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.
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I never exceed 80°C for this blend and leave it steep for 4 max.
Well as a French I prefer hearing we are good at making perfumes rather than we are moaning all the time or arrogant :)
I am happy you liked it (even if you’re not in love with)
I am not sure i am able to be in love with a flavoured green right now. Or a new green tea, I seem to have an exception for a couple of my staple green teas. Dunno, just my mood I guess – OTOH I think I have finally fallen in love with white tea and am learning to love oolongs, so not all bad.
This reminded me so much of Vert de Provence, maybe a similar base, the sublime perfume blends.
Oh and did you notice with sakura that as the tea cools it becames more and more floral? Just out of steeping you get the fruit oh so strong. But I was sipping from my cup and it was cooling noticeably (December, sigh. And in Portugal central heating is for wimps, or hotels or hospitals), as it cooled the flowers became more and more dominant. So interesting!
I sipped this one so quickly I never had a chance to wait to try it cooler !
But you know I visited Lisbon in december…12°c…it wasn’t cold for a froggie ! today we had -3°C in the early morning in Paris ;)
Yesterday has been pretty warm, and I think it is going to be warm indeed for the next week or so, say 10 to 16 usually. But when temperatures are around 4 or 5 and it´s very foggy and humid from the atlantic I would take your paris -3 in an instant. Specially with non heated houses and the damp gets to the cold! The russians and ukrainians complain often of the cold which is sort of funny poor things (non heated houses are just different) and the old joke is that portuguese emmigrants to France and Switzerland and so on do not come to Portugal in Christmas break because it is too cold, LOL.
I never exceed 80°C for this blend and leave it steep for 4 max.
Well as a French I prefer hearing we are good at making perfumes rather than we are moaning all the time or arrogant :)
I am happy you liked it (even if you’re not in love with)
I am not sure i am able to be in love with a flavoured green right now. Or a new green tea, I seem to have an exception for a couple of my staple green teas. Dunno, just my mood I guess – OTOH I think I have finally fallen in love with white tea and am learning to love oolongs, so not all bad.
This reminded me so much of Vert de Provence, maybe a similar base, the sublime perfume blends.
Oh and did you notice with sakura that as the tea cools it becames more and more floral? Just out of steeping you get the fruit oh so strong. But I was sipping from my cup and it was cooling noticeably (December, sigh. And in Portugal central heating is for wimps, or hotels or hospitals), as it cooled the flowers became more and more dominant. So interesting!
I sipped this one so quickly I never had a chance to wait to try it cooler !
But you know I visited Lisbon in december…12°c…it wasn’t cold for a froggie ! today we had -3°C in the early morning in Paris ;)
Yesterday has been pretty warm, and I think it is going to be warm indeed for the next week or so, say 10 to 16 usually. But when temperatures are around 4 or 5 and it´s very foggy and humid from the atlantic I would take your paris -3 in an instant. Specially with non heated houses and the damp gets to the cold! The russians and ukrainians complain often of the cold which is sort of funny poor things (non heated houses are just different) and the old joke is that portuguese emmigrants to France and Switzerland and so on do not come to Portugal in Christmas break because it is too cold, LOL.