Sakura 2000

After my disappointing visit of the Dammann Frères shop, I was so frustrated that I decided to visit the nearest Mariage Frères shop (not a big walk…450 meters ! )

My 10 years daughter was with me and she saw a beautiful canister(Sakura 2012 green tea), she sniffed the blend and she absolutely wanted me to buy it…but it was 22 € and didn’t want to spend so much just for the canister…So to replace I took the Sakura 2000 which is available in loose leaf.

Prepared it yesterday night and I had no problems to sleep behind (theine level shouldn’t be too high)

Well I just need to say it’s a wonderful tea :

the smell is a wonderful bouquet of cherry blossom
there is absolutely no astringency with the liquor, the first sip is highly floral and sweet.
the after taste is clearly fruity with a delicious sweet cherry.

You keep the taste a long time after finishing it, it is delightful.

I highly recommend to discover it.

Risking the danger of hopeless cultural stereotyping ( pardon aux français pour ce que se suive), wow, french and scents, they really get how to make things smell sublime. Mariage Fréres particularly included in that – I swear I would buy Vert de Provence to wear as perfume and this is another tea I would just buy and wear as perfume. It smells indeed sublime – some sweet green tea underneath, a bit of fruity cherry, and something floral and wonderful. I would call it roses, tea roses (no relation to tea actually) since I do not know what sakura smells like but it would make sense if it was sakura.

A warning, consider that I am in a mood where I do not seem to really love flavoured green teeas and this is of course a flavoured green. Despite that this of course, evidently wonderful. Cherry blossom green tea was one of the first flavoured teas I liked, and it has became ubiquitous companies now seem to have a take on it. The last few blends I have had of it have been quite bad, so much so they left me with a bias that no, I do not like green tea with cherry after all and have been avoiding it ever since. Trust Mariage Fréres to do sakura tea right and remind me how awesome the idea really is.

Brewed up around 80C and for maybe 3 minutes. It was a very very smooth base with a strong note of red fruits (the cherry) and a very strong rose-like floral note. Lovely.

One of my favourite teas, I’m glad they kept doing that 2000 recipe. The other sakuras they’ve released so far are not that goot

This sencha sakura smells disgustingly sweet—not only is it flavored/scented by cherry blossoms, but the recipe uses quite a bit of cherry oil as well. It smells almost like Dimetapp, a children’s cold syrup. And it tastes like it, too. There is no subtlety to the flavor. The smell overpowers and delivers the same medicinal taste. I can hardly taste the Sencha, because the cherry overpowers so much.

I must admit, I do not usually like fruity/scented teas (other than jasmines), so if you do like strong scents/fruity flavors, this tea may be for you. However, I have had sencha sakuras that are scented/flavored with cherry blossoms alone, and they were much more tasty and subtle in flavor. The cherry just enhanced the sencha—rather than taking over the entire experience as it does in this tea.

The best green tea !