Pleine Lune

Happy Christmas! Today is Christmas with my eldest daughter because she will be in Ireland for Christmas, so we let her open her presents and have her stocking and we are just spending some time together. In addition, we told her about a puppy that was saved from animal control by the no- kill shelter. She has a broken leg and has pins and wires and screws and a plate and they needed a home for her to recover in, and she really wanted to meet the puppy before she leaves so we picked her up tonight! She is resting in front of the fire with her new toy elephant and has eaten voraciously. Apparently someone forgot to tell the little pup that she is badly injured and must rest. If her leg doesn’t heal properly, it will have to be amputated, so we are praying the fix “takes.” Here she is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24998856@N06/8267840867/

I got to open my gift from my daughter’s fiancé and this was it! I know, I know! What a great guy! We decided to have some after supper tonight as a celebratory cup.

I made it in my new Krups which I positively love and we are using several times a day. The base is sooo smooth, the almond flavor is dominant without being overbearing, and it is sweet and light, even refreshing, on the palate. Good gracious, the French really know how to scent and flavor tea!
This is an elegant cup and I shall enjoy every bit of it!

Even my daughter who does not like black tea is drinking it. She likes it!

Pleine Lune is MY tea : the one I would keep with me if I was obliged to live on a desert island for years (hoping I could boil some water on the island !)

I love everything in Pleine Lune : the loose leaf full of wonderful petals of flowers (blue & yellow), the amazing smell of almonds of the dry leaf, the quality of the black tea base and the flavours after infusing.

The main flavours are really almond and honey.

To me Pleine lune is an opulent tea.

Pleine Lune is one of the best seller of Mariage Frères, a very popular tea of the Mariage card.

Some people have it with sugar and milk, I don’t. I have it plain because it’s already a very sweet and generous tea.

I drink it every morning when I have time enough (the week end so !) because I refuse to drink it quickly without paying attention enough to it.

I can really say : Pleine Lune you’re a star …at least you’re MY star.

A Big THANK YOU to Ysaurella for sending me a healthy sample of this fine tea!
I adore this tea!
It is perfectly blended, NO astringency.
I taste notes of cherry, cinnamon, vanilla, almond, spice, and flowers but it is not overly floral and the spices are not taking over the cup!
These notes dance in perfect unison with each other and blend into one delightful cup.
I will be ordering more of this to have in my perma stash.
You can see my full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/ on the 22nd.
I knew I had to try this tea as soon as I saw the name of it and I am thrilled THRILLED it did not disappoint!

This may be my favorite flavored black tea! Wow this is a nice cup of tea. Thank-you Ashmanra for sending over a sample, so I could finally try it!

Vanilla, Almond, and a little spice (& liquor) flavors thrown in. Absolutely delicious. After i get my samples under control, I will definitely order a tin of this.

I keep trying to pinpoint the flavors of this tea, but being exact doesn’t do this tea justice. It has a bit of magic to it. Almond, cherry, spice. Floral on the end on the sip. Something sweet.

Nope. Still doesn’t describe the experience. How all of the flavors dance together to make something indescribably delicious. It tastes more like a liqueur — no. A dessert — no. A candy — no.

I think this is one you have to taste yourself.

The nicest treat I had all week. Thank you Ruby Woo Scarlett!

Going to have to try this one again. For now, though I don’t notice any spices or honey. Smells of cinnamon when steeping, though. And there is a kind of bubble gum sweet smell to the dry leaves.

This is again, a very mild black tea (to my palate anyway) and it is nicely fruity and sweet. Nothing jarring or bitter about this. Mellow and smooth. Given my tastes in tea and my (admittedly limited) previous experiences with Mariage Freres I did use more than a teaspoon for this cup.

I’m very glad I got to try this. Thanks, Ysaurella!

EDIT: I tried this again out here on vacation. I definitely get notes of cinnamon, vanilla and what tastes to me like almond. A very complex and interesting tea! This steep I used boiling water but still steeped for about 5 minutes.

