Mariage Frères

My days lately have been starting out ok but then taking nosedives in the afternoon. Not good for my productivity, which makes me more upset and down (since part of my anxiety is about finishing off my dissertation). I needed a tea this afternoon that might improve my mood, and my intense love of macarons made me grab this one.

Surprisingly enough this is not my second or even my third macaron-flavored tea. And even though I had kind of written Mariage Frères off after a number of failed attempts with their teas (there is something about the black base they use for most of their flavored blends [eta: that I have tried] that I dislike), I jumped on the chance to get a sample of this from Shmiracles. Thanks so much!

The first thing I smelled in the dry leaf was almond, but then when I sniffed closer it was slightly floral and a bit fruity. I didn’t even realize that there was both apple and amaranth in here before I opened up the Steepster entry for it, but I guess they’re coming through! Steeped, it smells similar but more appley. Perhaps like an apple-almond pastry, which is to say not much like a macaron to me, but I’ve also never had (or seen) an apple-flavored macaron (side note: now I am thinking about macarons at Laduree and my mouth is just watering).

Hmmm, innnteresting. This reminds me of another apple tea I had once, I think it was a “sweet apple” blend from a tea house in London. Also, a bit like the Trois Noix from MF that I had. Nutty, yes, not particularly strongly almondy (but it’s macaron, not marzipan, so that follows), and definitely appley. Also, I’m afraid that it has a bitter aftertaste that I just can’t get behind. I mean, the main part of the sip is pretty tasty (though I would argue not particularly macaron-ish to my tastes), but the aftertaste grows out of it and it isn’t meshing with my tastebuds. I don’t think I have the courage to steep it for 13 minutes like Shmiracles who said that took care of her issues with the aftertaste, but maybe I’ll try it. I might also cold steep the rest of it because I always have prefered MF teas cold-steeped! :P

ETA: I just took a huge drink of this while also breathing in deeply through my nose, and suddenly got macarons. This tea has like a weird inverse parabola of tastiness for me where when hot it was tasty (no bitter aftertaste), then when it was warm it was not so tasty (strong bitter aftertaste), and now that it’s cooled further it is tasty again (waning bitter aftertaste). Oh, MF, pretty sure I’ll never “get” your teas.

shmiracles! I will have your little tea babies for this one :) i think there IS magic in this box after all.

So part of the reason i REALLY wanted to try this tea is that there’s an ongoing joke in my family about mousse au chocolat. My grandmere? She was from belgium and back in the day was one of the few woman in her day to train at le cordon bleu. It was there that she learned to make mousse au chocolat. As the story goes, she taught my dad to cook and shared with him the family recipe for mousse au chocolat. My entire life i have heard about my grandmere and her famous mousse au chocolat. Which my dad promised me when i was about 7, he would teach me to make…which he has never made in his life for us…which he still has not taught me how to make. And folks? i LOOOOOVVVEEEEE real mousse au chocolat…not to be confused with “chocolate mousse,” that they often serve in restaurants here in canada…which never seems as delicious as it ought to be…as the mousse au chocolat that i’ve had in france.

So when i found out about this tea via shmiracles, i had to try it AND coicidentally my parents were in Paris at the time. So my dad got an email from me: If you can manage it, i’d love for you to pick up this tea while you’re in Paris. I figure it’s the least you can do since you refuse to share grandmere’s recipe with me. :) All in fun of course. So now they’re back…and i suspect they found it somewhere in Paris, since i clearly challenged my father, but i won’t know until i see them again.

So for now, i’m content with this sample from Shmiracles…which is downright amazing! I lost track of steeping it..but this is delicious. It’s not sweet, it’s more like a rich dark chocolate mousse. i think with a bit of milk and sugar, this would turn into an amazing cup of chocolate goodness, but i love this the way it is. Dark and sinfully delicious.

Edit: resteep of this in the morning is also delicious!

So pretty with the flowers. Dry and brewing, the sweetness of almonds really comes out along with some floral notes—reminds me a lot of Korres’ Bitter Almond scented line of bath products (a compliment as it’s one of my favorite fragrances, and rather unique, not just the usual everyday “nut” scent found in products).

