Paris

The general consensus seems to be in favor of this tea, and I have to hop on the bandwagon. As others have said, the aroma of the dry leaves is intoxicating. According to Harney, this tea is flavored with bergamot, fruit flavors, and vanilla – and I must say the bergamot and vanilla take center stage in this brew. This is just a great tea, all the flavors are PERFECTLY balanced. The tea itself is smooth and full flavored and is neither too strong nor is it overpowered by the other flavors. At first the bergamot flavor hits you and then it’s rounded out by a smooth vanilla creaminess, which is finally followed by subtle, delicate fruit notes. This is a delicious and soothing flavored tea and is quite a bargain. Without a doubt, I suggest you pick some up. This is one of my new favorites.

I’ve been wanting to try this one for a while – and unfortunately all I could find was the tea sachets rather than the loose tea, so that is my next mission when I’ve worked my way through my current stash. I really like this tea – despite it being in bags. I can definitely taste the bergamot and the citrus, which thankfully was not super strong. There are fuity notes in the mix as well but the black tea holds strong and doesn’t mellow out the moment it begins to cool down. I take mine with milk and honey (or agave when i have it) and I enjoy it the most when it is still piping hot, but it is still an excellent all around tea that I go to in the cold evenings when I want a bodied black tea with milk.

After being off caffeine for a while, this was my first indulgence. And indulgence it was. All my senses were pleased at once. Great flavor, great aroma, great tea!

Life is good! :)

I cannot say enough good things about this tea! I ordered it expecting a straightforward, zesty black tea somewhere on the spectrum close to Earl Grey. However, this is anything but ordinary! The aroma is overpowering; you get a mix of the vanilla and citrus, some lemongrass and florals. The color is a clear burnt sienna. It’s not strong or spicy to taste; it’s light and full at the same time. It’s a mix of contradictions and a study in subtleties. It just has a hint of something that makes it special and stand out. It was such a surprise, and evokes so many memories of Paris. This tea resembles its namesake.

Wow… I don’t know what to say. First, as soon I as opened the tin there was a rush of scent that flooded my senses. I was so taken a back a first. To be honest, I was slightly worried it was going to be too much. But, after making the tea and taking that first sip, I am so please with this purchase. I have no way to describe the many different flavors that are in this tea. I cannot pinpoint what the flavors are. Some sort of berry obviously (strawberry? raspberry?).

I don’t know what it is… But, I do know that this tea is fantastic.

This tea just smells great when you open the tin. I can smell vanilla and berries. When brewing this tea I get the smell of a bowl of berries with vanilla on them. It tastes just as it smells, wonderful. This is not a strong tea. Its very mild with all kinds of flavors. I thought I tasted plum on my first taste, then it settled down to berries as it cooled. I like this tea. Without all the tasting notes on Steepster I may have missed this tea. THANKS!

This was a decent tea, I was a little disappointed. I guess I expected more after reading the colorful description on the Harney and Sons site. To me, this just tasted like an average Mango tea. Specifically it reminded me a lot of the mango tea sold by Adagio. I even put this side-by-side with the mango tea from Adagio and took a smell to make sure. While the Harney Tea did have a much richer “tea leaf” scent to it, I still came away feeling like the “fruit” essence of those teas were pretty similar. After reading the description on the side of the tin I honestly don’t think there is a single bit of mango or mango flavoring in this tea. It just seems that whatever combination of fruit essences Harney and Sons used to craft this tea just reminds me of mango tea. I’m not a big fan of mango tea, so this one did not work for me. I’m going to try a few more brewings on it though (maybe alongside a pot of the Adagio mango for comparison). If I change my mind I’ll revisit this review.

Loooove this tea. Bergamot is my Achilles’ Heel when it comes to teas. I simply love that flavor. This is perfect for curling up with prose & poetry by some of my French faves – Proust, Duras, Baudelaire. Transporting.

Man oh man do I like the way this one smells dry. Both in aroma and flavor this reminds me a bit of New Mexico’s Provence Rooibos (which I adore), so I suppose now I have a caffeinated, black tea version of that flavor profile should I need it.

