Alicia

I really enjoyed this fiesty tea. While the can says 4 minutes I admit to leaving the little punk in my french press until I got around to a second cup and failed to find him bitter at all. Loved it with milk and honey… totally spoiled.

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Not your typical in your face flavored black tea by Mariage Freres. Floral and charming and a beautifully done black tea which I will have to spend more time on… or with? :)

The second steep was by far better than the first. The wonderful fruit flavors were more pronounced and the fragrance just as long lived. I do believe I found blue berries in the mixture… total yum

This is a naughty little black tea with a voluptuous fragrance that makes me desirous to taste this beauty side-by-side with Vivaldi or Jamaique. If you are smitten by either of those teas, you’ll adore Myrtille.
Exquisite with with blackberries and whipped cream (home-made of course) or a warm marion berry tarte.

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Finished the can. :( Fair thee well my fond friend… until we meet again in a tea garden far from city smog.

Not a favorite of mine. Perhaps it is the use of green puerh? Who knows. But it mixes great with hot cocoa and once I am outof tis classic, it will not be restocked. Sorries.

Tasty and a nice suprise.

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Hmmm… spoiled. Simply spoiled. I made a pot of this to amuse myself before bed and I am a fool.
Having finished my second steep of Florence, I moved to this Silent Movie Starlet. She’s soft, sweet and flowery. The write up says something about moss but I don’t get moss. It’s gentle and clean… very soothing to the palate. I don’t know what I enjoy best, the tea or the Chanel no 5 I’m wearing. They are a perfect pair.

Honestly don’t know how to place this… it’s a ghost or a memory. Perhaps it is the light framed in the fingers of trees. Bold, bright and ever so soft that you can watch the wind dance in the motes of pollen of a swollen spring. Or the laughter of children, a child’s first laugh or your child’s first laugh… this is easily a reflection tea… simply a treasure.

I can enjoy this tea as it is like nothing I have tried before… a natural beauty. She’s often overlooked by the big hussies of flavored temptress teas singing their siren songs from the cupboards of yore! LOL

Dusty sort of tea with a dark chocolate sort of flavor. I will have to ponder this one more at a later date. I do think the flavor evolves more as the tea itself cools.

Tonight is probably not the best evening to even begin compairing or complaining of tea. It is a zombie night and I am enjoying the sound of rain and a dark and delicious cup, or two, of chocolate teas.
Florence is my second variant tonight and sadly, I like it best.
The black tea is exquisite and I would swear it is a milk chocolate I taste. Generally I dislike most chocolate and milk chocolate just plain creeps-me-out. Who knows why but I enjoy baking with it. Ask me to make a chocolate cake and it’s all yours. Pour me a cup of this tea and just try to pull it away… you’ve got yourself a fight!
This tea was well worth the drive to Seattle to pick up… yes, and even the crowds of touristy shoppers. :)

Tis a quiet little tea. Thank you Ricky for sending this one my way.
Truth is that I have heard the fragrance note ‘osmanthus’ and was curious as to what exactly it smelled like. What exactly it tastes like, I am in search of that as well… work probably isn’t the best place to acquaint myself with either feature.

What I do get from this tea is patience. It has a dusty veg-ital scent that I can’t place but don’t find off-putting. Floral hay, maybe? The liquid turns a kind shade of chartreuse that is very pleasing without sugar and even after hours of steeping neglect. This aspect of the tea is a huge plus in my busy schedule.

I finish my sample tomorrow and perhaps will find more suitable words to describe its flavor. Until then, its charming and accommodating little tea.
Thank you again!

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Hum well this doesn’t start out on a positive note. In the shop the smell was nice… very loud and something I think would be better suited to a Safeway Select coffee flavor. Not to say that Safeway Select is bad or that in this case unwelcome. I had indeed come in hopes of a chocolate tea. Alas, they didn’t have a chocolate but a chocolate blend bam-boosal!

So, upon close inspection and after finishing a cup of Phenix (and closing the cupboard door so my Mariage Freres collection could pretend to be unaware of the movie star scented tea I had brought into the apartment) I became very aware it was drenched in oils! Is this normal? My other scented, blended and flavored gems don’t have a dark sheen like this.

Then, once the water came to a proper tap-dance I dumped in the lot of leaves and…. they sank! In one big glob! Usually some of them float… not lots but some. Not these guys. After a quick second, the water had won over all the interesting oils and the leaves took to their float in a regular pattern. I let the lot steep for four minutes and question the color of the liquid but the leaves were a sienna hue once rested.

Looking into my cup, as you may suspect, there is a distinct oil slick. :( The smell is still there, unwavering in its design and the liquid… well liquid. The smell, I get coconut and some sort of chocolate… it’s like the chocolate on a LCD (Little Chocolate Donut) the plasticy type. I almost think it smells like Bailey’s Irish Cream or Kalhua, neither of these liquors please me… but good ol’ Starbucks that’s another story all together.

And… first sip… chocolate, yes. Tea too. The coconut could go but it’s just a hint. And four minutes was a perfect time as I can tell this can be a spirited and bitter tea if left a lone any longer than that. I think the smell is its winning feature here though. The taste… won’t become a favorite but is worth a try. Might be better if cooler too. Will post again and let you know!

Ciao!

Usually quite tasty as a tea but I will need to rework my milk-shake version of this. All I can say is “I had a craving.” I thought Match was like dust? This is like rough glitter… oh well. Still a nice cup of tea…

Love these little guys. They are great for shipboard life. I plunk one in my tea tumbler and get plenty of steeps out of the flower, at least four. I quit there out of boredom really. This tea has a pleasant delicate fruity floral taste… hard to place but could be oh, who knows? Lychee? LOL :)

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This tea has a personality and is not what I would have expected from a tea entitled Phenix. It is nothing like what I image a bird which could rise from its own ash would taste like. Not even a marshmallow peep version…
At first I wasn’t sure what I was smelling… vanilla, butter or caramel? It’s sweet like a brown sugar bourbon sauce made with a heavy cream. You can smell the richness of… whatever… it smells fattening. LOL It smells divine. Almost like fresh caramel corn and scent lasts through the steeping.

There are little nubbies of goodness mixed throughout the tea and they taste okay. I was afraid they were toasted rice or some other strangeness in the tea but I imagine they are what give this tea its rich buttery quality.

I do advise sticking to the 3 minute mark in steeping because I let it get to close to five and the tea is verging on bitter. Not bad but annoying. Milk and sugar might put this busy body back on track though.

Update: Oh yes, this is fab with milk. Sigh… perfect snacky bedtime tea. Sure there is caffeine but I can’t sleep anyway.

This is a tea for the holidays! It is heavy in flavor and screams for a dash of milk. I taste orange, cinnamon and perhaps clove… who knows! It possesses many if not all the spices I use as a base in my oatmeal cookies. But it has the familiarity of a cinnamon and spice air spray by Glade and this to some might be quite the turn on. Who knows?

At any rate, after a return from sea and seeking comfort in a cup of tea at home… I should have stuck to the tried and true. However being me, I tried a new path… or tea. I shall try this again when the grumbles of recent travels have calmed and I am sure to provide some insightful remarks.

I can safely say that despite its wild taste of holiday festivus, it is a pleasant tea not bitter or grumpy. Very unlike its taster… I am sure it will forgive me. :)
Until my second cup then…

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