Mariage Frères

A lighter, sweeter version of French Breakfast tea.

Let us be honest, I am usually more of a green tea man, but this earl grey is just the best remedy against the grey of winter! The lavender flavour complement bergamot beautifully.
Very energetic and I simply felt drawn back to South of France: a pleasing moment indeed!

Marco Polo! I’ve been wanting to try this for ever so long! Well, kinda. Back then, I didn’t really like black tea much. So while I found Marco Polo intriguing with all the stellar reviews, I wasn’t really motivated to try it. These days, I find myself craving black teas quite often, though usually chinese blacks. I’m not sure about the source of the tea in this blend, but it tastes Chinese to me. It’s satisfyingly dark and rich without being too strong. There’s a lot of smooth vanilla and berry syrup flavors. Tasty! Not tasty enough to be worth $24 for a box of 30 tea bags… but tasty! Thankfully I acquired this box of tea with a Dean & Deluca gift card I got for Christmas. I would never buy it with my own money at that price. Crazy! Too bad they didn’t have this tea loose. I rather like their tins.

Fig! so that was what the fruit was. I smelled it and was thinking plums or nectarines or something else, but they are right it is fig indeed.

And I got to say this is the weirdest named Mariage Frères tea I ever had. According to them an hommage to America and its pilgrims so they but blue flowers which according to them bloom in the Pacific (! It´s a whole continent away!) rivers and they flavour it with fresh figs and vanilla. Oh dear. Ah, geography.

This was a sample so kindly sent by Ysaurella, thank you so much! I love trying these lesser know Mariage Fréres teas, and often they can be so very good. That is the case this is a very nice smooth black tea base (Ysaurella reports some trickiness while brewing it, I had not read that note yet and was admittedly careless in that first brew but either I got lucky or it just likes my tap water). I do not get much vanilla though I would swear I keep getting a note like plums! Merci, Ysaurella!

I love this tea. You can either drink it hot or cold, it still has a fantastic taste. I find that mixing it with some soy milk, the taste reminds you a little of cookies.

Awesome tea. It reminds me a lot of rhum cake. If i close my eyes, i can totally see a freshly baked rhum cake in front of me. Love it!

Another opera tea by Mariage Frères, this one so kindly sent in a sample swap by Toitoi (thank you! ).

This tea is totally a half sibling or close cousin to Thé au Tibet – though I think not such an easy one to brew! Thé au Tibet is a magic tea for me, one I do not seem to be able to spoil and which always cames out so refined and just right no matter what time or steeping temperatures I used or how careless with it I have been. Elixir d´Amour is a similar tea, a bergamot tea with flowers and vanilla, but not such a forgiving one – I think I brew slightly wrong, the bergamot came out slightly bitter. Must try a shorter steeping time!

The MF website describes EdA as black tea with citrus, rose, lotus and osmanthus. Is there some green tea in the mix as well or am I projecting from the similarity to Thé au Tibet ?The citrus include with total certainty bergamot, it´s an unmistakable note and the dominant. I think I detect as well some orange underneath. The florals are unmistakeable, rose indeed and a lychee-like note from I believe is the lotus, as well as some sweeteness which is probably the osmanthus. Not mentioned in the official description but there is some vanilla in here as well, it´s particularly noticeable when the tea cools.

Very lovely tea. Very similar to Thé au Tibet, and I think a tea which people who love flowery creme earl greys will love.

400ml of water at 205F
1 heaping tablespoon of tea
Steep for 3 minutes
1/4 teaspoon of highly refined sugar

Rating Darjeeling teas from Mariage Freres is a difficult proposition. Why? Because the benchmark is so much higher which is reflected in the price of their teas. USD48 for this Spring Flush Arya. Would it be fair to compare this tea to other retailers selling their Spring Flush Darjeelings for half or even a third of this price? Maybe not, but I will say this. The Arya from Mariage Freres is a fine Darjeeling when compared to offerings from other retailers, yet when compared to its Mariage Freres peers like Namring, Castleton and Margaret’s Hope, it falls ever so slightly short.

The color of the leaves is a mix of green and brown. The scent of the leaves is surprisingly strong and alluring when compared to other Mariage Freres FF Darjeelings. However even when properly brewed, the taste lacks the depth I expect from FF Darjeelings. It also lacks complexity in its taste.

I have tried most of the FF Darjeelings from Mariage this year. Some are exceptional (FF Margaret’s Hope, FF Namring, FF Castleton, FF Ambootia), some are very good (FF Jungpana and FF Sivitar). Others are just satisfactory (FF Moondakotee, FF Nurbong, FF Chamling, FF Happy Valley, FF Bloomfield, FF Turzum).

