French Breakfast Tea

Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Malt, Chocolate, Vanilla, Alcohol, Biting, Bitter, Floral, Fruity, Astringent, Dark Chocolate, Smoke, Caramel, Tannin, Tobacco
Sold in
Loose Leaf, Sachet
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Teatotaler
Average preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 45 sec 64 oz / 1902 ml

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62 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Feeling better today, so I started the morning with this tea. I’m going to have a Mariage Freres tasting day today, I think. I’m still not in the mood for anything heavily flavoured, so I’m going...” Read full tasting note
    100
  • “This was sent to me by the wonderful Sil. Having this tea as I’m getting ready to go out. Whoa! Did not expect to like it this much. I have no idea what’s in a French Breakfast, and Mariage Frères...” Read full tasting note
    84
  • “Thank you Scheherazade for this sample. This tea is strong with malty and smoky tones. Thick and velvety with sweetness and a touch of astringency. A drop of milk smooths it out nicely and brings...” Read full tasting note
    81
  • “Casey and I are drinking a pot of this tonight. We are maybe two pots away from a sipdown. This doesn’t taste as strongly flavored as last time, but I’ve been drinking a lot of flavored teas...” Read full tasting note
    80

From Mariage Frères

This perfect marriage of great and elegant black teas produces a rounded taste of malt and chocolate.

Its highly developed flavour is both powerful and refined. A felicitous blend in the best tradition of the French art of Tea.

With or without milk, perfect with a continental breakfast.

PREPARATION ADVICE FOR 1 CUP :
Amount of tea leaves: 2.5g
Best water temperature: 95 °C
Infusion time: 3-5 min

About Mariage Frères View company

Company description not available.

62 Tasting Notes

1711 tasting notes

I recalled loving this tea and was excited to finally get it restocked. Somehow I seemed to have gone wrong with it because I’m not getting the delicious cup I remembered. It was very heavy on the tannins and the acidity sat hard in my stomach. Maybe I had a creamer I liked better than what I have access to now? Maybe I was using different steeping parameters? I’m not sure what the difference is, but I hope I figure it out quickly!

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec
Evol Ving Ness

Hmm, if I am not mistaken, they also have Paris Breakfast. One is better.

Have you tried using cooler than boiling and doing a fast steep. Hope you figure it out soon too.

Evol Ving Ness

Tea challenges—ouf! I can relate.

Dustin

I haven’t tried Paris Breakfast before! I think I need a lower temp on this one.

paprika

Thank you for this! I was considering ordering this when I placed my upcoming order from Mariage Freres, but I think I’ll try another one.

Dustin

It’s hard to pull the trigger on an unknown MF tea when the minimum is a pricey 100g bag!

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79
3 tasting notes

‘Elegant’ is my best descriptor for this tea. It isn’t hearty like Irish breakfast tea: to me it’s more of an afternoon tea, to be lingered over. I have been drinking it for a couple of years and still not figured out what the subtle tastes are — perhaps it’s malt, as the blurb says. It doesn’t need to “go with” any kind of food. It’s interesting all by itself.

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100
20 tasting notes

This is my perfect tea. So many tasters on here are able to say such wonderful, insightful, things about the nuances of unflavoured tea and they always drink their tea straight. I “pollute” my black teas with milk and sugar/honey on a regular basis and I’ve just had to live with my shame. This tea however, rescued me. I can drink it straight. I can actually enjoy it sans milk or sugar. I like it better with both but I like it without as well. It’s not too bitter. I have to stop it at four minutes,45 seconds on the dot or it becomes bitter but at that precise time it is smooth and delicious.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 45 sec

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59
31 tasting notes

I was so intrigued by this tea that I almost bought it instead of Marco Polo at Gumps. I ended up buying both.I have this thing for breakfast teas, I don’t know quite why, but I wanted to try this blend labeled “French Breakfast”.

So I crack the tin open, and take a whiff: definitely some Darjeeling was mixed, that or Nepalese. The quality was good, black leaves, with contrast, and scattered dark greyish greens. Because of the fact that it had some Darjeeling/Nepalese in it, I cut fifteen seconds off my brew to cushion. (I dislike brewing with seconds). I did this in my 24 ounce white teapot. It gave me a nice amber rose cup, with the taste familiarity of muscatel and the mix of earth and grass, nutty; the definite characteristics of a Darjeeling/Nepalese. I wouldn’t say it’s completely full bodied, but it’s take was smooth, and it’s finish was astringent. Elegant throughout.

The second cup I added light agave nectar which eliminated the sharp finish. The third cup I added agave nectar and 2% fat milk (I really wish I had WHOLE milk on hand). I think the body is lost, and my sweetener took over, something that happens if you ever try having additives to Darjeeling/Nepalese teas. Because of that this tea is not as versatile as some other breakfast blends.

