Dammann Frères

Home – 7:00 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 41

Just chuggin’ along, making my way through the teas I haven’t written about yet. This is one that I purchased last year in France, and I drank it many times when I wasn’t back on Steepster yet. The name means “wild blackberry”, and it is a blackberry-flavored black tea.

The base tea is a mixture of malty, woody, and earthy, and is very smooth. To me, this tea is closer to black currant or elderberry than it is to blackberry. I suppose that’s because I expect blackberries to be tart, and this is more syrupy sweet with a concentrated rich flavor. But I happen to love black currant, so I’m not at all unhappy about that! The flavoring here is in perfect balance with the base tea in my opinion, it’s neither too strong nor too weak. The two are very well-matched.

I dig it. Very nice as an afternoon tea.

Home – 7:00 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 45

Ugh, it’s so good to be home. I stayed a bit late at work to finish submitting a fix for a software bug, and then I needed to go to the grocery store after that. So I got home quite late, and I feel very worn out. Happily, I just took some chicken enchiladas out of the oven and am now in full potato mode on the couch, accompanied by Netflix and my knitting. And tea, of course!

To be honest, I’m not a fan of pecan pie. It’s too sugary, and that’s significant coming from me, lover of sweets of all kinds. This tea is tasty though! I’m not sure I would specifically call it pecan pie-flavored, as I taste almond and pistachio more than pecan. But the base tea is very nice and biscuity, which helps sell the pastry idea. There are notes of brown sugar or caramel as well.

It’s tasty! I’m not sure a tea could ever really represent pecan pie without sweetener, though, and I’m not one to add any.

Dammann Frères Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 3

This is actually one of the teas that I bought at a Dammann store in France at one point, though I don’t have it anymore. I don’t recall what I thought of it though… The name is hilariously vague – “mysterious mix” rofl. Probably Mysterious Blend would make more sense in this context.

The dry scent was very orangey and enticing! Flavor is a bit more subtle though. The orange stands out to me at the beginning of the sip, and then it’s more sweet and peachy towards the middle and end. Perhaps just a hint of strawberry? Definitely the candy sort of variety though, and it mostly melds into the peach. The base is smooth and slightly woody.

I think I would like just a bit more presence from the blood orange, given it’s meant to be the “main flavor” here. Overall it tastes pleasant, but I find it to be slightly muddled in that there are multiple fruit flavorings jostling together and becoming difficult to distinguish. I think more focus on the orange with the others as accents would help there.

Home – 7:30 PM

Ahh Dammann Frères… I’m kind of regretting not buying the advent calendar this year. As if I need another tea advent calendar…

Anyway, on to the tea. This is a lovely fruity black blend! The strongest flavors for me are zesty orange and sweet peach. Apparently there’s meant to be strawberry and cherry here as well, but I’m not sure I taste those. I do feel like there’s a bit of vanilla or something, as the peach really takes on a creamy flavor. The base tea is mild, smooth, perhaps a bit musty.

Yummy if you enjoy fruity black teas (which I do)!

This tea was unexpectedly delicious. I like licorice but was not sure about a licorice tea. Still we picked up a sample at the Dammann freres store and had to come back to get 100gr. before catching our plane the following week. It’s light and straight forward licorice, but it makes for a delicious afternoon tea. More desert like than the Licorice infusion by Yogi Tea.

I just love this tea! It’s not the most sophisticated, delicate blend, but it’s so so good! Un thé très très gourmand!

I’m not sure how accurate the name really is. I definitely taste more almonds/marzipan, hazelnut and pistachio than I do pecans, but I don’t mind since I’m not crazy about real pecan pie which I find too sugary usually. But I do get the biscuit and honeyed sweetness, so this feels more like a “Inspired by the nuttiness and richness of Pecan Pie” than “Based on true Pecan Pie” rendition.

Bottom line, I just love all the nuttiness and pastry flavor. All my favorite flavors in one tea! So easy to drink!

It sounds like it should be a fall tea, but I catch myself reaching for it all year long, even in the summer when I want to indulge in something that feels rich and sweet. It’s like chocolate. Is there really a season for all this nutty goodness???? There can’t be!

Advent calendar – day 6 (and I have it in my cupboard :p)

This is a tea we have purchased twice now so no surprise there. We really like it and drinking it is always a treat. The delicious caramel is very buttery. A bit like a Werther’s Original butterscotch candy. It’s very smooth and creamy, and you can definitely taste the vegetal oolong. With a little bit of stevia, it’s delicious! I like it very much but for some reason I don’t find myself reaching for it as much as I would think I would (possibly because I have too many teas :o)

Hmm I like this one, but I’m definitely not picking up on the subtleties other reviewers are. To me, it tastes like a mild black. Not bitter. I can tell that it’s supposed to be flavored like something, but I can’t tell what the something is. Maybe mildly fruity. Thanks to Cameron B for this one.

Got this one from Cameron B. I really like it! It tasted like almond with no bitterness. I do wish I’d gotten more of a pecan pie feel from it, but it was very enjoyable. I’d drink this fairly often if I had more! A nice light flavor. Nutty teas are the best.