Clue No. 3 “Full Moon” to those of you who are Francophobes.

If the title of this note means nothing to you, and you’re interested in learning about my little game, please read my tasting note at:

http://steepster.com/teas/todd-and-holland/3917-german-breakfast-tea

for an explanation of the game, and my note at

http://steepster.com/teas/mariage-freres/2642-the-a-lopera

for the second clue.

Now, on to the tea!

I am coming to realize that I have a weak spot, a very big weak spot indeed, for cornflowers in tea. They’re just so blue and lovely, in among the leaves. They go well with every color, but for some reason I find them particularly fetching in black tea. This has them, as well as some brown textures which I’m guessing are almond pieces and maybe some vanilla bean pieces as well. An aesthetically pleasing dry mix. It smells strongly of sweet almonds, leaning toward Amaretto rather than the nuts themselves. There’s another strong sweet smell as well, which I can’t really identify as vanilla because of the strength of the almond fragrance, but which, it stands to reason, is what I’m smelling.

It brews to a slightly cloudy chestnut color that smells much nuttier than liqueur-like. Almonds and vanilla. Yeah, I get that. Also get something that reminds me very vaguely of cinnamon and maybe even anise.

The taste is quite nice. I haven’t had a lot of almond teas so I don’t have a lot to compare this to, and the other one that comes to mind also had chocolate in it which is a definite thumb on the scale. But I’m enjoying it, and I am finding myself thinking of what it would taste like with just a tad of milk, or sweetened up just a bit. Or maybe even with some salt to bring out the nut, as LiberTEAS has suggested with other teas in the past. Almond is the predominant flavor here, and it is pretty true to the nut itself. The aftertaste is amazingly like what you get after having cracked open an almond and chewed its inner meat into oblivion. The tea supports this well, but is definitely second violin.

I’m loving Mariage Freres for the most part. They have the perfume of the dry leaves down like no one else for flavored blacks. Mariage me, freres!

mmmm… I received this one in a swap with Ysaurella I am really enjoying this one. I’m not sure if it’s the sample that i received but i’m not getting as much of the cherry notes as others. I really like the smoothness of this tea – the base blends really nicely with the flavours. i really like the spices in this tea. Now that I’ve been sitting with this tea for a bit, the cherry comes out at the end of the sip in the after taste. it lingers in my mouth, blending with the spices in sips that come after.

Thank you so much for this Ysaurella

Another tea from Ysaurella, thank you!

THIS is an almond sugar cookie! It is honey coated almonds with a thin dusting of cinnamon. This is SO delicious! I’m loving it!
The almond flavor is just right, & it’s nicely sweet!
Yum!

It took me a while to review Pleine Lune because it’s my favourite tea. I can’t get enough of it. Some bestsellers I’m flabbergasted are even appreciated but this deserves all the praise and then some.
And I already know I can’t do it any justice but let’s try and convey ALL THE FEELINGS.

It’s a beautiful tea to look at (cornflower in tea really is my weakness), smell and drink. It reminds me rather foolishly of an impressionist painting – it’s a striking landscape full of colourful pieces which, when put together, magically become greater than the sum of their parts. There are no harsh lines in Pleine Lune, the blending is perfection so that you don’t know when one flavour ends and another begins.
I would describe it as an almond flowery tea, and this is one of the few teas that tastes exactly as good and strong at it smells, which is complex (it’s an unusual combination), grown-up (the flowers, surely) and nostalgic (I blame the sweet almond oil my mother used to wash my hair with when I was a wee child).

Pleine Lune, to me, is what tea is about. You can’t get this sort of fantastic aroma of such different food categories as nuts and flowers from any other beverage. And the comfort that comes attached to a mug full of hot Pleine Lune with just a drop of milk and honey is unparalleled.

I credit this for getting me through the year. I know that whatever happens during the day, I’ll at least be able to truly enjoy something in it. I always allow guests to choose which tea they’d like to drink from my stash when I offer hot beverages and everyone’s always picked Pleine Lune; and for some reason every time someone smells it for the first time, it always reminds them of a memory long forgotten. Pleine Lune, it seems, is a lot of people’s madeleine.

