Nina's Paris

First let me say that the little sample of this that I got awhile back was amazing, which lead me to today, where I was supposed to receive my “giant” order (100g tin) of it, but I am tea-less! :(

So, instead of me writing a great note about how happy I am to finally get this tea, I am super bummed out. The postal service “missent” my tea, so who knows when I’ll get it. It was supposed to be here today, but it didn’t come with the regular mail, and then I finally saw the update that it was “missent.” I really hope that it was just placed on the wrong mail truck, that it is still in my city, and that it will show up tomorrow.

This was a major disappointment to me, because I’ve been wanting this tea for months now and finally ordered it. AND, I had a difficult meeting to lead today at work, and I told myself that once I got through it I would have this tea to look forward to!! Super bummer!!

I really hope it comes tomorrow. New tea is supposed to decrease stress, not increase it! Stupid postal service!

UPDATE: Still no tea :( I hope it’s not lost!

UPDATE 2: It’s here! It’s here! Finally! I snooped through the blinds to see if the postman was putting a box in my mailbox, and he did! My husband was nice enough to go out and get it because I’m still in PJ’s, cuz I’m off work today. ;) It smells delicious! Gonna have some now! YIPPEE!!

This is absolutely delightful! Thank you, Laurent, for this sample! Like ashmanra said, the black tea base is silky smooth. The raspberry, red current, caramel, and vanilla meld together to make a delicious fruity and creamy dessert tea. I think it would be amazing as an afternoon tea with a scone. Nothing gets better than that! :)

Edit: steeped it twice and it was just as good the second time!

Wow I didn’t taste caramel at all in here, just vanilla. Weird. To me it was very much like genmaicha ice cream in tea form! Actually I know this company here has made genmaicha ice cream in the past…must inquire when they will do so again.

So I’m not sure what purpose the black tea in here serves, I decided to steep it like a green and sencha was definitely the predominant flavor despite how the dry leaf looked. This tea was both sweet and savory at the same time, but it’s not quite my favorite combination for that. I feel like I missed out on something by not tasting any caramel at all.

I agree – this one had to have lost a lot of flavor somehow. I read Kittenna’s review so I didn’t steep as long as I normally would but when I didn’t get flavor I went ahead and put the basket back in.
I never got the astringency or plastic taste that Kittenna got which is good but I still never got flavor.
Not rating as I fear something is wrong with this tea and would be happy to give it another chance.

I finally had a morning at home to enjoy this sample. Thank you, Laurent! I didn’t want to steep it at work, since I’d have to use the microwave instead of my nice kettle and steeper. Got to use the right equipment! So, I liked it! I have never tried a flavored genmaicha before, but it’s nice. I was surprised that it had black tea in it. I agree with Kittena that it may not be necessary. I got good toasty caramel notes, and I actually added a little milk and honey, which brought out the sweetness. I got two decent steeps out of it. I can’t wait to try the other samples from Nina’s!

So this is my first non-work related post and review. Thank you Laurent for the wonderful samples. My first was Nina’s Japon. The aroma during steeping was of a toasted caramel corn. 2min 30min later the first sip was a delicious mixed leaf caramel corny treat. I found the vanilla to come out more at the end for me. This actually reminds me of Frangelico liqueur in flavor, aroma and color. Very tasty and a wonderful introduction to Nina’s Teas.

This is certainly a cherry smelling brew. Smells strongly of a cherry tree to me. I like it!

Hmmm….Was sure I was dead on for steep time, but wow the green tea base is bitter! It’s knocking all the other flavors out. I don’t even feel like rating this as it’s just too bitter to judge. If I had a bit more I’d try again and only let it steep 1 minute. I usually let it go two minutes for blends but it’s obviously too long for this tea.

The scent of the dry leaf is powerful. I do not mean overwhelming. It is powerful in the sense I really like it. It’s orange followed by cinnamon. Once steeped the wet leaf also presents its black tea aroma.

Cinnamon can easily overwhelm and orange can taste like candy. Neither is the case here. This is well balanced light cup.

Given the description of stimulate and invigorate I was expecting a big bold cup. I find it to be more of a relaxed cup. I would sip this on a lazy afternoon – like today. I find it a nice introspective cup rather than invigorating. That is not a bad thing. Sometimes I just want a peaceful cup.

Thank you Nina’s Tea for the sample.

So I am finally drinking the last sample from Nina’s, the one that I opened and Samwise started dancing around me looking for the caramel cake. And I am caught off guard at first by the aroma. This isn’t the Vanilla Comoro-esque tea that I thought it would be. The smell of the base scares me at first. This is going to be too strong for me! And this is with a scant four minute steep at just under the boil.