Thank you to Cameron B for this sample.

I have to say this is one of my favourite green tea blends ever. The rhubarb, the floral jasmine, and the spicy aromatic ginger…just so good. The little pink petals are lovely too. I can’t overstate how great the ginger and rhubarb flavour is. Hints of citrus and grapefruit. I’ll be buying some of this with my next order. Until then, I have half of the sample left for another cup!

Sipdown no. 12 of 2023 (no. 670 total).

I’m embarrassed to say that since I sipped this down a few days ago and neglected to write about it immediately or take any notes, I just don’t remember what I had planned to say about it.

Looking back at my original note, I’m just going to stick with that. The last bit of this was super old. It didn’t approximate a coffee-like richness like I said in my original note. If it had, I would have remembered. I just remember a pleasant, mild, tea with a flavor I couldn’t define, as though all the distinct notes had flattened with age into something nondescript but that suggested its former self. Sort of like a much worn and long-lived piece of fine clothing.

This one is really hitting the spot this morning. I thought I’d written about all the Dammann Freres teas in my stash, but apparently not.

In the tin, there’s a sort of generic black tea smell, which is desceptively mundane. But after steeping, the aroma is a lovely mix of chocolate, apricot and other fruits, and a hint of smoke. The tea is dark brown-cabernet color.

This is not just another cinnamon, clove, etc. “Christmas” tea. And for that I am grateful. Instead, it’s almost coffee-like in its richness and flavor. The chocolate isn’t overly strong, but it is definitely tasteable, and I get some smoke and apricot as others have noted.

I really like this one.

Sipdown! (25 | 477)

A sad sipdown, but also a needed one, as this was my last tea from 2017. Unfortunately Dammann doesn’t seem to carry it any more…

To me, this isn’t really a charlotte. Don’t get me wrong, I love this tea. But a charlotte (I think) has quite a lot of whipped cream, and there’s no creaminess in this tea. What it does taste like, to me at least, is a shortbread cookie sandwich with red fruits jam in the middle. The biscuit note is rich and buttery, and the red fruit is sweet and jammy. I definitely taste raspberry, strawberry, and cherry (specifically a more tart dried cherry). And there’s a hint of lavender-esque floral that I always seem to find in Dammann’s red fruits teas. It’s not enough to bother me, and does make it feel slightly fancier ha ha.

I will miss you, tea. I know there’s a rooibos version, but it’s just not the same. Sigh.

Trying this as a milk tea tonight!

Truth be told, I wanted to make Lupicia’s Fraisier, but I don’t have a lot of it left after sending some out in swaps, so I didn’t want to use it up even more quickly. This seemed like a good substitute, having red fruits and cake flavors!

It’s quite good. I definitely get the cake element, and it’s obviously very creamy from the milk. The red fruits is more of an accent flavor – so it’s a bit like one of those Japanese strawberry cakes, where it’s a giant fluffy cloud of sponge cake and whipped cream with just a few strawberries in between the layers and on top. I also get a little hint of lavender from this tea, and I can taste that as well in the milk tea, especially at the end of the sip. It’s quite nice actually, adding a bit of interest to the aftertaste.

Very yummy! Strawberry cake milk tea craving fulfilled! \o/

Steeped this one up after Tourbillon didn’t satisfy my desserty craving!

I wasn’t so impressed with this tea at first, but I feel it’s grown on me over time. It has a lovely red fruits flavor that I enjoy in other French teas. I think I taste strawberry most, followed by cherry and then raspberry. All are rich and jammy sort of fruit notes. Then there’s a light buttery cake or cookie flavor that comes out more at the end of the sip and in the aftertaste. At the very end is a light lavender-esque floral hint.

It’s like red fruits +! This doesn’t appear to be on Dammann’s website at the moment, so I’m not sure whether it’s seasonal or they simply don’t make it anymore. If it’s the latter, that’s a pity…

Home – 1:00 PM

Giving this tea another chance today. I packed some up for a tea package and it sounded and smelled nice enough that I left it out on the counter.

I will say I am finding this tastier than I remember. I still find that there’s some flavor combination here that is reminding me of lavender, of which I am not a fan. But it’s subtle enough to not bother me too much.

The base tea is a touch earthy, but smooth and eminently drinkable. The red fruits flavor is light, and it does remind me of another of their red fruits teas – 4, 5, 6, Cueillir des Cerises. A bit heavier on the dried cherry than the others, but still with notes of raspberry and strawberry jam. I don’t know what red currant tastes like, so I can never comment on that flavor.

There is cake here as well – I would say a light sponge. It does have some slight notes of cream and butter.

Overall, it’s quite good! I could do without the slight lavender flavor, but that’s likely just my tastebuds being crazy…

Work – 1:00 PM

Well, I’ve been nursing a small pot of this tea all morning, but being too productive to write about it! Dammann Frères happens to be one of my very favorite tea companies, and probably my absolute favorite French tea company. For those who don’t know, a charlotte is a sort of trifle-ish dessert where a soft filling (like mousse or custard) is surrounded by an outer layer of cake or ladyfingers.