Funny about the Korres Bitter Almond aroma, because upon drinking it reminds me of their Vanilla Cinnamon line. The spices are warm and sweet, and there’s some cherry and vanilla too. All of these things in, say, a cheap drugstore lipgloss, that is to say artificial with a heavy hand, would turn me off, but here they’re beautiful and intoxicating. That said this is indeed quite sweet, so you have to be in the mood for that.

I have a feeling I’m going to have to mete out my MF experiences in order to prevent getting too used to the loveliness, ‘cause my across-the-ocean US pocketbook can’t afford to make them a habit. Hope I don’t start to feel like Icarus flying too high towards the sun only to get burned, ha.

Sample Sipdown!

This is the final sample from my trade with Ysaurella, which was a wonderful trade for myself, but not so good for her, as the package I sent got stuck in customs…or drank by somebody there?

Tomorrow will mark a week that I sent a 2nd package. Everybody think successful thoughts, please? It seems like everybody else’s packages have made it through. Hopefully mine will as well!

This is a flavorful tea with just the right amounts of almond, vanilla, orange, cinnamon, & cloves. It does have a very celebratory holiday taste. Thank you so much, Ysaurella, for all of the lovely teas that you sent to me! :D

My dad picked up an ounce of this at an unidentified specialty food store, and I’m just going to have to make him identify it, because wow. This is some luxurious tea.

The dry leaves smell really sweet, sort of like vanilla caramel. I saw that people were having issues with bitterness, so I kept my steep time at 3 minutes (per usual) and used a bare teaspoon of leaf and never had a problem at all. In fact, this is the creamiest tea I’ve had to date. It feels amazing in my mouth and really does taste like milk chocolate caramel. I think the assam is present enough to keep it from being too sweet, but I can see this being classified as a decadent dessert tea. (My dad says it had better be fantastic at the price he paid, so I am definitely not going to ask him, haha.)

Truly sad to see the bottom of the bag on this one.

this tea is exactly what it says it is! in an amazingly accurate way.

but seriously i love orange in my teas. when i’m pulling a scoop from a tea blended with orange bits, i consciously try to not be too greedy with the big rind chunks, cuz if i let myself go wild i’d just have a canister of plain tea by the time i got half way through. the jasmine softens out the mandarin. brightens and lightens. and the tea itself is confident and relaxed.

maybe Mariage Freres only lets you buy tea in 100g increments because they know better than you do that you’ll need that much after you taste it and get to know it. they’re like “we know what’s good for you. now take your tea and move along.”

thanks again and again Dinosara for sending me such considerate quantities to sample.

Sipdown!
Thank you Ysaurella! This has been a tasty tea, gently sweet, & perfect for a drizzly saturday afternoon.

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Very light, but still aromatic.

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Additional notes: Sipdown! I like this one, but I don’t think it’s my favorite vanilla tea (Della Terra, Adagio, Harney…probably forgetting so many). I don’t think either the vanilla or the black tea has enough flavor. But it was nice to try, anyway!

This was a cup I had on a tea shop, on my effort to try to get darjeelings. I did not prepare it.

There is a definite rose flavour to this – many times weaker than regular run of the mill china rose congou, but there has to be some extra flavouring here. I had misunderstood and though it was unflavoured, that the rose was metaphorical, so not quite what I was expecting. I did not much like it, but then again me and darjeelings are not too friendly.

I suspect preparation was not quite perfect, infusion time was up to me, and I think I overbrew it slightly. But a tea to not buy, and will keep trying good quality (UNFLAVOURED!) darjeelings whenever I get the chance.

the scent is bright and exciting like:
http://instagram.com/p/X5NjPqIc8Q/
and the taste is smooth and fresh like:
http://instagram.com/p/X5Ny4Boc8h/

i went to the opera house to take pictures and they were selling this tea in the store. i didn’t buy it because i recognized that i was falling for a consumerism trick.
but when i went shopping at Mariage Freres a few days later this tea still stood out with it’s boldness and beauty. and it was my official green tea purchase of the day.

i’m so glad i have a tin of this ready in the wings for spring and summer. so very glad.

Spring, after taking its own sweet long time to arrive, decided to pretend to leave after all. It´s cold and windy, very disappointing. But it´s making me turn to my tea corner and drink and sampling those samples I was saving, as a treat and a way to cheer up.

