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Chinese black teas, stirred with pieces of dried stone fruit, then finished with oil of bergamot and honey flavour. This blend is reminiscent of Elizabethan preserves, flavourful and tempting.
Not a bad tea, but I have come to the conclusion that I do not like bergamot. I’m not really sure what it even is, but any tea that has it I tend to not like too much. Ah well…
One of my friends stopped over at lunch time as I was making up a pot of this. She swore this smelled like another HT Paris (I had bought her a tin of Paris when I visited the factory/shop). It does smell a bit like Paris, I think she was smelling the bergamot – which is in both teas. There is a very different taste to it. To me this is much lighter flavor than Paris. I love the hint of bergamot, the honey is def. the dominant flavor in this flavored black – yum!! (Glad I grabbed this one by mistake when I left the house!)
My friend did agree that this was not Paris, but she prefers it to Tower of London…More for me! :)
Backlogging. Last Monday morning. (Why yes, I do jot down a list of teas I drink so I can tealog them in Steepster in order when I have the chance.)
First mug of tea after the exciting tea sale so even though I had a snuffy nose, I had to try a new tea. I couldn’t smell too much but the dry tea smelled sweet, maybe the honey, and of black tea. It looked black and short. I couldn’t smelled the steeped tea much. It looked medium mostly brown with a bit of reddish. It tasted like a good solid mug of sweet fruity black tea, better than most tea bags. The second steep was weaker but more fruity. (There is a better tealog for this tea when I didn’t have a stuffed nose in the piperline.)
I rated this tea a 65, which is right in the middle of my nice range (60-70).
I tasted Tower of London side by side with Paris, and they are quite similar, at least in my opinion. I’d be curious to know what others think. Tower of London is supposed have a bit more of a honey taste, but both have bergamot, vanilla, and fruit. I detect caramel in Paris. I think anyone who likes one would like the other. As for me, I’m not sure which I prefer, maybe the Tower of London. I prefer unflavored black teas, but this is a nice change of pace and is growing on me now that I’ve had it a few times.
Thank you to ashmanra for graciously sending me a few sachets to try. This is a wonderful tea, and I do agree with other reviewers that it is like Paris Light. There is a solid and full black base with hints of honey, berries, and the ever so light hint of bergamot. Lovely and very rich tasting.
It is on my shopping list! And will be my replacement for Paris….. Paris is good, too, but I am really liking the lighter bergamot.
It took me a while to decide whether or not I liked this tea, but after several cups I realized that yes, I do indeed! The aroma of the dry leaf is sweetly fruity which ends up mellowing out or “chillaxing” in the cup. The end result is this lovely smooth black tea with honey notes and a hint of bergamot. Best enjoyed plain, with a piece of shortbread on the side.
This blend reminds me very much of Harney and Sons Paris. There is more fruity flavour in this blend, very much stone fruit. But I have a hard time placing which stone fruits, I get apricot, maybe plum, maybe cherry. I feel like I am getting a bit of a black currant type flavour.
The bergamot is moderately strong. You can definitely tell the base is an Earl Grey.
I got this one in one of Harney’s cute little tagalongs. Perfect to carry the tea around, and it fits lots in it.
A big thank you to Dinosara who sent me this tea. This is a flavored black with bergamot and mild fruit flavors. I’m not getting a lot of the honey flavor. Overall, I find it similar to Harney’s Paris but not as fruity. I was worried it would be too Earl Grey-ish (I’m not a big fan of Earl Grey other than in lattes) because of the bergamot, but it’s not. I agree with the other reviewers who compare it to Kusmi St. Petersburg.
More thoughts later after I have a second cup…
Backlog from yesterday!
In the tin: The tea smells so good – like fruit, but not “fruity”. The bergamot blends in well with the other fruits used and does not stand out; the honey is barely noticeable, except as a sublte sweet smell. The bags Harney & Sons use are really nice. I made a pot of this, because the weather was dreadful and called for a lot of tea. The directions on the side of the tin say to steep for 5 minutes. That’s a bit long to me for a black base tea, but I increased my usual steep time by 30 seconds as a compromise.
