Paris

Blech. I may have been a bit biased about this from the start, because I read “natural and artificial vanilla, fruit and citrus flavours” as natural and artificial vanilla and was all snooty about the use of artificial vanilla. But the nasty smell I got on opening the tea had everything to do w bad cough syrup, so I don’t think my prejudice had much influence over my smelling of the dry leaves. Or the steeped ones, OR the taste. Artificial black currant overpowered everything else. Most definitely not for me, though I’m not too sad to have tried it this way, as I got it quite cheaply on iHerb along with housewarming natural conditioner and cleaner for Becca. Cara didn’t like the tea either, but might be able to give it to Becca and keep the tin, which is cute. Otherwise will scatter it via Steepster!

I have never been to Paris – heck, I don’t even own a passport. I need to remedy this situation someday. In the meantime, Paris is making its way into my cup.

The tin is hiding in my cupboard under another tea that I use more, but like less. Lifting off the lid, I sneak a whiff – sweet, vanilla-y and fruity. While the 8 oz. of water comes to a boil, I measure out the leaves at 1.5 teaspoons.

Steeping the leaves for 4 minutes seemed like a long time when you’re just standing there willing it to finish. But I also love watching the color of the water change from sand to amber to nearly coffee-black. Finally, the timer goes off and the leaves are removed from the liquid.

Too impatient to wait for it to cool, I dangle an ice cube in the hot tea until three-fourths of it is dissolved. Add some simple syrup and my small cup is to the brim, full. A scary sight! I know better than to try lifting it to my mouth as I’ll end up wearing a quarter of it. After weighing my options, my best bet is to bring myself down to the cup and gently slurp enough so it won’t slosh when I go to pick it up.

A slightly turbulent journey, but I’m reminded of why Paris has it’s position in my cupboard – its special. The everyday teas are there to get you by, but it’s what’s underneath that counts.

I had this in a bar with friends and the non optimal preparation might explain some of my disappointment.
I obviously could not smell the dry leaves but only got the teapot. The loose leaves were swimming freely in the teapot. The water had been poured boiling on the tea and I could not drink my first cup (a bit underbrewed – probably around 2 2 and half mibutes, as I could realize at the first sip) for a few minutes. It was nice but a bit too mild; I liked the body given to the tea by vanilla, though could not really identify the other flavors, a bit fruity but not too sweet, rather pleasant. The second cup (steeped for 6 mn I guess, maybe a bit more) allowed me to realize the tea base was indeed rather nice tasting, though coming out a bit strong. The third and fourth and last cups were unfortunately rather bitter and not so pleasant any longer.
I’ll have to try it out in better conditions, but however I’m not sure it’s going to be a complete love story between me and this tea.

Okay this is tasty. I will definitely put this on my Harney & Sons shopping list. Picked up a little individually wrapped bag to try. Unfortunately the place where I picked up tea yesterday (Harrika’s Brew Haus) did not have this one in loose.

I added to much water to the cup so it’s a little weaker then I would like, but still good. Those worried about the bergamot shouldn’t be, it’s very light. The currant flavors come out more I think and the vanilla/caramel. This reminds of a Monk’s Blend tea I had, but better. That same combo of vanilla and fruit (pomegranate in the Monk’s blend) is delicious. Yum yum.

I don’t usually care for flavored teas. This, however, is one of the exceptions to that rule for me. The flavoring is so mild and naturally done that it is delicate on the senses and does not overwhelm the tea in any way.

I picked this up in a tin with 20 sachets, so it’s not quite the full on loose leaf, but with the silk pyramid bags, it might as well be.

The aroma of the dry leaf is light and vanilla-y. It has an added sweetness that seems beyond the simplicity of vanilla, but it’s hard to pinpoint. The liquor was a nice amber color with a fine flavored steam wafting to me.

I first tried this tea as it was and found it very pleasurable. This is even more rare for me to care for a CTC black tea without some form of even mild sweetener (just personal taste). I think it was the vanilla that brought it together for me in this case. I later tried a cup with some local honey and enjoyed that immensely as well.

Despite the general mildness of the tea and the flavorings, I can’t handle drinking this with too much frequency. I just prefer to have the flavor of the tea and the frequency of the flavors affects my taste buds for longer than I would like.

This tea is about equal in my opinion with my other experiences with Harney & Sons; which to say its pretty damn fantastic; its a very contradictory tea, the leaves them selves are well shredded and a deep shade of black brown with little bits of lemon, and bergamot mixed in, the smell of it is amazing, of fresh lemon and something sweet and implacable.

As it steeps that smell becomes permeable and doesn’t quite go away, I’ve actually taken to leaving the tea ball drying on my desk at work simply because it smells so good.

The tea it self steeps into the very dark chocolate brown; its very resistant to oversteep so you can very yourself from 4-8 minutes with little chance of bitterness at the end, the taste itself, especially if its brewed longer is nice and heavy almost English breakfast black with the notes of the lemon and bergamot floating nicely on top. It makes for a fantastic first tea of the day, its certainly replaced my English brekfest junk tea I usually drink.

I’ve noticed that Harney & Sons its very very good at mixing fruit and black tea, there cranberry autumn is probably my favorite evening tea, and now they’ve got me in the mornings too.

tl;dr – a good solid morning tea with some nice hints of lemon and bergamot; that easily as nice to steep as it is to drink. Best morning tea I’ve had.

I’ve resigned myself to disliking Earl Grey permanently now… except the rooibos variety which tastes less earthy somehow. I wonder how it would taste with another base? I’ve only ever tried it with black and rooibos. Hmmmm.
This one has such rave reviews, I figured that it would atleast be tolerable for me, but that was apparently not in my cards. Luckily, they let me return the tin after sampling a bag, so atleast I didn’t lose any money on it! :)
I don’t mind the lemon so much… though I am very picky about citrus in my tea, but that combined with the bergamot is just too much. I can’t taste any vanilla at all in there either and I didn’t feel that any of the flavours gelled together at all.
Oh well, I can’t adore every type of tea right?? I just wish I could understand why this one has such appeal! and why nobody else ever mentions the earthy note that bothers me.

On occasion I like to treat myself with things like new shoes, some jewelery or a single serve sachet from Harney & Sons. I’m glad that yesterday I did that latter, because this is one of the nicest teas from this brand I’ve ever had! Its a lovely delicate and incredibly smooth black tea with a hint of currant. Perfect for light morning tea with cucumber sandwiches and shortbread. Also to sully this infusion with milk would be a crime so please don’t!

Take note other companies: After being able to purchase a single cup worth of tea leaves to try, of a blend that sounded more interesting than delicious but it was only $1 so I didn’t mind risking it, I’m going to buy a 200g tin of it next week!

The bergamot comes out pretty strong if you try to make this cold. I wouldn’t recommend it.

I picked up a single bag of this when I was down in Vancouver last month. I went to a Waves coffee shop for this first time because my parent’s new house is a block away from one and noticed that they carry harney and sons. I’m sure this is not news to anyone else, but it was exciting for me as I’ve been wanting to try some of their teas for a while, especially this one.
This was a pretty basic flavoured black tea, nothing special. I didn’t get any fruitiness or bergamot, only vanilla and caramel notes. I prefer other vanilla caramel teas to this one, but it was the bagged version that was sitting in a paper bag in my cupboard for a month. I have a sample of the loose decaf version of this so we’ll see if it is any different.