For those not accustomed to the taste of Darjeelings, or for those disliking the grassy nature fo the taste, I would recommend the neutral taste of FF Sivitar and FF Jungpana Upper. For those accustomed to the tase of Darjeelings, then the FF Castleton, FF Namring, and FF Margaret’s Hope are the best teas for 2012. For a tea with a complex taste and very different from other traditional Darjeelings, then try the FF Ambootia. Arya just floats in the middle somewhere. Lacking taste, depth, complexity, and flavor to justify the 37 euro price tag.

My easy morning cup today.
A really wonderful tea with so many flavors.
Almond, cherry, vanilla, cinnamon, see previous notes.
So good!

A Big THANK YOU to Ysaurella for sending me a healthy sample of this fine tea!
I adore this tea!
It is perfectly blended, NO astringency.
I taste notes of cherry, cinnamon, vanilla, almond, spice, and flowers but it is not overly floral and the spices are not taking over the cup!
These notes dance in perfect unison with each other and blend into one delightful cup.
I will be ordering more of this to have in my perma stash.
You can see my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/ on the 22nd.
I knew I had to try this tea as soon as I saw the name of it and I am thrilled THRILLED it did not disappoint!

I have had the 2009 + 2010 – both were better.

Risking the danger of hopeless cultural stereotyping ( pardon aux français pour ce que se suive), wow, french and scents, they really get how to make things smell sublime. Mariage Fréres particularly included in that – I swear I would buy Vert de Provence to wear as perfume and this is another tea I would just buy and wear as perfume. It smells indeed sublime – some sweet green tea underneath, a bit of fruity cherry, and something floral and wonderful. I would call it roses, tea roses (no relation to tea actually) since I do not know what sakura smells like but it would make sense if it was sakura.

A warning, consider that I am in a mood where I do not seem to really love flavoured green teeas and this is of course a flavoured green. Despite that this of course, evidently wonderful. Cherry blossom green tea was one of the first flavoured teas I liked, and it has became ubiquitous companies now seem to have a take on it. The last few blends I have had of it have been quite bad, so much so they left me with a bias that no, I do not like green tea with cherry after all and have been avoiding it ever since. Trust Mariage Fréres to do sakura tea right and remind me how awesome the idea really is.

Brewed up around 80C and for maybe 3 minutes. It was a very very smooth base with a strong note of red fruits (the cherry) and a very strong rose-like floral note. Lovely.

Giving this another try with an actual rating this time, the second cup from *cteresa*’s sample- I think I have enough for just one more after this.

Now this time round, plenty of different flavours came from the brew! Firstly, I’m surprised at how it seems to lack the usual pungency of rooibos that usually overtakes these kinds of blends; it’s normally the first thing to jump out at me in rooibos teas, but the first flavour in this one is lemongrass, definitely, followed by some of the spices. Perhaps I didn’t use enough tea in this brew because the flavours aren’t as strong as they could be upfront, but then I’m left with a clean, citrusy and spicy taste and some astringency/dryness on the tongue, but only a little. It’s the pleasant kind that makes me want to take another sip.

I guess this is the first clean-tasting, fresh rooibos I’ve tried! It’s pleasantly cooling rather than warming, even when served hot :)

Not at all sure what to expect from this one, but it seems appropriate for my bedtime tea before my trip to be from MF. Thanks, cteresa, for this sample!

Brewed at 90 degrees for about 4 minutes (didn’t have the patience for the full 5), it smells wonderful, full and spicy, which will be interesting as I’ve not encounterec a rooibos with only spice in it before. It’s very refreshing – and I can’t help but wonder if I should have brewed this for the full time after all! The spice is definitely there, and the floral tones are subtle, but I think I’m missing something here as not even the pungent rooibos is coming through very clearly. It seems to me like this might taste better on a hot day nearer the Nile, rather than a freezing night in England…

Sadly as I’m doing this from a tablet computer I can’t use the sliding scores, so I’ll leave that for when I next try this very promising tea :)

Bonjour tout le monde! I’m back from Paris with a few nice teas in tow :) Didn’t manage to find any THE O DORs or Dammann stockists anywhere as the hotel wifi was so bad, I couldn’t search anything (although I saw plenty of Kusumi Teas and Nature & Décourvertes with their lovely tea tin range), so I simply went to the Carrousel du Louvre MF, the one I go to most frequently.

I bought three loose-leaf teas: would have bought more but you can’t buy less than 100g on most of their teas, and any more would have gotten too costly. So this, pear-flavoured, is just an interesting addition. I’m running out of apple tea and I love pear!

The leaves smell like pear drop sweets! Really delicious, and the brew smells exactly the same way. Brewed for five minutes as recommended, the black base is as strong as expected, but some of the sweetness is retained- in a really lovely way, too. It’s sort of in the background, but working very well with the tea flavour, too, which seems to be a little smoky and just sweet enough to take the fruit notes.

Very nice- and I can’t wait to try all the others I’ve bought!