That being said, this one misses the mark just a little bit for me (though, to be fair, I did have very high expectations). There is a nice enough red fruity flavor – mostly tart dried cherries and cranberries. And I do get a bit of cakey dessert goodness in the aftertaste, which is perfectly nice.

But the base tea here is quite earthy, which I feel sort of conflicts with the flavoring. Also, there is a very noticeable floral note, and it reminds me of lavender, which is unfortunately one of the two florals I really have a hard time with. It always tastes like some combination of soap and perfume to me – not a pleasant experience. Luckily it’s not so strong here that I can’t drink it, but it definitely affects my enjoyment of the tea.

So I suppose I’ll withhold a rating for this one! I’ll try it another time or two and then it may need to go in the “send to a lovely friend who will enjoy it” pile if my opinion doesn’t improve a bit. I think that fact that I mostly drank it at cool room temperature probably affected the taste as well, so I’ll give it another chance.

Sipdown! (42 | 389)

Yay, finished off one of my oldest teas! \o/ From October 2018.

This was the last of several teas that I bought at a Dammann Frères storefront in Nîmes, France, while there on a work trip. An odd choice really, I do enjoy black licorice in general, but it’s not like it’s a favorite of mine, and this is simply a black licorice-flavored black tea. It’s executed very well, there’s no licorice root so you don’t get that cloying sweet aftertaste that I hate. The black tea is smooth and the licorice flavor really does taste just like a black licorice rope or black jellybean. It’s quite strong, which is impressive given it’s over four years old at this point!

Not something I would reorder, since it’s a bit of a niche flavor for me, but it’s a yummy tea and I would definitely recommend it for lovers of black licorice! :)

So this one just made its way into the “5 oldest teas” box that sits on my tea nook counter. It’s from October of 2018, purchased when I was in Nîmes, France for work, and I don’t think I’ve steeped it up since the first time I tried it. Not sure why that is, some teas just get forgotten about in my (oversized) cupboard heh heh…

But wow, I just had to write a note and say, I can’t believe how much liquorice flavor is still here! As soon as I opened the tin, I was surrounded by the sweet scent of Good & Plenty candies. I’ve actually tossed a couple of old Dammann teas recently because there was no flavoring left, so I was quite surprised by this one.

Anyway, it’s a sweet-tasting tea with a classic black liquorice candy flavor. The base is extremely mellow and smooth, just a vehicle for the flavoring really. A very niche tea, but I’m enjoying it as a sort of afternoon dessert today. :)

Home – 9:00 PM

Another one from Nîmes! “Réglisse” means licorice, as this is a licorice flavored tea. I happen to love licorice flavored things (though not necessarily plan black licorice by itself). Good & Plenty candy, for example, and licorice allsorts. It’s not something I eat often, but I always enjoy it when I do. I blame my mother, lover of all things black licorice (also – Hot Tamales).

So this is sort of the equivalent of an after-dinner treat in tea form. The base tea is very light, and doesn’t contribute much besides a slight sense of malt. The licorice is the star here. It’s not so strong as to be medicinal. It has that classic sweet aftertaste which is characteristic of licorice, and a very slight tongue-numbing effect. I wasn’t expecting either, as I believe it’s made with licorice flavoring, not extract. But I suppose perhaps it’s a “natural” flavoring that came from a root at some point in its life.

All in all, it’s a nice, light dessert-y tea for those who enjoy anise and licorice. I’m not sure it’s one I’d feel a strong need to keep around, but it’s a pleasant niche tea to have in my cupboard for now.

Sipdown! (37 | 384)

Thank you, derk, for letting me revisit one of my favorites! :D

Love this one from Dammann. The combination of the sweet-tart passion fruit with the earthy, warm ginger and a touch of bright lime is just so nice. Overall it’s a fairly subtly flavored tea, which I appreciate as well. I even like the Chinese sencha base, which is not something I would normally say, but here it has a soft, mellow grassiness that supports the added flavors well without being too strong or too sharp.

Just yum, so soothing and perfect for the afternoon. I’ll restock this one eventually! :)

Sipdown! (50 | 95)

One of my 5 oldest teas, finished off! \o/

Love this one, and it will definitely be a reorder the next time I buy from Dammann. So the only things I don’t like about DF are the minimum size of 100g, and their tins. They’re really hard to open because the lid is sort of recessed and too short to grip easily, and it tends to get stuck and then I have to use the end of my spoon to pry it open. Annoying. BUT, I also have some newer tins from them that are redesigned and much better.

All of that to say, I was trying to decide whether to keep this tin (because it’s a special rose gold color that’s exclusive to this tea) or recycle it and hopefully get a redesigned one the next time I order. Sadly, from the pictures on their website it looks like this tin is still the old design… So I guess I’ll keep it for now and cross my fingers that it’ll get switched over by the time I order.