Eve

I was saving the first tasting of the tea for tea party day (tomorrow) but I have not had a nice big pot of good hot tea in almost a week. I decided to go ahead and have this one because it smells very enticing. Thank you, SuperAnna! And thank you, Laurent, for helping her choose my gift box!

I used water just barely at the boil and gave it a three minute steep. Nice color to the liquor makes me think this was a sufficient steep time.

It was hard to wait for it to cool to drinking temperature, but worth it. I took one of the little dried fruit pieces and it was so sweet and nice. The peach flavor in this is very good. I have one or two peach teas that I drink but I always have the feeling that I am getting some kind of burning fumes up my nose from the artificial “high note” that must be a byproduct of the flavoring. This tea does not have that to me. The fruit flavors are light, sweet, and natural tasting. The peach does not “turn” my tongue and make me pucker, and I am pretty sensitive to peach flavors. Done right, I like them. Done wrong, like in peach yogurt from the grocery, they gag me.

I thought at first that peach was the dominant flavor, and I will have to say it is the dominant aroma for me, but as it cools and as I sip, I do find the apple coming out and I think it keeps the peach from misbehaving. Apricot is dicey for me to recognize, since I have eaten very little apricot, and the taste is much like peach to me, only mellowed and warmer.

This was a nice choice for this dreary grey day while spring is being held out of my grasp!

Thanks to Laurent at Nina’s Paris for this sample!

Dry and brewed up, this tea smells deliciously fruity. No strong “astringent” aroma as I noted with Mon Secret, so I gave it a bit longer of an infusion, although I was still pretty cautious. Flavourwise it’s pretty fruity and full-bodied, with a lovely malty-tasting black base with is just the slightest bit astringent. I can’t specifically identify the fruits in here aside from peach (although it’s not overly peachy, I can just catch hints of it), but it’s tasty, and I’m pretty sure that the vanilla is contributing to the smooth flavour. Not bad! If you’re picking up samples from Nina’s, I’d definitely recommend this one for a fruity black.

The smell of this tea is intoxicating to me. It is like sweet dried apples, but not too tart.

The smell of the brewed tea is amazing. I can’t quite put my finger on what it smells like. It is almost like those sprinkles that you put on hard sugar cookies, the ones that look like glitter. I can smell apples, peach, vanilla, white chocolate, very sweet but not overpowering. Almost like icing.

The taste of the tea is similar to the smell, but not as complex. You can taste the strong black base, the apples and possibly the apricot, or it might be peach. You can also taste the vanilla.

I think I like this one better than Marie Antionette.

I find that Nina’s Paris teas taste best when brewed for shorter periods of time, around 2 min. Otherwise the black base gets too strong.

1.5 tablespoons for 375 ml

Smooth black tea flavour. The apple, apricot, peach and vanilla are very well blended although I feel that they aren’t as bold as I would like. I feel that these flavours work very well together.

Sinfully good! The smell when dry was tart so I was a little worried, but there was no reason to be the vanilla balanced it out well. Creamy, fruity, goodness! As it cooled it was like biting into a freshly pealed apple skin, makes me wonder how this would taste iced?

Thanks to Laurent and Sophie for this sample.

I’ve had a bad day. My team lost and I’m subsisting on two hours of sleep. The only saving grace to this day was the arrival of my Nina’s Tea samples. I’ve been waiting for them and they did not disappoint. 

This is one lovely tea. It’s very peachy. And not artificial peach but a very sweet yet tart juicy peach flavor. There is also a bit of apple but it’s not as up-front as the peach. There was also a nice vanilla finish.The black tea base was lovely with no astringency. It was very smooth and creamy. 

I did a second steep because I loved it so much. The peach became more of a background flavor. The apple and vanilla really stood out. I was also surprised to see the apricot come out so boldly. It almost reminded me of apricot jam. There was absolutely no fade. It only got better.
 
I love this tea. I want to buy a whole bunch of it. It is one of the best flavored black teas I have tried so far. I can’t wait to try Nina’s Japon tomorrow.