Mariage Frères

Day 6 of the Mariage Freres Advent 2025.

Polo Club Blue Sublime is an oolong tea, not usually my favourite but this one is so juicy and fruity it’s impossible not to like. The delicate strawberry-rhubarb flavours intertwine beautifully with the lightly vegetal, floral, and mineral notes of the oolong, and the whole thing is deliciously smooth and silky. Definitely one I’d have overlooked had it not been in the calendar.

Day 5 of the Mariage Freres Advent 2025.

Rouge Metis is a rooibos blend flavoured with red and black fruits and florals. The rooibos is delicately woody but not dry, and there’s an underlying jamminess reminiscent of winter berries – blackberry particularly. There’s a hint of floral, but nothing significant. A deliciously warming morning cup, and great with milk.

Day 4 of the Mariage Freres Advent 2025.

The de L’Aube is a Korean green tea flavoured with yuzu. I’m pretty sure I’ve had a yuzu green from MF before (Yuzu Temple?) but many years ago. This one is pleasantly peppery with notes of smooth citrus, and just the tiniest hint of astringency from the green tea. There may even be a small amount of something like passionfruit contributing a degree of tropical sweetness, but that could just be my imagination. All in all, a pleasant flavoured green.

Day 3 of the Mariage Freres Advent 2025.

Matin D’Afrique is an African black tea with vanilla. It makes a great mid-morning treat; a robust and sweetly malty base with a subtly cozy creaminess from the vanilla. This isn’t a dessert tea, and there isn’t an in-your-face level of flavouring here, it’s just very gentle and balanced and really allows the sweeter notes of the black tea to shine. I feel like MF do vanilla and caramel blends really well, and this one is no exception.

Day 2 of the Mariage Freres Advent 2025.

Royal Purple is a Kenyan tea with a beautiful amethyst-hued liquor. Taste is similar to some oolongs; very mineral, reminiscent of wet rock, and in a way almost grapey or wine-like. Quite a savoury tea, but with hints of soft fruit (particularly apricot) also. Definitely not one I’d have picked out for myself, but definitely intriguing and a varietal I could be tempted to explore more in the future.

Opened the first of my advent calendar from Marriage Freres this morning with all 10 fingers and toes crossed hoping this would the flavor and couldn’t have been happier that wish came true! A creamy milkiness akin to dulce de leche, silky smooth, with a slight mineralic bitterness to balance out the sweetness. Swirls of caramel and cocoa grounded by the earthiness of the oolong . A lovely wintertime tea!

Day 1 of the Mariage Freres Advent 2025.

Milky Blue Caramelo is an oolong, and one I’ve been curious about for a while. I’ve always held back as bagged oolongs in particular have never been my favourite. With this one I may have been missing out. The flavouring is spot on – notes of milk and caramel, detectable separately, but combined creating an overall profile of creamy deliciousness. The oolong base is the perfect counterpoint, adding just a hint of savoury minerality to bring everything back to earth and stop the somewhat decadent flavouring from becoming too overpowering. Glad I finally got to experience this one!

Had this the other day and, though I believe it is intended to be yuzu flavoured, I kept thinking how much the very bright and almost slightly sour citrus notes reminded me of lime or even calamansi. It was very fresh though, balanced by a slightly floral leaning and malty brisk black tea base. Medium to full bodied. It felt like the kind of tea I would only grow to appreciate more over time.

A nice balanced Darjeeling (not 2012 version, 2015?), but lost a lot of flavor very quickly as it aged in the tin.

Purchased in Tokyo Ginza store.

This is one of the teas I brought back from my trip to Europe, which I’m just now getting around to trying. It’s very interesting to me because it’s got that super non-descript but delicious “sweet brown” flavour but is also kind of fruity in both a fresh and candied way. I think the best I can describe the flavour would be something like a really thick, rich maple syrup but crossed with a strawberry compote!? It’s pancake-y in a way, and makes me think of breakfast. I enjoyed it quite a bit, even though I did find it a little reminiscent of the Macaron blend from MF that I picked up at the same time…

Enjoyed a cup of this tea paired with none other than, well, even more macarons!! These vanilla bean macarons are lightly sweet and creamy and practically melt in your mouth, which is perfect for this equally delicate and subtly sweet black tea blend. It’s somewhere between medium and full-bodied with a bright, fruity berry-like top note that smoothly transitions into the malty, floral taste of the tea itself before finishing with a more ethereal sweetness that seems to roll up notes of icing sugar, almond paste, and cherry blossoms all into one deliciously pastry-like flavour. It’s quite impressive because this tea really captures not just the taste of a macaron but also the magical feeling and mouth-watering aroma of carefully hand-selecting your own box of macarons from row after row of confections forming a rainbow of different treats! I love when a tea takes me somewhere else, and right now, a French patisserie is exactly where I want to be.

Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/DIpDLHfyDOg/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91C00DdsypE&ab_channel=CityMall-Topic

Absolutely gorgeous! While the appearance of this tea is the main appeal to me, the aroma and flavor are also quite delectable. Elegant, smooth, very little astringency. I would like for this brew to have a more pronounced bergamot note and for the leaves themselves to have more nuanced depth. That aside, this might just be the most pleasant Earl Grey I have had the opportunity to try.

I was lured in by the name of this tea and design on the label a few years ago, but it has yet to win me over. I have a hard time with a lot of the almond flavoring French companies use. It’s more of a powdery floral high notes version of almond and is much different than the deep toasted flavor that a lot of American companies use. This cup is all high notes. I do get some spices in here along with the powdery (think the scent of baby powder) almond and at one point I got notes of gelatin vitamin capsules that vitamin E and D come in, which reminded me to take my vitamins for the day. Not a very flattering description of a tea! I’m going to try this tea a few more times before I give up.

No one in my family is a serious baker (my maternal grandmother casts a long shadow). Once in blue moon cookies may happen. When they do, they come with a warning from my mom: “don’t overuse the vanilla. Don’t try to taste the vanilla extract straight up. You will regret it.”

Judging by the profile of this tea, no one ever offered similar advice to Mariage Frères.

The vanilla flavour is intense. Some might say too intense. It’s bold, sharp, vaguely alcoholic, and a stark reminder that vanilla does derive from an orchid and that the orchid in question probably hates you.

It’s just a lot, and there’s nothing to really balance it out. The black tea base isn’t naturally sweet or rich enough to make it feel like a finished dessert bake; it’s malty and astringent, with maybe a hint of something starchy and velvety.

I think the recommended steeping parameters of 95C for 5 minutes are the best bet for this tea. Some milk can help too, as does skipping straight to the second steep. A dab of maple syrup, or the right honey, may also be a welcome addition. Then you arguably have a breakfast raw pancake mix tea. Otherwise, this tea is a bit like eating the raw ingredients sans sugar. It’s like drinking vanilla extract.

Do Not Recommend. But, also – does anyone want this?

Picked this up because of the pandan leaves in it, and it really does make for a pretty interesting cup of tea. Very thick mouthfeel and really buttery taste and texture that makes me think a lot of milk oolong. However, it also has notes of sticky rice and a hint of coconut. Probably not something i’d want to drink all the time since it is quite buttery/milky and that’s a type of flavour that (for me, anyway) is a little more situational. However, it was so snuggly and comforting!

I’d often heard about Marco Polo, but I’d never really researched its profile or flavours. To tell the truth, the name conjures up visions of grand adventures to distant lands, perhaps with a touch of Russian mystery, akin to Kusmi’s blends, or the delicate charm of Darjeeling. However, this particular blend surprises with a soft strawberry-cream flavour more reminiscent of a continental European breakfast, unlike the bolder strawberry-cherry notes of Dammann’s Quatre Fruits Rouges.

The leaves, though small and broken, exude a juicy cherry aroma that is both inviting and comforting.  It may not sweep you off your feet instantly, but it offers a subtle sweetness that is undeniably charming. While Quatre Fruits Rouges was love at first sip with its rich, jammy depths, Marco Polo offers a slightly drier, more restrained experience.  Yet, it remains a refined and enjoyable choice.

Although I find myself leaning toward Mariage Frères’ Wedding Impérial or Trois Noix, or even the Paris blend from Harney & Sons, I’m pleased to have given Marco Polo a try. It didn’t disappoint.

Your sleepiest guy reporting for duty.

The color of this tea is so deep, dark, and rich that, paired with the warm spices and a touch of astringency, it exudes red wine and makes pinning down the flavors just a little more difficult. All of that and the fact that I am, in fact, bad at it, but I also find it interesting how divided the reviews on this tea are when it comes to the profile. What we can all agree on seems to be that it is very dark.