Warm and smooth vanilla with a lovely bergamot finish.
My favourite tea to date. I save it for those special occasions when I deserve a treat or need a real mood booster.

Temporary note: I never picked up on bergamot in this every time I tried it brewed hot. One day, I poured overage into a french press pot and when I tasted it cold the next day, I finally noted the bergamot nuances that this tea is purported to have. Still can’t find the vanilla sweetness it claims but maybe my tongue is not sophisticated enough. Give me time.

I got this in a three-piece set as a graduation present, and this rapidly became my favorite of the three. And of course, now that I’ve brewed the very last tea bag, it was the one I had finished first.

I hadn’t really thought too critically about this tea up until now other than “YUM!” But now that I’m on my final bag (sniff sniff), it’s time to wrap things up with a real tasting. I raised an eyebrow reading the other reviews. “Strawberry jam? What the? I never noticed any-(takes a sip)-Oh, there it is!”

Lucky, the flavor notes of strawberries, vanilla, bergamot, and black tea marry into something excellent. I enjoy an earl grey now and then, but sometimes it can be just a little… “earl-grey-y.” This tea does not have that problem. It is earl grey’s much tastier cousin who studied abroad in Paris and came back delicious.

It’s been great, Paris. I’m going to keep your tin around to remind me of you. Maybe keep some pebbles or art supplies in it. But most likely I’ll be seeing you again real soon.

I had high hopes for this tea, as it’s so highly rated on Steepster. Unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of Harney flavored black teas lately, and I’ve determined that I don’t love the base they seem to use in some of them. I’ve tried Paris twice now, and while I don’t think it’s a bad tea, it just doesn’t have anything that keeps my interest.

The tea is lightly fruity – it tastes of blackberries to me – not fresh ones, but the stuff you end up with when you cook the fruit down to make jam (I know, too specific, but my Grandma used to make me help out with the canning when I was growing up!) There is a some vanilla, and a hint of the Earl Grey taste from the bergmot.

The flavors are very light overall. The first cup I tried with milk, which didn’t do much for the flavor (it was overwhelmed) so I tried the second cup plain. Without the sweetness of the milk the fruit took on a dusty, stale quality. It’s just not for me I think. I think what I wanted was something a bit more floral, like Marco Polo (which is like this tea, but so much better – if only it wasn’t so pricey!)

Still, not a bad tea, just not the one for me. I can definitely see why it has fans!

My first post, and my first taste of Paris tea. I fell in love with Hot Cinnamon Spice at the local donut shop. Found a holiday classics package on special on the H&S web site, with one tin each of Hot Cinnamon Spice, Paris, Earl Grey, and Chamomile. I don’t care for Earl Grey or Chamomile, but I have coworkers who do, so I got the classics package and gave those two as gifts, leaving me with my favorite plus a new one to try that has lots of rave reviews.

I opened the tin at my mother-in-law’s apartment last night, in the company of family members and a friend who is French. The smell was almost overpowering but yummy. It smelled like candy, but I couldn’t put my finger on what kind. My French friend thought is smelled like Twizzlers. I’ve been googling for descriptions of the taste to try and identify what it is that I was smelling, because it is VERY familiar. Finally, a year-old post here hit me – it smells like the cherry flavored pipe tobacco that my father smoked for a short while when I was a pre-teen. One of the few tobaccos (and he went through a cigar phase for a while, too – yuck!) that I actually liked. I suspect that what I smelled in both the pipe blend and this tea was the mixture of mostly cherry, some vanilla (but not too much), and possibly some citrus, plus the leaves themselves.

This morning, I actually had a cup to drink (last night I had the Hot Cinnamon Spice). I’m a lazy tea drinker. I put the sachet in the cup and just left it there (and I didn’t throw it out when done; I’ll re-steep when I get home from work). The water was boiling when I poured it. It didn’t really taste like it smelled. Much milder, more subtle, and the flavor changed over time. I had been afraid the tea was going to taste like candy, but it doesn’t, which is a good thing.

