Chaud Les Marrons!

We have back to back winner teas this morning!

As many of your may know, I’m not really a fan of black teas, usually. There’s only a very few that I enjoy and all of them are flavored. I’m not versed enough in black teas to even pin point the reasons some are tastier than others, which is something I’d like to remedy, but I never find myself wanting to familiarize myself with unflavored blacks as this will take time, money and drinking of a tea I don’t generally enjoy. :/

In any case, this tea! Oh my. so tasty. I can’t say much for the smell since it sort of absorbed the smell of the other teas it was stored with. I’m pretty sure that muscat aroma isn’t from a chestnut flavored tea. :) Once brewed, it still has a bit of a fruity aroma but the taste is something else. There’s a smooth barely smokey sweetness in the front of the sip, like roasted chestnuts. Then as you swallow, there’s the bitterness that reminds me of biting into the fuzz around the chestnut meat, but it quickly dissipates and you are left with the comforting impression of sweet roasted chestnuts. It’s like a winter morning in a forest cabin.

I’m reminded of chestnut creme desserts in France and I wonder if this would be good with sugar and cream, but I am usually disappointed when I mess with a tasty tea like that. I think I’ll just leave it like this. Chestnuts are under-appreciated around here. In France, you’ll find chestnut flavored everything. Chestnut yogurt was pretty darn good.

Anyway, thanks again for another great tea Azzrian! Every time I try another tea from Lupicia, I find myself desperate to make an order with them.

Edit: Having no French skills, I used google translate to figure out the meaning of “Chaud” and now I know that “Chaud Les Marrons” simply means “Hot Chestnuts.” The name of this tea is elegant in its simplicity. :)

This is an absolutely delicious breakfast tea! I am so glad that it was asked for in a trade because I had not even had time to open a few of my Lupicia teas yet! This is so delicious!
Or is it delicioso? LOL
Regardless, once again Lupicia delivers a solid tea!
Sweet but not too sweet, bold base but not over whelming to the flavor.
I am looking forward to this waking me up in a cozy way! :)

Another eagerly anticipated sample from Azzrian! Thanks! :D

The aroma is a little sweet, and a little nutty. I actually don’t think I’ve had hot chestnuts before (although they always sound delicious when I read about them!), so this is going to be an experience :D Apparently a good one, too – the flavour matches the aroma quite well, with that same nuttiness/sweetness. It’s quite good! There’s a tiny bit of astringency, but probably little enough that knocking 15s off the infusion time would fix it. This is a really interesting twist on a flavoured black, because there’s lots of flavour, but it’s not fruity, or vanilla-y, or caramelly, it just tastes how I imagine hot chestnuts would taste, in tea form! With a black tea base of course, which I can definitely taste. Delicious!

ETA: This was pretty tasty after it cooled too! Maybe good as an iced tea? The second infusion (boiling/4min) is ok, but some of the flavour is gone; it tastes more like an average straight black. The first infusion was definitely better.

Special Thanks to Azzrian for this one :)

This has a slightly sour chestnut aroma.

It tastes like a cross between a chestnut and a macadamia working hand-in-hand with the medium-mellow black tea base. As it cools a bit – at room temp – it does get a little sweeter-nutty.

After letting sit for a bit I did like this – it’s a nice snuggle-E type tea.

Here’s another from my box from LiberTeas from way back when. This is another I fear has been improperly stored and as a result I am not getting any odour. I could tell that it was a black tea but had no idea as to potential flavourings. Actually, even if this had been fresh i probably still wouldn’t have got it, chestnuts in my world are spiny creatures that really hurt when you get hit by them. Of course I would never do such a thing..

Steeped about three minutes, I have a rich brown liquor which is throwing off notes of.. chocolate? Oy. The smell I am getting is milk chocolate at that! There is also something weird behind that but I think it is the buttered popcorn contamination yet again. Darn you buttered popcorn sharing your yuck!

First sips are a mix of the weird contamination taste and some unexpected sweetness. I get something roasty at the back end of the sip which then morphs back into sweetness – while this is likely a very inaccurate assessment of this tea, it is really interesting. There is some bitterness in there as well, but it doesn’t seem to be the tea base – I’ll chalk that up to smell contamination as well.

Once again, the lesson here is to drink your tea quickly!!

Thank you Will Work For Tea for this Sample!

Ah ha! Desert! Roasted Chestnuts? Nah!
As for me Mon Cheri, I do not want roasted chestnuts! I want
macaroons…yes…chestnut macaroons creamy and crunchy.
Have you had them? Rich and perfectly decadent?

There is a glass door not far from my home…‘French Pastry Shop’…it says in fancy black filigree letters. So small a shop, with only 1 large cooled bakery case filled with the most exquisite macarons (French spelling). My favorite ones are Chaud Les Marron Macaron. Lightest cocoa brown…delicate. Only one placed gently in a small paper bag and I’ve scored!
“Where can I go in a hurry?”, I ask myself? There must be a perfect spot in the park to savor this precious treasure.

Can tea be like this?