But the sip is different, it isn’t as candy sweet as the smell made me think it would be. Instead, I find it to be a great first cup of the morning that is strong enough you know are having tea, but has a nice caress from the vanilla. This is a grown up vanilla tea, for people in power suits or ladies who lunch.

I made two steeps since the others have done well, and I drank a bit of steep one plain, then added steep two to what remained in the pot. I asked hubby to join me for tea since he likes vanilla. He always adds milk and sugar to his black tea and this was no exception. Since he said he liked it, I take it that it handles additions well.

I have a fussy tummy that doesn’t take to certain black teas well, especially since I drink almost everything with no additions. This one is not bothering me at all.

This is the serious, tall, dark and handsome guy, not the playful guy I thought it was going to be.
Sometimes that is the guy you want! I really like this, and would compare it more to Vanille des Iles than the Harney vanilla selections. This is going on my gift list for a friend who loves this kind of tea.

Thank you again, Nina’s, for the samples. They were all excellent and tasty teas!

This has a wonderful strawberry aroma! I found this to be a more bracing tea than Grand Amour, perhaps making it a better choice for breakfast for those who use tea as their wake up. (I don’t, tea is my after breakfast treat!) The base is a bit stronger on this one, more in sensation than taste, but the strawberry shines right on through!

I love that these are great resteepers! I am on the second steep now and I must confess I like it even better than the first. The tea is mellowed now, the strawberry softer. If you love Marco Polo, you really should try this.

As I sit here, I can not help but to exhale slowly through my nose while holding my jaw loosely so that warm strawberry taste gently fills my head, even after the sip. I think if I had a lot of this, I would make half as much tea as I really wanted, resteep immediately, and pour the first and second steeps together. That also cuts the price of your tea in half, and would put this at the perfect strength for me.

Thank you, Nina’s Tea, for these samples! They are amazing and I am so impressed with the quality of your flavored tea. The packaging is so beautiful…whenever I want an elegant gift for someone, I know where to shop!

I THINK this is my favorite tea from Nina’s, but there are several that are so good I find it hard to choose. This one stands out because it is one of the first teas I tried from them.

We had tea party early this week again because one daughter is now working and the other is about to start her senior year of high school, so we are fitting it in at the best time for all of us to make it.

The dessert today was Snickerdoodle Bread and this was the second tea served. It is smooth and fruity and just makes me feel good when I drink it. I love the tea and I love the name, so I gave a tin of it to my son-in-law as a wedding gift. He likes the Lady Grey type of profile and this is like a more refined, more elegant Lady Grey type with fresh fruity flavors, not just citrus, and it is much smoother going down. There is no tendency to the puckery aftertaste. I hate to compare it to Lady Grey, which is a decent tea but it is a five and this is a ten and a half. No contest. It just gives me that feeling of elegance and luxury of bygone English tea times in country mansions.

For those who read my note last night, I will update on my nephew. He is still on a respirator but is now initiating breath 100% of the time. He can not speak because of the tube but was able to write on a clipboard to communicate, so that was a relief as far as concerns about how extensive any brain injury might be.

There were several wrecks that night near the big city and it has been so hard to get accurate information. I am so thankful things were not worse!

I have such “Grand Amour” for Grand Amour! Oh la la this is good tea! This was one of the first samples I tried from Nina’s a few months ago when they invited us to choose two or three teas to sample. I was really hooked on this one but waited to order because I have an embarrassingly large amount of tea. But at last, my very own tin is here! And the shipping was crazy fast. Laurent sent this Monday and the mailman put it on my porch at noon today.

We talk, HARD, at tea time on Wednesdays. It takes a special tea to make the words hit the brakes. Today we chattered through the cake and remarked on the black tea we drank first, then had this second. In the middle of the chatter, my guest took a sip, stopped everything, and said, “What is THAT?” I told her it was Grand Amour and she said, “It’s delicious!” And it is! Oh mercy me, it is.

This is so fruity, with no perfume-y fake taste. No additions necessary!

I was preparing a big Valentine’s dinner for my hubby when my eye fell on the basket of leaves from making this earlier. I don’t often resteep a flavored tea because they usually don’t retain enough of their original flavor to keep me interested. But I liked this one so well, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.

It was a success! Yes, it is lighter in flavor than the first steep, but still had as much flavor as some teas give you on their first steep. It was wonderful! Lazey commented it was too strong, but maybe icing the first steep and drinking the second would work for you?

I have loved Fruits d’Alsace for iced tea in the past, but I think this one is going to be even better for a fruit flavored iced tea.