I wasn’t disappointed with this tea. I’d recommend it to black tea skeptics, this or FF Puttabong Darjeeling. This tea was very enjoyable, and I was glad I purchased it from Gumps. There sure are better blacks out there than this though, and because it’s price for questionable quality leaves, its lack in versatility, and it’s production, Zhi Tea’s Classic English Breakfast still reigns supreme for my morning cup.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 45 sec

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56
10 tasting notes

I feel like this blend has declined over the past few years, as it used to have a more robust flavor and flowery notes. The most recent tin I purchased had more cocoa hints and felt like a different quality of tea entirely, from the batch I had bought 3 years or so before. It is still a decent tea, but I must say, it didn’t really hold up to the first batch I purchased.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 30 sec

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2965 tasting notes

Oooh, this is lovely. Rich and a bit malty, but somehow still very light! Yum!

gmathis

Another bulk buy, I’m guessing?

Rosehips

Yes! Yum yum!

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90
113 tasting notes

love this tea for breakfast – like an english breakfast but softer. <3 so chill.

Flavors: Malt

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 4 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 300 OZ / 8872 ML

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90
5 tasting notes

I’d heard such good things about Mariage Freres as a brand and about this blend in particular and while I was literally just in Paris less than a week ago, I failed to pick any up before I left. I had to order it when back in the UK and pay the exorbitant shipping prices… but it was all worth it! My order arrived this morning and a cup of French Breakfast was at the top of my agenda.

This is a gorgeous black blend, nice and strong but with some lovely chocolate subtleties without the bitterness that can sometimes come with black tea blends (particularly when oversteeped, which I tend to be guilty of on occasion). This is a great way to get the day started and will definitely be part of my regular tea repertoire.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 5 min, 0 sec

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78
257 tasting notes

Hello again, great tea tasters across the fruity (and malty) plains. It’s been way too long since my last review. I’ll try to make this one brief.

I have had Mariage teas before. Although I respect their complex blended flavors, I am not big on fruity, liquor-laden, flowery, and chemical-like tastes. I’m more of a purist when it comes to my favorite teas, especially black teas, which I depend on to jump-start my brain during the work week.

When I saw Mariage’s French Breakfast Tea in the local Dean & DeLuca store, I hoped that it would have robust flavors but in a more conventional black tea way. My hope was dashed. This tea seems to have a taste that is very similar to their Bourbon Rouge and Marco Polo (can’t get that swimming pool commercial out of my head) blends.

The flavors are robust but have a chemical-like tang to them. I don’t want to call this astringency, but it’s borderline so. Also, this attribute stays on my palate way too long. Like their other teas that I’ve tried, my tongue detects a hodge-podge of liquor, flowers, and fruit.

I don’t hate this tea but it is not one that I would prefer to pry my eyes open in the morning. For that purpose, I will cling to the tried-and-true English and Chinese breakfast and Earl Grey varieties.

Flavors: Alcohol, Biting, Bitter, Floral, Fruity

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 4 tsp 32 OZ / 946 ML
Super Starling!

I’m not sure ANYONE can get those swimming pool commercials out of their heads. ;) The best part is the llama.

Are you in America or Canada or somewhere else? I’m an American, and I keep hearing great things about this company, but never spot it anywhere.

Stoo

Hi Super Starling! Thanks for your comment! I am in the United States in South Carolina. Where are you?

Super Starling!

I’m in Pennsylvania. Like, that middle part with the cows. I’ll have to see if I can find a Dean & DeLuca next time I’m in a place with a concentration of humans. :)

Stoo

We were just in the Scranton area visiting my wife’s family two weeks ago. My favorite place up there is the Dunmore Candy Kitchen.

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100
69 tasting notes

This morning I start a new life phase and it seems only right that I go along with this new friend of a tea. I was in Paris for ten days in May, a long-awaited birthday trip, and on the day of we celebrated with brunch at the Mariages Freres in le Marais. Brunch came with a full-sized pot of tea for each person, which should be the standard, in my opinion. I chose French Breakfast on a whim although I virtually never drink breakfast blends (gourmand all the way for me), and when I poured the first cup from the round silver teapot I didn’t regret it.

The taste is rich and full, a welcome into the morning. I’ve always associated breakfast blends with harshness, a wake-up full of tannins to brace you for the day ahead – but this is indeed breakfast in France, a gentle cup that feels like the last warm moment wrapped in your bedcovers before you rise for a day you’ve been looking forward to. Allow me my sentiment; I’m only freshly back in Los Angeles and looking to a day of drudgery applying to temp agencies and likely-looking jobs. The skies outside are a dreadful pessimistic grey but at least for the moment I have my French Breakfast.

Sil

wooohoooo!!! love this one too :)

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