Mandalay was another sample so kindly sent by Ysaurella. I had been so intrigued by her references to it. And this is just not what I was expecting. I was expecting a chai, and while this is spicy, it´s a totally different type of tea.

I had today just tried a perfume (mother´s day is coming. everybody wants you to try perfume, you can not walk on the street past perfume shops without being offered a sniff). It was a woody spicy ladies´ perfume, with a cedar base and flowers, patchouli maybe. And in my mind this tea is irresistibly linked to that perfume – a sort of “dry” floral with woody overtones. In the perfume it was cedar, here it is the spices, cinnamon (which I guess is woody as well) and others (cloves? cardamom?) and then a bit of rose indeed, but the mix of roses and cinnamon tastes melded somehow into something woody rather than separate. A very interesting taste.

OHMYGODbestestnight

So I wrote the above last night then left it because I don’t know. I drank the tea and then I wanted to roll around on the floor but I did not have enough space to do that but I wanted to. That was partially this tea and partially my favorite hockey team winning their division (which doesn’t matter, we are snobs who do not need silly division banners).

And then what makes me laugh even more is that Ysaurella found I logged it and is probably waiting to see what I have to say already!

So shmiracles being fantastic sent me some of the teas she picked up in Europe and AHHH this one, ahhh. A couple weeks ago I discovered the entire Héritage Gourmand collection on the MF site and I wanted them ALL. If I get to France next summer, that is most definitely happening now.

I had to try this one first, it’s just a fact. It smells amazing. It doesn’t smell as sweet as a macaron, but it has that same sweet almond smell. And it tastes so good! I don’t think it has the same macaron flavors as the Dammann Frères macaron tea (which has a green base not black), but I mean, I am drinking and enjoying a tea that is heavily almond. And tastes like a cookie at that, well, I do like almond cookies, but I have never had success w/teas flavored like them.

UNTIL NOW!

Oh I am in love I cannot wait to try the chocolate mousse one too, this means the one left that I really REALLY REALLY want is the financier one.

I told my boyfriend the other day that I need to buy a lottery ticket, I have never bought one. I really meant like the scratch off kind but this turned into me with $110 million and how I’d have to change my name and move to another state (Georgia does not allow you to claim anonymously). I was just like I can move to France. I’d send all of you my teas first.

Then I’d get there and buy all these. The end.

Cteresa warned me that this tea wasn’t a love-at-first-sight experience, but had to grow on her over a certain amount of time. Taking that into consideration, I’ve been trying this tea for some days now (Cteresa, thanks for the very generous sample). I even went so far to take this tea with me to work.

Despite my efforts this tea hasn’t grown on me. I don’t have the advanced palette some of you clearly do have (gosh, the number of different flavors you pick up on!). To my taste the sweet (vanilla, almond?) and cinnamon dominate the entire experience too much. It’s certainly not a bad tea, but just not my thing… I’m apparently just not a fan of the nutty-cinnamon-floral combo.

Nevertheless, thanks Cteresa!! As I’m quite taken with MF, I would have ordered this sooner or later and you’ve saved me the disappointment.

I already had one pot of this tea, kindly sent by Ysaurella. It was one of those days when other issues derailed my concentration from the experience.
Today, as part of my grand mission to empty all received samples, I decided to try it again.
When looking at the tea, it looked more like a normal MF blend, than to the picture used. Sure there are some small yellow and brown pieces, but in less quantity and with much smaller sizes than on the picture. It does not matter so much, MF usually does not care much about the look of the tea, just the taste, so I cannot hold that against this tea.
After brewing, my first impressions were quite similar to what I remembered: a mellow, strongly blended with no flavors really striking me out, though it indeed is flavorsome. A very pleasant blend, especially for the afternoon.
Then I got busy and forgot the remaining half of the teapot. When I came back to it, it was more cool than lukewarm, which does not bother me much, as I definitely do not need warming. Vanilla is there at the beginning of the sip, a nice very natural tasting vanilla. Then there’s a long lasting after taste staying all over my mouth and lips, that indeed is marron glacé: super creamy, sweet, really decadent tasting. My lips especially feel like I’ve just eaten some. Amazing!
Real marron glacé are not a favorite treat of mine and I usually cannot eat one entire. However it turns out that as a beverage flavor, I really like it and it makes for an unusual brew.
In my opinion, this is better at “room temperature” than hot.
I’ll most probably buy some, both for myself and for my in-laws who are completely in love with real marrons glacés.

