Paul & Virginie

This morning is my second brew of this sample, kindly sent to me by CTeresa.
I’m not sure how long exactly it steeped, probably way over the 5 mn period, which worried me, as I remembered the bitterness that Paris tea took after a too long steep.
None of this here, the tea seems brewed to perfection. Ah I really love the non-fussy and easy-going blend that will not hold it against you, if you treat them badly.
It’s indeed the perfect afternoon tea for people who are not that used to tea or when you just want something easy to drink in any circumstances; its flavors are very accessible, quite rich both in quantity and quality, none of them overwhelming.
For my taste, the caramel tone is a bit too strong; I believe I’d prefer a blend leaning more on the red fruits, like Marco Polo is, from what I remember. It’s however really lovely. And way, way better than Paris, from H&S, in my opinion.
I ’m not sure that I will buy it soon for me, but this would certainly make a perfect present. I totally understand how this blend could become an absolute favorite to many people.

This is a delicious blend of black tea with berry and vanilla flavorings. The description says there is also caramel, but I couldn’t detect that. It’s a nice, smooth black tea — no astringency, and not super-strong. The flavors are delicate, not “in your face” like some flavored teas, and there aren’t little bits of dried fruit and such in the tea.

This tea is kind of like Mariage Freres Marco Polo’s older, more reserved sister. The two teas are quite similar, but whereas Marco Polo is practically bursting with strawberry flavor, Paul et Virginie is content to let the flavors slowly build and achieve more of a balance with the black tea. Even so, I think I slightly prefer Marco Polo, because when I want a strawberry flavored black tea, I want the flavors to be bold. I’ll definitely enjoy the rest of this tea, though; it’s a real treat.

Trying this sneakily as I bought it for my housemate over the summer to replace his Lady Londonderry tea (our favourite local stockist no longer does it!! I’ve managed to source it somewhere else, nonetheless… a tragic loss!) – it’s not exactly the same, obviously, this has vanilla and caramel and more berries, but I’m intrigued.

This tasting is off a mug brewed to a deep orange, although I tried it a clear pale orange in a teacup last night. It smells intensely floral even though the flavours are mainly fruit – is this a Dammann Freres feature? In the first sip there is very little actual floral taste, however, and the first fruit to jump out is… cherry, with a hint of caramel, and a vanilla aftertaste.

Despite being brewed so strongly this isn’t as dry as other black teas. The further I get into the mug, the more raspberry comes out, too… It’s all delightfully sweet, I wouldn’t mind a splash of milk or drop of lemon in this!

2021 sipdown no. 109

Another enjoyable tea from DF. I do think I preferred this one quite fresh. It’s still tasty (and ~9 months old), but more of the cherry and currant is coming through now and I prefer some of the other flavours for this tea.

I’m trying to get in some sipdowns so my teas do not end up forgotten as advent season begins. Work is so busy lately that I’ve barely been home to enjoy more than one cup of tea early in the day, so these sipdowns make me feel better.

We picked up three advent calendars this year (plus another for February), and decided to start one on 7-November (so it effectively counts down to the next)!

One of my favorite. The caramel notes are incredible.

Well, here we go again. Another DF tea I need to keep keeping. I’m sensing a pattern. Okay, actually the fact is, that I’ve now had several Dammann Frères that I’m not fond of, but when they do hit, they really hit for me. And the formula for those is this: I yearn for a particular fruit flavor, but I also worry, because I don’t want BRAAAAQ [INSERT FRUIT HERE] AOOGA AOOGA flavor. I don’t want a tea that tastes like a tisane, and I don’t want to be flooded with sensory aspects of the flavor … like, oh, this is definitely strawberry because it’s SO SWEET AND SO TART, and this lemon because it’s ZOMG ZOW SOUR AND ZINGY, etc. I also don’t want candy versions of the flavor. I don’t even want them to be “true to life” versions, necessarily. If I want to eat figs or apricots, I can eat figs or apricots. But if I want to cook something with figs or apricots, I will be thinking of carefully layering flavors that go with that taste to create something more symphonic, and that’s what DF does so well.

