George Cannon

ETA: I had what was left of this sample yesterday and I find myself wanting more tonight, even if I have like a zillion more unexplored teas in the cupboard!! It seems the heart always wants what it cannot have :-(
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I had a crappy Monday and thought nothing would make the day better. That was before I got the mail. Yay, a swap from Ysaurella ! Thank you so much for this generous sample!

After tasting this little marvel, I understand better why it is named this way. This tea is so romantic, it’s a flirt in a cup!

This is the epitome of refinement in terms of essence and aroma. I am not easily seduced by flavoured teas, I’m pretty hard to please!

Ysaurella got me dreaming about this tea when I first read her lovely review. Thanks for introducing me to this little treasure from the old world!

This blend does something not many are able to achieve: it provides a perfect balance between flowery, spicy and fruity notes. Love the pink berries, such a nice peppery addition!

I don’t have a detailed list of ingredients, but something in there reminds me of Turkish Delights! I also appreciate the delicate citrus breeze that circulates around all the other flavours. It’s nothing like bergamot, more of a shy lemon :-)

Rêverie d’un soir sur la Néva is simply dreamy… This is the tea I would choose to have at a Café in Saint-Pétersbourg, waiting and longing for my lover…

So… wow, Ysaurella was absolutely right about this one – cloves, cloves, cloves. :) I can pick up a bit of the citrus hiding under the cloves, but not much. I don’t think it is sweet, which is odd, since a lot of the European tea companies’ products seem sweet to me. While it is not something I will seek out for my cupboard, I am quite happy to have tried it. Thank you, Ysaurella!

ok, I’ve been brave and finally have tasted this tea.
I bought it because of its name and because of Bonnie and because of The tea Fairy and because of Tommy the Toad…because the 3 of you are making a lot of gorgeous notes about pu’erh…and I wanted to try.

So I decided to go for a flavoured one…and then I have never brewed it…It’s really scary to begin with a pu’erh !
However, each week since I bought it my daughter asks me : why did you buy this tea ? It stinks…why did you buy rotten tea ? and why don’t you try it now you have bought it ?

Tonight cteresa made a note about it, as I sent her a sample of it, and I felt like it was really the right moment to dare…(however my daughter is with her grandma, she cannot laugh at me !)

I feel stupid now…for have been scared by a tea !
The taste is not horrible, it has a kind of mix of earth taste + mango vanilla taste.
Quite interesting without being exceptional to me.

I maybe won’t wait 3 months now to try another pu’erh…on the other hand I like to sniff the teas I’m going to buy and this is not the case with a pu’erh…so…wait and see

I do not have a lot of experience with Pu´er – and the plain ones I have had were sort of awful to my palate. The flavoured ones I have found easier to drink, but keep in mind, I have very little experience with pu´er teas.

This was kindly sent in a swap with Ysaurella and she had not tried it yet when she sent it to me, so no brewing tips. The Cannon website seems totally useless for anything (and flash should die….) so I have been experimenting with this. My problem with it is trying to make it strong, or better said intense enough.

My first experiment with water round 80-85 and my usual ammount of black tea resulted in a mellow earthy sort of cup, but a definitely too weak one – very intense color and a sort of thick texture to the liquor (there has to be a word for it, but totally escapes me), and a nice mellow yeasty almost type of flavour, with some vague vanilla and peach-mango hints, but very watery somehow. I amped up the temperature to 95 degrees, and steeping time to 4 or 5 degrees and used 50% more leaf than I would think to use and it was much better. A nice cup of tea. But still not particularly fruity. And my brain finds the different tea-ness of pu-er baffling.

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.

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.

I have to confess I bought this tea because of its romantic name.
I found it (along with 2 other teas I’ve never heard about) in a small independent tea shop rue de la Convention in Paris.

I smelled it and was seduced – The good thing with independent shops is we can buy small weights of teas (50g and even 25g)- I know for USA and Canada it seems absolutely logical to be allowed to buy 1/2 oz or 1 or 2 oz but here in France we often need to buy 100g because the brands (Mariage Frères, Dammann Frères, Betjeman & Barton, Palais des thés, Kusmi teas…) doesn’t allow to buy less so when you enter one of these brand shops and want to buy loose leaf this is 100g minimum. Complicated when you don’t know the tea and want to taste it.

Rêverie sur la Néva is really a very good surprise – this is my first George Cannon tea (good quality teas). I struggled to found some information on the web about this tea so I did my own pic to show you the dry leaves.Beautiful with pink berries and probably aniseed.
It is really a surprising tea, I’ve never had such a tea. The tea base is a medium bodied one, very smart.
The aromas are incredible : citrus are just a perfection, spices are not hot spices but mild and very original ones.
If I had knew there was some aniseed inside I probably wouldn’t have bought this tea – for stupid prejudice – I like aniseed in candies and cooking but never thought it could be a good idea in a tea- I was wrong.

It is really mellow and soft with a hint of something incredible which wakes you up to pay attention to the beverage.

Really a successful tea.

And this is my 101th tasting note ! As I rarely write twice about a tea this means I tasted around 90 95 different teas since I am on Steepster, I want to carry on :)