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It was my second brew of this tea generously sent by Ysaurella; the first one being a few weeks ago. It had not been love at the first sip. So I deliberately waited until I was in good condition and good mood to give it another real chance.
When preparing my pot, I was amazed at how lovely this tea is: sprinkled with blue and yellow flowers, with bits and pieces of almond, some pieces of what has to be cinnamon. It indeed is one of loveliest MF blends I’ve seen.
The brew remains crystal clear and is lightly fragrant. What is surprising is that the taste comes out as much stronger as I expected from the smell. And the main flavor I get, which I have trouble forgetting to try to identify the others is most definitely clove. All the rest, cinnamon, almonds, seems perfectly blended together, but a few two many buds have managed to get their way to my teapot, for my taste.
Once again I understand how this tea can be a favorite for many, but unfortunately not for me.
Thanks anyway Ysaurella; this will definitely help me avoid a purchase that I should have liked, as everything in the description seemed fine, but which would have disappointed me.

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please DISREGARD this 13 min steep bullplop written below.
i have no idea what i’m doing.

okay wow something cool just happened.

i kept waiting to review this tea because, though it seems like something i would love, every time i tasted it something seemed off to me. and i just didn’t want that to be true. i know it’s not how it’s supposed to go, but i really just wanted to like this tea.

then this morning i accidentally steeped it for 13 minutes. and now the tea makes sense!

i mean WTF you can steep a tea for 13 minutes and it still tastes okay??
sure i know good chinese black teas can hold up really well to long steeps but i still think 13 minutes is a bit extreme don’t you?

so yes, the long steep made this tea great for me. it made the tea a bit more dry in the mouth and gave the sweet bits time to really disintegrate and dissolve. at first when i tasted this tea it gave me a strange soapy & floral aftertaste that i could NOT get down with. but i figured if i kept tasting it that weird flavour would eventually make sense. the brew did seem kinda nutty but that aftertaste always got me down.
but NOW after the long steep it’s all blended. it’s almondy. and lightly sweet. and has notes of sugar at the top with cakey almondy notes at the back. and perhaps the dryness the long steep creates reminds me of dark bitter chocolate or something. i don’t know why really, but i’m happy about this mistake.

so if i sent you enough in the sample, and you don’t love this tea immediately, try steeping it long. i guess that’s my advice.

what a good day!

05/08/2013
let the experiment commence!
i’m trying to duplicate my accidental steep experience. i really wanna figure this out.
i just steeped 12 oz of water with 1.5 tsp worth.
i tasted it at 2 min, 3 min, 5 min, 7 min, 10 min, and 13 min.
all i can say is DO NOT steep it for more than 7 min. but if you do add some more hot water to your strained cup.
the steeps from 2 to 7 min were all mildly bitter but also almondy and still slightly soapy.
the 10 & 13 min steeps were awful. but then i added more hot water to the strained cup and they were actually great.
all i can say is maybe i steeped it for 13 min with fairly cooled down water.
at least that seems more likely, and i wouldn’t put it past me. i’m a flibertyjibbet sometimes.

i hate this freakin puzzle.
and i feel like all i’m doing is confusing the situation for everyone else.
i’m weary of liking a tea more due to reputation than actual experience.
or due to a pretty hot pink canister.
but when i smelled this tea in the store i HAD to have it. it smells spectacular.
maybe i’ll just put some in a baggie around my next to wear haha
i’ll probably delete this entire note soon.
blerg.
i’m totally annoying myself today.

2013-05-23
late night. a rare occasion that i’m alone at home. watching Merlin and drinking a Mousse au Chocolat latte in my brand new tea cup.
http://instagram.com/p/Zra-kDIc83/
and here are the strawberries we picked from the garden!
so many!
http://instagram.com/p/ZrTabjoc-k/

2013-04-26
wow there are huge chunks of chocolate in this tea. mega decadent!
and dark. a dark decadent tea. it’ll be easy to drink this one up.
and i bet it will be AMAZING as a latte. like it should be outlawed or something.
dramatic effect.

(further notes redacted)
:P