Grand Amour

Must. have. one. more. sipdown. tonight. Oh man… good thing i’ve got conference calls tonight because i need at least one more tonight to get myself back down to 300 tonight after my swaps arrived (i’m ignoring the fact that i also received some bagged teas that need to go into my cupboard and i say NO!).

Anyway…SIPDOWN! Thank you Nina’s paris for this sample…my last of the bunch that were sent to me.

Edit: So about the tea… I quite enjoy the caramel mixing with the fruity taste. I prefer it just a little more than je t’aime because of the fruitiness, though if i wanted a straight up caramel tea i’d stick with the other one. This reminds me of one of the other teas that i purchased from Damman Frere’s but i’ll have to give it some thought before i say which one it is.

Overall, the black base is present in this one along with the caramel notes AND the fruity notes. The vanilla is also present, though less so imo than the caramel.

Oh joy! Joy! Holy cow! This is not at all what I expected. Instead it is 18273658382 times better. (Tip of hat to JacquelineM there.)

Thank you, Nina’s Tea, for these lovely samples!

It was hard to choose my flavors for sampling from Nina’s Tea. There are so many and they look so good. A few French teas I have purchased have been unbelievably yummy, but a few required tweaking as the base could get bitter to me, like Dammann Freres Charlotte au Chocolat.

Honestly I made this tea because the Je T’aime smelled too good to drink yet. I wanted to save it for a really special time, not the middle of the homeschool day waiting for a student. It smelled so good the dog was dancing around my feet with his eyes wide because he thought I had a dessert hidden somewhere.

Now on to this one – the fruit aroma was absolutely arresting. It was so real, so fresh. So Garden of Eden pure. The fruit rides above, but is grounded and rounded by, the vanilla and caramel notes. I braced myself to sip, in case the base was one of the rough ones, but no! It is as smooth as silk, and you can taste the tea! Delightful, and delicious!

Just as exciting to me – this is a very close flavor profile to the tea my daughter bought in Budapest that we adored but have been unable to get again. Excellent, delicious, wonderful flavored tea, fit for a tea time with nobility. Even better, get it for yourself and sit down with a good book, some soft music, and a cup of this. You will feel like a benevolent Lady of the Manor.

Grand Amour, I love you. I would share you with the one I love, but I drank you all up.

Speaking of the one I love, a little old retiree lady called today to tell my hubby that she saw Safe Haven yesterday and that Josh Duhamel reminded her so much of him that she just had to call and talk to him!!!! I feel just a little bit jealous! LOL! (I confess, I think my hubby is gorgeous!)

Thanks to Nina’s Tea for a sample of this tea!

Brewed up, this smells insanely fruity. It’s like…. sour wildberry gummy candies? Like, the little 5 cent berries you can buy at convenience stores. The flavour is equally fruity; the predominant flavour I’m tasting is probably raspberry. There is supposed to be cream in here; I suppose it’s contributing to the smoothness of the tea, but it’s not really obvious otherwise.

For some strange reason, I’m typically not fond of wildberry-flavoured things (I’m really not sure why), so this tea isn’t my favourite, but for anyone looking for a very, VERY fruity, tasty flavoured black, I’d definitely point you towards this one! Keeping my prejudice out of the way, it’s a really fantastic tea!

Sadness!! I was so excited to try this, after sniffing the dry tea. Berry goodness oh my!
But then I steeped it up and got mostly caramel and vanilla, with a barely a hint of berry. Sighs.
I’m not a big vanilla tea fan, but the caramel seemed to balance it out somewhat. It was more the aroma that I found offputting, when I think about it. Oh well, it was a smooth cuppa, I have to give it that! Perhaps a little biting towards the bottom of my mug. It was a rather large mug because I wanted to use up the entire sample.
Don’t go by my rating though, since I’m not a vanilla champion heh. And hey, I’d never turn down another free sample of it…

yesterday my sister asked me what my spirit animal is.
i told her Sherlock.

this tea is total yum.
like eating those raspberry filled godiva chocolate bars.

i keep feeling like it’s friday. (it’s thursday)
i can’t seem to focus and just want to read books all day.

Thank you to Nina’s Paris USA via Kittenna for this free sample.

When I was growing up, we had red currants growing in our yard. My dad used to make wine from them. I can remember going out and picking the currants off of the bush when they were ripe.

The dry and brewed tea smell like red currant. There is also a hint of raspberry. The brewed tea has a smell of strong caramel.

The tea tastes like red currants and caramel. It is not sweet but also not bitter or tart. I like it this way.

J’adore Grand Amour!

Received this as a sample from Sophie and Laurent, merci!

Decided to try this one first.
It’s VERY fruity! I think it may be a bit too fruity for me, though it is tasty for sure, I find the fruitiness is so extreme it borders slightly on cough syrup territory. I am enjoying it though, I might like it a bit more if there was more caramel/vanilla taste in it to balance off the extreme fruitiness.

Not sure what red currants taste like but I am noticing the raspberry for sure!
Overall a pleasant tea, my own tastes just stop me from loving it.

So glad to have tried this, and I am looking forward to digging into my other samples from Nina’s Tea!

(3 min @ boiling)

ETA

I was going to resteep the remnants of this and then I went upstairs and got distracted on Facebook (Weird, right? That never happens!) and forgot it was steeping. Came down like half an hour later and I took a sip anyway, because I figured it would be a bit weaker and maybe more forgiving since it was the second steep. Silly me, it was disgusting! Everything I didn’t like about the first steep was highlighted and multiplied by 1 million. Straight up cough syrup. First tea I’ve actually spit out! As soon as it touched my tongue. I mean obviously no sane person would ever drink tea steeped for 30 min but I thought it was worth noting. The extreme cough syrupiness, that is. Blech. I want to lower the rating because this legitimately left a bad taste in my mouth, but I know that wouldn’t be fair. So I won’t.

