (though smell especially) that I don’t. Certainly not over-perfumey, despite which, I find myself craving an oil blend I could dab on myself and wear around all day. I definitely am craving candied chestnuts, aka marrons glacés! I totally agree with Ysaurella about the slight chestnutty bitterness, which is nutty but different from other types of “nutty” flavour.

Will try to do a closer approximation of a proper tasting note soon! Just for now, adding that yesterday I tried a smidge with my unsweetened almond milk, being afraid of ruining the cup, and it was lovely that way too.

Guessing on the steeping parameters since i made this at work today. This isn’t bad but it’s a bit like the tea doesn’t really know what it wants to be. Lala’s right…it smells like a buttery, caramel green tea…and then when you drink it, it turns into a citrusy carmemlly tea. It’s not a bad tea, but it’s the kind of taste that i’d prefer in a dark bold black tea. Won’t be a repurchase but it’s nice enough that i’ll enjoy drinking the rest of it until it’s gone.

Well, that was an interesting tasting. Free sample from B&B, and I liked it quite a lot, but am still trying to process something that smells so fruity and sweet, along with the buttery, and that tastes so *un*fruity and so buttery. And not sweet! What’s that about?!? Actually I think some of it may be that the green tea base is more Sencha-like bitter than — well, than not. (China green is more than a bit broad as a category! But I still think it tastes a bit like a Sencha.) Got a few infusions, and all were tasty.

I’ll be tasting this again, and may have a better sense of what I think of it, but may not manage anything much more. Pity a classy operation like Betjeman and Barton provide such useless brewing instructions.

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.

1.5 tablespoons for 375 ml

A little astringency. Authentic plum aroma. Marshmallow aftertaste. Sencha base flavour comes through. Odd sharp metallic/pungent/slightly swampy note that has a zinging sensation on the tongue.

Thanks to Sil for sharing!

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 …

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.

Taking a break from organizing my tea cupboard to have a cup of tea. Today i’m getting organized – took a picture of my entire stash minus 10 teas or so and posted it on FB for a friend. Now i’m adding in the teas that my friend has me house sitting and try to make sure my cupboard is 100% up to date. I’m also setting aside the 1-2 cup samples so that I can hit those first. :)

Thanks to ysaurella for a swap of this one. This tea is supposed to be a mix of maple syrup and chestnuts. The aroma however is one that is slightly perfumey. It’s not quite floral but it has that perfume kind of tastes. I know it’s not cross contamination since i split out my samples into tins to keep them from mixing with everything around them.

After brewing this…It’s a fairly average tea in my opinion. It has a nice taste, though the aroma apparently set my allergies off a bit since i’ve been sneezing a bit while drinking this haha. Other teas do both maple and chestnuts better than this one but it’s not a bad tea. The black base isn’t overly bitter or strong, but it does add depth to the blend. overall, not a bad little tea.

SIPDOWN! Thank you again ysaurella for this one. I think the contrast between this and the smokey taste i’m also drinking makes this tea tastes even lovelier this morning. The sweetness in this one makes the spiciness pop just a little more this morning and blends into a delicious cup for this morning.

Received this in a swap from Sil.

The dry tea smells like a buttery green tea. The brewed tea smells buttery and nutty. As it cools off more, there is more of a fruity smell to it.

There is definitely a caramel taste to the tea. A fruity type caramel flavour. The aftertaste is more nutty, buttery green tea.

Overall a good tea. I am not too fond of the fruity flavour, but it goes well with the caramel.

I had this in the afternoon. This tastes like a green caramel but slightly more citrusy. Problem is that I got distracted and so all I remember was that it was tasty. So ill be having this again to get a proper note on it. :)

Another one from Ysaurella though I’ll likely need to review this again soon since i managed to drink the entire cup before i thought about taking notes :) There is a bit of spiciness to this one that is quite enjoyable. Mixed with the citrus it is a smooth and delicious flavour. I really liked how smooth this one was. Looking forward to trying the tea i picked up from B&B even more now.