With Paul & Virginie, I was hoping for a blend where the cherry stood out (for my palate, anyway), but wasn’t cherry cough syrup flavor, or cherry LifeSavers flavor, or cherry juice, or cherry liqueur or chocolate cherry. Cherry is a very easy flavor to over-cherry! (okay, I have to stop, the very word “cherry” is beginning to look crazy to me, like that can’t be right? Is cherry even spelled that way? I’ve overcherried my brain. See how fast that was?)

Anyway, long story not quite short, I love the blend here: cherry, raspberry, red currant, strawberry, vanilla and toffee. I love that it doesn’t have chocolate. I love that there’s a little bit of juicy tartness, but it’s not pucker face fruity, and it’s still tea, not at all fruit drink, and how the vanilla and toffee (I think it’s caramel, actually) smooth it out and marry it all together without steering it into a caramel tea.

I think some others have said that the strawberry stands out to them, but not for so much for me, which is a good thing. It’s not that I don’t like strawberry (am I a monster?), it’s just that it’s not my fave, and not what I was hoping for here.

Finally, I’ll just note that, as with some other DF teas, I cannot really parse the logic of the name. “Paul et Virginie” is the name of an 18th century novel set in Mauritius — an island known for very many lovely tropical fruits, but none of the more northerly suited ones featured in this tea. C’est un mystère.

Advent Calendar Day Eight

I don’t think I’d ever heard of this one prior to seeing it in the calendar today, and I’m sort of bummed about that because it sounds really interesting/like a great flavour pairing. The dry leaf smelled great too; very fresh and fruity! Lots of red currant aroma.

The flavour is so lovely; I was definitely expecting to taste more red currant just based on the aroma but I think it’s more strongly raspberry than anything else with some lighter red fruit supporting notes, such as red currant, strawberry, and just a trickle of cherry. The caramel in the blend is kind of interesting and weird; it just makes the cup a little sweeter overall and sort of exaggerates this borderline jammy like quality to the raspberry. However, that said, in the finish of the sip the caramel becomes more than just a sweetener and is more recognizable as its own distinct taste.

I like this one, and it’s one that I’d absolutely be intrigued enough by to get more of the play around with/experiment with. I can see it working so many different ways: iced, latte, syrup, in sugar cookies…

Yum!

During a walk in Florence, Italy, I was delighted to spy a small shop with wall full of canisters of my favourite tea company, Dammann Frères’ tea. Oronero sells a nice, broad selection of their own line and Dammann teas, as well as chocolates. We decided to try a few new ones in addition to our original favourite, Jardin Bleu, which is a good introduction to their fruit and flower infused teas.

This is a nice winter holiday tea, with rich, warm notes of caramel and vanilla, and essences of dark fruits. The tea is smooth with a medium-coloured liquor, and a lingering note of cherry on the finish.

Good evening, dear tea friends! This is my first note of the day (at 8 PM my time) because I’ve been mostly working on sipping down some of my samples before trying new ones. However, I saw how few flavored tea samples I have and figured I should try to get through them, since I don’t crave flavored teas lately and I have several favorites in my cupboard already. So, time to finish off these Dammann Frères samples that a very generous tea friend sent me! This blend appears to be simply black tea leaves and flavoring. Dry scent is mildly fruity and sweet.

Hm, this seems to be a subtly flavored one. Mostly I taste the vanilla, and it’s nice and creamy and dessert-ish. There’s perhaps a little red fruits flavor, and overall it comes off as a decent “berries and cream” sort of tea to me.

OH MAN, WHAT A DOOF I AM.

It’s been way too long since I actually wrote a thing about a tea I’ve been drinking. I have been remiss, and I am sorry.

I remember being underwhelmed by this the first time I tried it, but maybe it just wasn’t under the right circumstances, because a 5 minute steep with milk and sugar was GLORIOUS. Like, this is hitting the spot quite perfectly in terms of exactly what it turns out I needed in this exact moment. It’s got a heady sweetness, but not in a gross, artificially oversweet way. The caramel and berry and vanilla give it a good balance of brightness and depth. It’s just delightful.