In the cup: The tea was a dark reddish brown and still smelled of fruit. It was not very sweet or fruity, until I added a bit of sugar and a splash of milk. I debated over the milk, especially since this tea does have bergamot oil in it, but the slight astringent “teaness” brought out by sugar alone necessitated it. The bergamot flavor (I expect anything with bergamot to taste like earl grey) was not noticeable on its own, but combined with the fruit well. The honey was not distinctive, did not add to the sweetness of the tea (though I did add less sugar than I normally use in a black based tea)
All in all this was a delicious tea to sip while reading a Victorian murder mystery, huddled under a blanket and a cat, watching the Texas winter weather pour down outside the window.
1st smell: Lovely. sweet.
1st taste: This is my 1st H & S tea, to my knowledge anyways. I like it. Not sure if I will like it enough to want to buy a full sized tin for it, but certainly to get another sample case of it from my favorite tea shop. (Little round ‘box’ comes with about six large pyramid bags. ) I did 1 resteeping….The flavor was very noticeably less, although I still enjoyed drinking it I felt that a resteep after that would be pointless. But there was so much of it that I thought it could handle a resteep.
Many thanks to ashmanra for sending this along!
This was very good, but to tell the truth, I couldn’t tell the difference between this and Paris! I will have to try them side-by-side to say the main difference, but since I haven’t had Paris for a couple of days, this honestly tasted just like it.
Yet another goodie from MeghannM! Woot!
This tea is super, super good. It really reminds me of Paris but without the kinda chalky mouthfeel that Paris sometime had. This is awesome! I know all the reviews are mentioning trying this tea without additions, but the aroma of this one was screaming “MILK AND SUGAR!!” So I happily obliged and it is super delicious. I love bergamot and usually wants lots and lots, but this is just slight and perfect. I appreciate the sophistication of many of Harney’s blends.
I think this will be going on my shopping list, I prefer this over Paris (never thought I would say that!) Yum! Thanks MeghannM!
I don’t know why I keep doing this; I’m meant to be cutting back on black tea and switching to green because of the caffeine content.
But I got a tagalong of this along with a bunch of other samples from Harney & Sons, and oh my gosh. Of course I’ve already fallen in love with it. (My next order is going to be so expensive.)
I took the sachets to work, so I had this yesterday evening, but I took some scribbles on a Post-It: “Plum and berries, sweet — delicious, buy more.” I definitely remember the fruitiness, especially the plum, and it was absolutely perfect. I’m guessing the sweetness came from the honey flavoring, but I wouldn’t have guessed because it blended so well with the fruit. And all of it melded perfectly with the very nice tea.
Definitely going on my list of favorites, but I seem to be a Harney & Sons fangirl, so I guess that’s not in the least surprising.
This tea is delicious! I can’t believe I didn’t try this one sooner. It has a slightly fruity vibe to it but combined with the black tea and honey notes it is amazing! I am making a note to share some of this with my Aunt-I think she will love this one!
I love this tea so much. I randomly picked up a “tagalong” tin of it at the Tower of London when I visited last fall, before my recent tea obsession even took hold. I figured, I like tea, and this is The blend of the Tower, so why not? When I got home and tried it, it blew me away. Fruity and honeyed, with an underlying lovely bergamot flavor… it’s basically my number one tea at this point.
I was thrilled to find out that I wouldn’t need to go to the Tower of London, or even order from London, to replenish this tea. It actually took me a while to drink through my tagalong because I didn’t want the tea to end. I recently bought a whole tin of it from Harney (and I think I might have gotten the last one, because right afterward it was out of stock!), and I’m in heaven. Today I’m drinking it out of my Tower of London tea cup that features the famous ravens with little royal guard outfits on. Perfect cup of tea!
1 sachet for 250mL water, stepped 5 minutes, drunk bare.