I love this so much.

Almond. With some spices – a hint of cinnamon and maybe clove as well. And other things. First time I tried this, and it was not love at first sip. Don´t get me wrong, it is very very nice flavored tea, but then again considering the source and price, so it should be – I am not sure (yet) if it is going to became one of my MF favorites.

It’s nutty and flowery. Not quite sure what to make of it. I only had a 1tsp sample that came from overseas in a swap. There’s a bit of a bitter edge to it, but I may have oversteeped since the color was somewhat light (chestnut brown) so I went all the way to 5 min. Smelt very sweet, like caramel/vanilla and honey, but only the flowery taste seemed to come through. Added a bit of sugar and almond milk. Wouldn’t go out of my way to have it again.

It was my second brew of this tea generously sent by Ysaurella; the first one being a few weeks ago. It had not been love at the first sip. So I deliberately waited until I was in good condition and good mood to give it another real chance.
When preparing my pot, I was amazed at how lovely this tea is: sprinkled with blue and yellow flowers, with bits and pieces of almond, some pieces of what has to be cinnamon. It indeed is one of loveliest MF blends I’ve seen.
The brew remains crystal clear and is lightly fragrant. What is surprising is that the taste comes out as much stronger as I expected from the smell. And the main flavor I get, which I have trouble forgetting to try to identify the others is most definitely clove. All the rest, cinnamon, almonds, seems perfectly blended together, but a few two many buds have managed to get their way to my teapot, for my taste.
Once again I understand how this tea can be a favorite for many, but unfortunately not for me.
Thanks anyway Ysaurella; this will definitely help me avoid a purchase that I should have liked, as everything in the description seemed fine, but which would have disappointed me.

Almond is the dominant flavor here, which I have to be in the mood for – otherwise it will taste too sweet, almost cloying, for my palate. Small bits of almond and blue cornflowers are spread evenly throughout the tea. Good with milk and sugar.

So pretty with the flowers. Dry and brewing, the sweetness of almonds really comes out along with some floral notes—reminds me a lot of Korres’ Bitter Almond scented line of bath products (a compliment as it’s one of my favorite fragrances, and rather unique, not just the usual everyday “nut” scent found in products).

Funny about the Korres Bitter Almond aroma, because upon drinking it reminds me of their Vanilla Cinnamon line. The spices are warm and sweet, and there’s some cherry and vanilla too. All of these things in, say, a cheap drugstore lipgloss, that is to say artificial with a heavy hand, would turn me off, but here they’re beautiful and intoxicating. That said this is indeed quite sweet, so you have to be in the mood for that.

I have a feeling I’m going to have to mete out my MF experiences in order to prevent getting too used to the loveliness, ‘cause my across-the-ocean US pocketbook can’t afford to make them a habit. Hope I don’t start to feel like Icarus flying too high towards the sun only to get burned, ha.

Cteresa warned me that this tea wasn’t a love-at-first-sight experience, but had to grow on her over a certain amount of time. Taking that into consideration, I’ve been trying this tea for some days now (Cteresa, thanks for the very generous sample). I even went so far to take this tea with me to work.

Despite my efforts this tea hasn’t grown on me. I don’t have the advanced palette some of you clearly do have (gosh, the number of different flavors you pick up on!). To my taste the sweet (vanilla, almond?) and cinnamon dominate the entire experience too much. It’s certainly not a bad tea, but just not my thing… I’m apparently just not a fan of the nutty-cinnamon-floral combo.

Nevertheless, thanks Cteresa!! As I’m quite taken with MF, I would have ordered this sooner or later and you’ve saved me the disappointment.

j’ adore ce thé quand t ’ on le goute on a l ’ impression d’ etre sur une ile desserte

Nice almond-based tea, definitely on the sweet side. I like drinking it in the afternoon for a little pick-me-up. Might be nice with milk and sugar for a kid’s tea party (which is not to say it’s unsophisticated!)