In the evening, when dinner is a memory…something sweet will add the perfect final touch to my day.
I chose a memory of meandering to the French Pastry Shop for my secret desert as an aid to selecting this tea. Then the enhancement of adding sweetening and a bit of cream (which I think is a must no matter what you say)… just because, how could I not do this?
This is a rich desert tea! If I could get away with sprinkles of chocolate I would do that too! Very satisfying for my sweet craving!

Living a little. Enjoying life.

Playstation Network, what have I ever done to deserve this?! I’m just minding my own business, trying to watch some late night Netflix, but no, Sony is determined to ruin my evening. Well, Sony, I have delicious tea so you can’t ruin it! Take that!

Ahem… anyway, I’m a huge huge fan of Lupicia’s Chestnut Green so when I saw that tattooed_tea was swapping this I just had to have it. Chestnut seems like kind of an elusive tea flavor, so I will hoard all the different kinds like a squirrel waiting for spring. You know, a squirrel who actually drinks all her nuts before spring comes because they’re so delicious…

This has the same sweet, nutty taste as Chestnut Green. The candied chestnut flavor is just so perfectly captured, there’s no mistaking it for anything else! There are strong notes of caramel and spun sugar, backed up by the black base which is surprisingly strong. I haven’t tried many of Lupicia’s black teas, but they seem to share rather robust bases!

I don’t think I like this quite as much as Chestnut Green, which is ever so slightly superior in terms of the base, but it’s still absolutely fantastic! Plus I can be really indulgent with this one and add a nice splash of creamy milk.

oh booo after reading everyones reviews I feel let down. I mist have done something wrong with this one. but here goes my pre-written review.

I’m not sure I’m going to like this one. I can’t quite describe what the dry notes smell like. they’re different. Perhaps a little nutty, but mostly off putting.
As it’s steeping it smells like when something was on your stove element and is now burning.

Wow! I am just having a rough morning with tea so far. this is my third and so far I haven’t been able to finish a mug. I don’t think this is going to be a cup that I can get through.
I guess it tastes like chestnuts, perhaps they aren’t a nut I’m familiar with or not one that I enjoy. at the very end of the sip I do get a nutty flavour but there is too much before that flavour for me to enjoy this.

Oh my god….roasted chestnuts!!! I absolutely love this tea!!!

Such a delicious flavoring for tea.

If you love chestnuts too, you must have this.

That is all.

Oh, this is lovely! The black tea is robust but not so much so that it overpowers the flavor of the roasted chestnuts. The flavor is nutty and a little sweet, toasty with just a hint of smoke and malt. Full-bodied and pungent. I am really enjoying this!

I am currently on my second infusion of these leaves. Both infusions have been very flavorful and delicious.

Another Lupicia from my recent order. I love their Chestnut Green but it has been out of stock for forever. When I saw this one on sale I went ahead and grabbed it on the strength of the Chestnut Green.

To me the dry leaf smells like thick, rich molasses and grains. Nutty, yeah, but mostly like molasses. Steeped, the nuttiness really comes out. It suddenly smells like Christmas in NYC to me, with the roasted chestnuts on the street corners. Um, yum. This is Christmas in NYC to me. It tastes just like roasted chestnuts, so if you like those this is a tea for you. Nutty, roasty, and the essence of warm. Kind of odd to be drinking on a spring day, but delicious nonetheless. I often don’t go for roasty, toasty teas, but there is something about this one that really works for me. I think it’s the whole experience. It’s not just roasted, slightly smoky tea, it’s roasted, slightly smoky chestnuts, and that’s something I can get behind. There’s no sweetness to the main sip but after a minute or so I am left with a slightly sweet taste in my mouth.

I can’t see craving this much during the summer but come fall and winter I think it will definitely see a lot of action. Now put your chestnut green back in stock, Lupicia!

Another chestnut tea from Lupicia – last time I tried Chestnut Green and here’s the black tea version! The chestnut flavour seems to be different in the two teas. It’s sweeter in Chestnut Green, kinda tastes like marron glacé. In Chaud Les Marrons!, the chestnut has a strong roasted, almost smoky, flavour. The black tea base also makes everything taste richer and heavier. I certainly like the green tea version more, though I think a bit of milk would make Chaud Les Marrons! pretty awesome ;)

Ohhhh this smells good. Extremely sweet, like the toasted sugar top of creme brulee. In the cup my first impression is “wow, that smells REALLY sweet, again like Swiss Miss packet sugary sweet” but the flavor is not nearly as sweet as the aroma (and I think I’m a little relieved!). The aroma is not as chestnutty to me as just straight up roasted sugary sweet, but then it’s there in the taste. There’s almost the saltiness of hot roasted chestnuts. So in the mouth we’ve got nutty, salty, and somewhat smooth. I like!

There’s also that quality I noticed in the Lupicia Earl Grey, what I think of as “that Chinese tea smell” (it might not actually be Chinese tea, but that element I always think of as a Chinese tea thing because years ago when I was a preteen visiting Chinatown tea shops in various cities they all smelled like this, and the tea I’d get from them tasted like it too). I don’t know what it is, but it’s in this as well. Not bad.

As this cools, it grows on me—it smooths out even more and the nuttiness, including a mouthfeel resembling eating chestnuts, comes in. Yum. When I want my roast chestnut fix but they’re not available (so pretty much 360 days out of the year here) this is a neat evocation.