Hmmmmm. God save the queen. Or at least this tea. The label says “Chinese black teas, stirred with pieces of dried stone fruit, then finished with oil of bergamot and honey flavors.” The base teas are fairly robust, especially for China tea, and they don’t drown beneath the fruit, bergamot and honey flavours. The bergamot is subtle but kisses you in the aftertaste. The honey scent is pleasant. Not sure what the “stone fruit” is — peaches? plums? I get more plum scent than anything else.
Overall scent is a tiny bit artificial. The taste is less so, but still there’s something fakey going on. I am strongly biased against flavoured black teas, so my review of Tower of London (and Paris) should be taken with my prejudices in mind.
A pleasant-enough flavoured black, but still disappointing. Maybe I have a stale batch. I won’t be buying this again.
The dry teabag smelt SUSPICIOUSLY like Paris. Probably the “fruit and bergamot” they both share. Brewed, it smells sweeter—less tart than Paris. Probably the drupe fruit used.
In the sips, I think I definitely get some honey. A deep sweetness not tied to any fruit. I can see why it’s gotten quite a few rave reviews. This stuff’s delicious. Although I’m sipping it after eating half a bag of salty chips, which really isn’t helping the taste buds. But even through that, this is rather enjoyable.
I got it from one of those Home stores, that sells kitchen supplies and interesting knick-knacks for the home. They recently started selling loose-leaf Harney and Sons as well (the ONLY PLACE in my area that does so), however they haven’t much to choose from at the moment (English Breakfast, Earl Grey and Bangkok only). The only tea they had that I pondered trying was Bangkok. But I opted for this instead. Next time!
There’s also a definite Parisy taste in it. But still delicious.
Slept in, husband surprised me with cuddling and a makeout session (sorry if that’s TMI; this is my tea journal…) and then said he was totally game for celebrating Cinco de Mayo the way we traditionally have (he doesn’t drink and tends to get annoyed at how ethnic pride days in the US are just an excuse for college kids to get drunk, rendering otherwise great hole-in-the-walls loud and frantic packed-to-the-gills zoos, so we try to find tiny relatively deserted taquerias that don’t serve alcohol to get our salsa verde on) despite having a mountain of tests to grade. Wound up at Caminos de Michoacan, a taqueria and panaderia in one over in Berclair (awesome time-warp neighborhood, feels like the ‘50s-’80s, working class families, no ugly McMansions or suburban isolation sprawl yet, etc.) we’d ony been to once before, years ago. Had lengua and al pastor tacos along with a bowl of pozole with all the fixings and horchata. Yum. On our way out we grabbed a ton of pastries and cookies (including one of my favorites, an anise-flavored pig-shaped cookie) and the entire bill was still something like $15 cheaper than it would’ve been at any of the more typical spots we frequent. Awesome.
Why am I telling you all this, tealog? Because when we got home I put all the pastries on a big silver platter and brewed up some of this tea. And it was delicious and satisfying and pretty much an ideal Sunday afternoon. I wanted to explain all this because while the tea really did taste wonderful—strong and satisfyingly flavorful enough to stand up to all of those spiced sweets, but smooth and not so complicated I felt distracted or like I was wasting it that way—I feel it’s only fair to note everything else going on was so enjoyable that my mood’s such that anything better than Lipton probably would’ve been alright, ha.
That said, I do think this is an ideal “whenever” daytime blend. I might put it in rotation for my morning tea routine.
submitted as evidence:
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I am definitely not going to rate this one based on the steeping I just had. My tea travel mug decidedly expands in size when it’s hot, so after putting the boiling water in, I couldn’t get the filter lid back off (I had it in because I was leaving the house and the next cup I planned to make was loose-leaf).
So the teabag was trapped (Can you picture this? I feel like I’ve failed). And as i drank this it got progressively more bitter and oversteeped. Still, I enjoyed it so that says something. I didn’t taste much of the honey, but it probably got drowned out. This was my ’don’t fall asleep while taking a test’ blend, and it worked well enough I suppose. The test was still inexplicable and random as usual, but that’s not the tea’s fault.
p.s. Thanks to Meghann for the tea bags!
Tastes like Earl Grey with a touch of honey, smells like a fruitcake.
