Absolutely one of my favourites… As a classics student and overall nerd anything named after Alexander the Great is going to appeal to me!! :D Somehow I remember the blend being different a couple of years ago when I went to Paris, the last time before I went this year, and it had spearmint and things I didn’t like… So to find it to be a green tea with violets (never had a tea with violets before!) in it was quite the pleasant surprise. And so, I have a tin of it to accompany my delicate rose tea. You can’t have one without the other…
The scent from both the leaves and the brew are beautifully fragrant and sweet, like they used an essential oil in it as well as the flowers. To me it smells exactly like parma violets… probably because I’ve only eaten two things with violet flavouring in before, parma violet sweets and crystallised violets chocolate. This is very much like that— sweetened as well as naturally sweet. And the colour of the tea is lovely! A pale green rather than the yellow you might normally expect from a sencha or bancha (which is what the leaves look like)!
The first sip is always surprisingly overwhelming in its fragrance and sweetness, just because, although I know green tea takes floral flavours rather well, I never expect it to take it THIS well. If it wasn’t for the mellowness of the liquor and the slight, pleasant astringency at the end of a sip I would think I was just drinking violets without the tea. But the slight roastiness of the tea is there, like a backup to the violets, and gives it maybe a second little kick to renew the sweetness in the mouth. And the taste is so clean and pleasant… I can’t find any drawbacks on this tea at all; you asked for violets, you got violets. It’s certainly unique, and very simple- can’t help but wonder how an extra couple of flavours might taste in this. Vanilla? Cream?