Tea smelled good dry and made. The tea was quite bitter though. And it was only brewed 3 minutes. Not a fan of my first Nina’s and was glad it came as a sample.

This is the perfect balance of flavor. I can taste it all! Sometimes with a flavored tea there’s so much going on that one flavor over shadows the other, not with this tea! I used just a little sugar and this taste like raspberry pie ala-mode from the amish country. They put a layer of caramel on the bottom of the crust then the berry filling and whipped cream on top. Yes! Raspberry pie with a cup of black tea is exactly how this taste. Yummy!!

Fruity, incredibly fruity. Maybe too fruity if that is possible. Since I opened the sample all I can smell or taste is raspberry and red currant. I am starting to panic for fear I will never taste anything else ever again.

I let the tea cool to room temperature while I ran some errands. The fruityness is not so overwhelming now. I think this might make a good iced tea. I do not taste any caramel or vanilla though.

Mmmm. The house was freezing this morning. It was actually in the 50s. Now that might not seem cold to those of you from chillier parts of the country but here in SoCal it’s mighty cold. So it was with much effort I dragged myself from bed and into the kitchen. The thought of new tea to try was a huge motivator.

I decided I wanted a black tea to start the morning and went with Nina’s because they had been so gracious to send me a sample. On first sniff it was all cream and raspberry to me. After it’s been brewed the current peaks out a bit more and balances the raspberry.

The one thing that strikes me about this tea is the level of creaminess and underlaying sweet tones. It would be easy for a tea like this to become bitter but it tastes like a dessert tea even without an additives. I do taste a faint note of caramel that could be increasing the sweetness and giving it depth but I’m really not sure if that’s exactly what it is.

Next time I don’t know if I’d have this as a breakfast tea. It seriously feels like I’m eating dessert first. I was looking into ordering more of this but while the price is pretty reasonable the shipping from amazon is pretty steep to get just 50 grams of this which is what I would want.

Overall a wonderful tea. Thank you Laurent!

This is absolutely delightful! Thank you, Laurent, for this sample! Like ashmanra said, the black tea base is silky smooth. The raspberry, red current, caramel, and vanilla meld together to make a delicious fruity and creamy dessert tea. I think it would be amazing as an afternoon tea with a scone. Nothing gets better than that! :)

Edit: steeped it twice and it was just as good the second time!

Sample package: 2” x 2” clear plastic zip-lock, measured 1.75 tsp.
Label: “GRAND AMOUR “ (No ingredients listed. No brewing instructions.)

Per http://www.ninasparis.com/en/pro_tea0.html:
“Le gourmand GRAND AMOUR
Raspberry, red currant, vanilla, caramel
True love between raspberry and red currant: an irresistibly fruity attraction. Love at first sight, guaranteed!”

Thanks to Laurent at Nina’s Paris Tea Store USA
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ninas-Paris-Tea-Store-USA/569332199761362
for the recommended brewing instructions: 1 rounded tsp. / 205*F / 6oz / 2.5 min and for confirming that each sample pack is a two-cup sample.

Technique:
12-oz water with total dissolved solids (TDS) of 19 ppm – verified with HM Digital DM-1: http://www.tdsmeter.com/products/dm1.html
Heated to 212*F and allowed to cool to 205*F – verified with DAVIDsTEA digital thermometer
Steeped the entire tea sample in a single container for 2.5 minutes, and then poured two six ounce servings.

This tea has a potent raspberry fragrance.

2.5-min Infusion: The aroma followed the strong raspberry fragrance. The flavor was a blend of raspberry, fruit (red currant), black tea, vanilla, and caramel, with the raspberry as the strongest of the five. This flavored tea was not at all bitter or astringent and had a clean finish. However, the black tea base was light- to medium-bodied. (This may be due to the sub-optimal sample size.)

Impression: A smooth, light- to medium-bodied fruity desert tea.

Suggestions: Nina’s Paris should consider assuring that there are at least two rounded teaspoon in each sample pack. “Love at first sight, guaranteed!” might be more likely if each sample contained enough tea for two cups. It’s false economy to not provide sufficient tea for a good first impression.

Thanks to Nina’s Paris for providing this free sample.

Smells lovely!

Tastes pretty good too…there is a nice balance with the fruity flavors and black tea. I wish it was just a tad bit stronger but then again I won’t have to ration out a little 1-2 tsp sample, lol.

My initial impression of the tea was that it smelled very much like a Keemun, with only hints of fruit hiding in the background. The taste showed more fruit, but definitely in a secondary role to the tea. The flavor was full and rich with moderate amounts of tannin and acid, but no bitterness. The taste blended smoothly into a good finish.

When I tried adding a bit of Nutra-Sweet, the fruit moved from the background to the foreground, with raspberry and currant becoming more or less equal to the tea in the flavor balance. I’m not sure whether I liked the tea better with or without the sweetener, but it was significantly different. I couldn’t really detect the caramel flavor, and the vanilla was at most a hint in the background.

This tea would appeal to someone who likes a hint of flavor adding subtlety to their tea, not to someone looking for fruit flavor with a bit of caffeine.

My thanks to Laurent at Nina’s Paris for the sample

Added note: second steep almost as good as the first