Thank you Yasurella – what a nice surprise – a black with rooibos sweet tea that is quite delicious. Vanilla, spices, and a fruity lift every now and then. Pretty good stuff here!
Equally good as it cools. I love nutty teas this one is a keeper! :)

Very nice. very scented. flowery flavored, but not too sweet like jasmine tea. Extremely delicate.

I purchased a box of tea bags as a treat on Cyber Monday. Before I got it, I wasn’t sure if I will like it from the flavors descriptions: orange, vanilla, orange zest, and Christmas spices. I don’t mind hints of clove, but don’t like it when it gets overpowering. I remained skeptical up to the moment I pulled pulled the cellophane from the box and gave it a whiff.

First impressions include warm aromas, doesn’t come across as too spicy. The first steep delivered milder flavors than I expected. The orange comes through, along with the spices. The vanilla doesn’t stand out, but it’s there in the background, marrying the orange and spice. I found the flavors to better developed in the second steeping.

Overall, I think I enjoy this tea. Sipping it while working, the warm aromas becomes a pleasant distraction. One thing I found though was the slight tannic feel in the mouth (almost unnoticeable), but only because I leave my teabag in the cup all the way.

hello steepsterites !
Happy to recover the possibility to send a note.

I had this tea yesterday afternoon at a Mariage’s tea room.
So perfectly prepared by the wonderful & so kind people of Mariage.

The smell was amazing : just like amaretto – we can say the almond overpowers the 2 other nuts (pecan and walnut)

The taste is just not so impressive, nutty, just nutty.
Pleasant but nothing more.more walnut on the taste, impossible to me to detect pecan…

we can just feel a very very little bitterness due to the nuts but it is not a desadvantage, it adds some personnality to this tea.

Better with crystal sugar, it add some sweetness too.

I do not know quite what to think of this tea – basically I think this is a sublime masterpiece blend but which I do not quite love. I have been not in love with flavoured green teas lately so maybe that is it. But more on why I think this is masterful.

The dry leaf smell of this is possibly the best ever for me. I took a sniff and said, yep I will take it. If this was a perfume I would buy it and wear it, if it was a candle I would get it. It´s a mix of red fruits (cassis surely, maybe raspberry as well) and flowers (rose maybe, lavender) and I think thyme as well and possibly other herbs. It should be an everything but the kitchen sink mess, and somehow it is not, it´s music made of scents.

I brewed this not too hot (maybe not quite 90 C), not too long with a generous scoop. It came out quite pale, not bitter but with some astringency (too hot maybe?), and with strong taste notes of everything on the dry leaf smell, plus a certain grassy something from the green tea which just adds to the impression of being a garden like drink.

So why don´t I love it? Just don´t know. Maybe I just need time to figure it out a bit better, maybe I fell in love too much with the scent and no taste could compete. Will have fun drinking the rest of this, and maybe my feelings will change. Even if I do not quite love it as much as I thought I was going to, this is still a tea I recommend people check out, this is just amazing and really undescriptable!

The “before classes” tea. This blend is now over a year old, with half left, but it’s as potent as ever! I used almond milk today but I think a more watery variety of milk works better with this tea. The spicy perfume quality can be a bit much if the cream is too thick.

The ginger and cloves are zappy today, and the floral quality is as apparent as ever. I still haven’t mastered the prep of this tea, but I’m getting there and it’s starting to taste rather fine. If this is steeped for too short a time I find the spices don’t develop as fully, which allows the floral perfume to dominate the broth.

Out of the four teas from Mariage Frères gifted to me this was one of two chosen because the giver “thought the name was cool.” I am absolutely speechless before her rationale. What makes “Alexandra David-Néel” sound more appealing than teas with names like “Eros,” “Mandalay,” or “Pleine Lune”? I will never know. I’m happy to try a new tea and learn about an interesting historical figure, either way!

In summer the aroma reminded me of winter spices and mandarins but now that it is damp and wet the impression changes to dry desert and floral fruits. This tea does transport me places I’d rather be.

When I first opened my tin and caught a whiff of the aroma I thought “new chai! I need to add milk.” So, without even take a sip, I went straight for the milk and was dismayed at my spicy and fruity milk creation. This tea is actually tasty without the milk; the fruity, mellow, floral notes do not need it or do well with it anyways.

The flavours are complex. The first spices to hit me are the cloves and ginger. After I had my wisdom teeth removed I received a “clove” cleaner so it’s usually the first spice I detect. I will never forget you, cloves.

The ginger is a nice balance of sweetness and zing and leads me to noticing the next jumpy spice, cinnamon, which blends so well with the others I can barely single it out. The cardamom is spicy sweet and I think it may contribute to the last surprising bit of floral sweetness- reminiscent of something potentially citrusy and creamy. While this last note adds another dimension to the tea it tones the spice affect down a notch, and that’s ok.

Aftertaste is peppery and sweet. There’s a pleasant tang from the spices and a black leaf astringent streak but no bitterness that I can pick up! Floral endnote and cinnamon are more pronounced in second steep.