JustJames Send Message

i will begin by thanking ysaurella.

this is not a tea i would normally buy, but i really must rank it highly because of what it accomplishes!

have you ever been around bees? not like when a wasp is dive bombing you while you’re driving on the highway, or when you feel a sharp sting at a picnic…. but observed a hive? or spent time around an apiary?

there are very strong, smiling elements of clumsy, fat honey bees in this tea. i always found that bumble bees had an odd warm smell to them, as though heat generated by all of their busy work. the blend has the same warm, velvet honey flavour to it. very reminiscent of fresh honeycomb that is sold at the farmer’s markets every weekend.

the orange is very subtle… not remotely astringent or sharp. not bitterness from the pith. much more like a honey derived from orange blossoms.

a beautiful pairing. i am beginning to conclude that french tea blenders do not simply create a tea, nor is that their goal… nor is it their goal (for the most part) to be purist as their asian counterparts. they are monet and degas…. they see a pastoral scene— maybe bees working in a field, maybe blueberry shrubs crowding around a single rose bush, and they try to capture its essence. in a tea. for my cup.

ingenious. impressive.