I’ll have to try it again to be able to come up with a better description of what it tastes like and an overall rating. I don’t think it’s going to displace Hot Cinnamon Spice as my favorite, and it won’t replace the unflavored Roland Food Corp Keemun I ran out of last month and haven’t found yet, but I do like it.

Rebeccah

I got this right around the time I got Mariage Frères’ Marco Polo and I really like this and really don’t like Marco Polo. That really took me by surprise since I love every other Mariage Frères tea I’ve had. However Marco Polo is just too floral for me. Paris, on the other hand, although reminiscent of Marco Polo, is just enough of everything. I’m really sensitive to bitter flavors and normally avoid bergamot but this isn’t bitter in the slightest. It’s just a lovely subtle mingling of fruit flavors that make this taste like a delicious black tea plus. I usually have it with honey and milk.

I wish I had written about this with a cup in hand but that’s not the case, nor do I have any of my sample sachets left .. So from memory I enjoyed Paris a lot, but confess to being somewhat distracted by H&S’s other Historical Places tea ‘Florence’ as I sampled them within an hour of each other and Florence was a stand-out that had me playing hide & seek with the credit card ..

For me Paris was all about sophistication .. A tea suited to sipping out of a cup rather than gulping from a mug, as is how I tend to drink my tea .. I did get a subtle Earl Grey connection from it that became stronger with the addition of milk & sugar, especially as it started to cool off .. But again it’s very subtle, just a slight citrus finish that I noted and perhaps wouldn’t have if I weren’t an EG drinker ?!

I actually took this with me to an outdoor event (sons horse riding) on a cold spring morning, and it was the perfect match .. It could easily be used for high tea with guests, or a go-to tea when you want a quality cup but not after anything over fancy or ’dessert’ish’ ..

Steep Information:
Amount: 3 tsp
Additives: none
Water: filtered, boiling, 1 cast iron teapot full
Tool: Cast Iron Teapot with Mesh basket strainer
Steep Time: a little over 4 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: generic spices, chocolate, berries, vanilla?
Steeped Tea Smell: black tea, berries, sweet, spices, chocolate, complex kaleidoscope
Flavor: black tea, berry, sweet, slightly astringent
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: spicy, short slight bitter, slightly astringent
Liquor: translucent dark orange or maybe reddish-brown

I believe I ordered this because it was featured on Steepster select and everyone was raving about it.

The flavors are slight but definitely there, only they keep shifting and I can’t get a good handle on what they are. This is a very smooth black tea.

Post-Steep Additives: 1 tsp German rock sugar, not an improvement I actually think it did something unpleasant to the flavor

The next cup tried almond milk, chugged that to get rid of it, BLEH

Resteep: 4 minutes – brown water
+2 min – slightly vanilla brown water
+2 min very light tea and vanilla if I were in a better mood I would have appreciated it as a light cup of tea with hints of flavor but I tossed it.

I don’t think I’ll purchase it, it is a quality tea, and a nice black tea, but very complex tea, and just not my cup of tea.

images: http://amazonv.blogspot.com/2010/03/harney-and-sons-loose-leaf-black-tea_22.html

Very refined- a sophisticated flavor- this tea has a perfect name to mstch its subtle flavor- Paris! Perfect in the late evening- not sure if I would want this as a first cup in the morning…. i

No single flavor predominates- sort of a subtle citrus flavor but not predominately lemon or orangy, subtle vanilla flavor and little bit of bergamot…

I love this tea! People who smell it want to try a cup, even if they aren’t tea lovers. Soothing, warm vanilla flavor makes this my comforting cup. I drink this when I want a tea that feels elegant.

Oh, Paris. This tea blends my favorite flavors (vanilla, fruit, floral) with a subtle black tea. This is the cup I turn to when I know its going to be a hard day, or to celebrate a wonderful time.
One of the very best, hands down. Just remember not to steep too long, or else it turns a bit bitter.
I cannot recommend this enough. Its a staple in my cubbord. I’ll always have Paris.