Mayflower

I went to the DF shop to buy in person the tea Figue Fraîche but they didn’t have it !
I wanted a tea with fig so I bought this one at the MF shop.
MF rarely blends figs (Boléro has some but it’s clearly not the leading note).I found this one by chance just looking at their website and when I didn’t have the chance to buy at DF, I did know what to do instead.

So I am the first to review this tea and it is strange because the name of tea is an homage to you dear North Americans.

The aspect of the dry leaves is really beautiful : beautiful big petals of a mysterious blue flower (MF says this is a flower which is growing on the pacific coast…any idea dear pacific coast residents?)

Once I steeped it 5 minutes and it’s too much, astringency was really there and I disliked it.

I did it again with 4 minutes steeping and this is perfect, no trace of astringency nor bitterness.

The scent of the steeped leaves made me very happy : I had the fruits and especially fig.

Drinking it is a little bit different, I got more vanilla & exotic fruits (weird because not mentioned by MF but I picked Mango first I think)and the fig but behind.
The black Chinese tea base is nice

This is a very nice afternoon tea, it’s probably not to me to say but I think is this is a beautiful tribute to America.

Fig! so that was what the fruit was. I smelled it and was thinking plums or nectarines or something else, but they are right it is fig indeed.

And I got to say this is the weirdest named Mariage Frères tea I ever had. According to them an hommage to America and its pilgrims so they but blue flowers which according to them bloom in the Pacific (! It´s a whole continent away!) rivers and they flavour it with fresh figs and vanilla. Oh dear. Ah, geography.

This was a sample so kindly sent by Ysaurella, thank you so much! I love trying these lesser know Mariage Fréres teas, and often they can be so very good. That is the case this is a very nice smooth black tea base (Ysaurella reports some trickiness while brewing it, I had not read that note yet and was admittedly careless in that first brew but either I got lucky or it just likes my tap water). I do not get much vanilla though I would swear I keep getting a note like plums! Merci, Ysaurella!