Oh joy! Joy! Holy cow! This is not at all what I expected. Instead it is 18273658382 times better. (Tip of hat to JacquelineM there.)

Thank you, Nina’s Tea, for these lovely samples!

It was hard to choose my flavors for sampling from Nina’s Tea. There are so many and they look so good. A few French teas I have purchased have been unbelievably yummy, but a few required tweaking as the base could get bitter to me, like Dammann Freres Charlotte au Chocolat.

Honestly I made this tea because the Je T’aime smelled too good to drink yet. I wanted to save it for a really special time, not the middle of the homeschool day waiting for a student. It smelled so good the dog was dancing around my feet with his eyes wide because he thought I had a dessert hidden somewhere.

Now on to this one – the fruit aroma was absolutely arresting. It was so real, so fresh. So Garden of Eden pure. The fruit rides above, but is grounded and rounded by, the vanilla and caramel notes. I braced myself to sip, in case the base was one of the rough ones, but no! It is as smooth as silk, and you can taste the tea! Delightful, and delicious!

Just as exciting to me – this is a very close flavor profile to the tea my daughter bought in Budapest that we adored but have been unable to get again. Excellent, delicious, wonderful flavored tea, fit for a tea time with nobility. Even better, get it for yourself and sit down with a good book, some soft music, and a cup of this. You will feel like a benevolent Lady of the Manor.

Grand Amour, I love you. I would share you with the one I love, but I drank you all up.

Speaking of the one I love, a little old retiree lady called today to tell my hubby that she saw Safe Haven yesterday and that Josh Duhamel reminded her so much of him that she just had to call and talk to him!!!! I feel just a little bit jealous! LOL! (I confess, I think my hubby is gorgeous!)

And this is why Steepster gets on my nerves. This doesn’t come up at all when I searched for the tea and yet it’s been on here for several days. And that was with the right name! I tried both and then just used the other one and that’s why I couldn’t find it.

Whatever. Here’s my moved tasting note then.

Since I stayed home today I figure I can get my backlogging started. I couldn’t help but get this one as one of my samples. It seemed like such an interesting mix of fruits. It was okay, I kind of wish I knew what the proper way to steep it would be, because I have enough to do another cup and I’m not sure if it would be better suited to a higher temp and/or a longer steep.

Everything just kind of meshed together into fruity black for me. Good, but I’d love to taste all the fruits individually in there.

I used the rest if the sample Ashmanra sent me in a cold-steep and guess what? The vinegary aspect is gone! This is much better! It’s a lovely apple taste, mellow sweet and just the right amount of bite for a green apple. I’m raising the score of it a little because as a cold steep ths is quite n

Since Laurent and Sophie sent me some more of this, I decided to try it again at work. This just isn’t the tea for me. I tried it at 3 minutes this time and it was less apple cider vinegar-ish, but the acid taste was still there. It did however mellow as it cooled, which makes me think a cold steep might work well for this one. The rose did become more prominent with a shorter steep, so it was sweeter than the last time I had it. Base was smooth and malty.

Thanks, Ashmanra, for a generous sample of this!

When I opened the packet I was surprised to smell apple cider vinegar! There is a floral element, but the vinegar smell really packs a punch!

I steeped at boiling for 4 minutes. It tasted just like it smelled- apple cider vinegar with slight rose undertones. I was expecting a mellower apple taste to compliment rose.

The base seems pleasant, dark and mellow, so I would try other Nina’s blends. Especially because the rose from what I can taste is really pleasant. It’s not over the top and perfume-like.

About halfway through the cup, I added some brown sugar to see if it would cut down some of the acidity in the taste. It didn’t help all that much. Maybe I’ll use the rest up in a cold-brew and see if the apple is not so sharp then.

still my favourite of Nina’s teas. there’s just something about this one that i love…i had this one the other day as well, though i added a pinch of vanilla powder to it as well just to enhance the vanilla flavour….because it makes it even more delicious!

I think i need to relegate this one to non travel mug status. I am just not feeling it when i’ve been taking it to work in travel mugs.

second last cup of the morning so i thought i’d make it a good one. I am a fan of this one – possibly my favourite nina’s tea…no it IS. i really like the gemaicha/caramel/vanilla creamy deliciousness that’s going on here, and it’s nice that it’s not my usual black tea (only half!) haha

EEP! i finished up 1 of my two bags of this today and that makes me a sad panda since it means i’ll be running out soon. This is hands down my favourite tea from nina’s – i think largely in part because i’m a)not a fan of their rooibs and b) don’t love “red fruit” as a flavour regardless of which tea company it’s from lol However, this tea is enough to keep me coming back again and again to Nina’s. love the vanilla, creamy, genmaicha flavour!