The fruitiness is most pronounced in the aroma of the dry leaves and has me dancing between strawberry and apple, but clove infused with the sweetness of cinnamon emerges as the prevailing flavor of the steep. That will have to satisfy us, as the exact ingredients appear to be a guarded secret and picking through the leaves isn’t the most forthcoming occupation to this end. The weather is a little warm still to fully appreciate this one but I am sure it will have its time.

my mum was given this tea as a gift and then brought it along with us on a trip so that i could enjoy a nice cup of tea while we were away.

i don’t know if i would recommend this tea! it is mariage freres, so of course it is drinkable, but i’m not really sure what it’s trying to be. my first thought upon hearing the phrase russian breakfast was that it would be smokey, but instead it was a lot more citrusy and malty than i thought. almost lemony! this tea feels like it has a lot of top notes but then it all sort of disappears, which surprised me. apparently you can enjoy this with a little milk and i imagine you could but i don’t know if i’d like it with milk in?

it is totally re-steepable so you definitely get your money’s worth but i’m not sure if would purchase it. it’s a mild breakfast tea, but not to my taste which is unusual for me because i usually really like breakfast tea!

Pleine lune presented a rather jarring bitterness, with a pronounced note of bitter almond. The aromas were exceedingly strong, which might fare better as an iced tea. The mouthfeel was notably thick and accompanied by a certain astringency that brought to mind cough syrup, despite my efforts to steep it gently.

This particular brew struck me as overly perfumed and robust. The flavour combination seemed cluttered – too many flavours without the elegance one might anticipate.

I wonder if my experience was a mere anomaly or a rogue batch that somehow escaped Mariage Frères’s usual quality control. I had good expectations, but I was left disillusioned. It fell short of the grace and depth I associate with Mariage Frères and other French teas.

(Not exactly sure why Steepster marks this tea as unavailable, I just bought it in Paris) The first occasion upon which I sampled this tea blend, my nostrils were regrettably congested (whether due to a mere cold or something of greater concern, I could not ascertain). Upon finally being able to appreciate its aroma, I was nearly moved to tears. The sumptuous scent alone is an olfactory marvel. This exquisite tea, with its deep, rich aromas of sweet chocolate, ranks among the finest I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. I confess, I do harbour a particular fondness for chocolate teas. Although the packaging advises steeping for 5 minutes at 95°C, I reckon a slightly more delicate approach of 4 minutes at 90°C is ideal to avoid any bitterness.

Strong smell of amaretto but also something else… vodka? treated wood? marascino cherry? Once brewed, I don’t get that strong smell any more, just a sweet smell of almond essence. It’s good, but I really think that this kind of flavour is best enjoyed with a tea that can withstand a warmer brewing temperature (in other words, black tea).

My nose is still a bit blocked from the cold but its smell is reminiscent of a dessert nut with a strong almond presence like marzipan. While other nutty hints might be there (pecan, walnut), the almond takes center stage. The first sip offers a robust black tea base, but the marzipan-like character translates beautifully. The almond essence isn’t overpowering, but it adds a unique and delightful twist to the classic black tea experience.

Gonna be honest, I expected to not love this one but I thought it was pretty solid. In typical Mariage Freres fashion it’s basically impossible to find an ingredient list (which drives me insane), but it’s pretty clearly meant to be a dragonfruit forward blend and I did feel like it tasted fairly strongly of dragonfruit. That’s a tough flavour to emulate and commercial dragonfruit products sometimes just taste like fruit punch. I got some of that fruity punch thing here, but waaayyyy less sweet and with a ton more natural floral flavour which feels (to me at least) a bit more authentic.

The green tea base smooth enough with a pretty strong grassy note, but I definitely got the impression it’s the sort of tea that would quickly slide into coarse, bitter territory with hotter water or a longer steep time. The grassiness with this more subdued pink tropical note does feel right though, just emotionally. And of course I don’t only taste dragonfruit here – I feel like there’s maybe some guava sneaking in there and a bit of pear!? The pear is interesting though because people often say dragonfruit tastes like a watered down pear. So, am I tasting pear subconciously because I know that? Am I tasting pear because a pear flavour was added to the blend to lean into that comparison? Or am I tasting it because there’s truth to the comparison and it’s just a note I’ve isolated from the dragonfruit flavouring being used?

THIS IS WHY I WANT INGREDIENTS LISTS, MF!!!

Anyway… A gentle fruit blend with a tropical lean that I’m not at all mad about.

Cold Brew!

This is very, very spearmint forward with the slightest hint of zesty lime on the backend of the sip. However, even though the citrus notes don’t come out much I still really enjoyed the smooth, naturally sweet taste of the mint and that lightly cooling sensation afterwards that makes this feel so deeply crisp and quenching when combined with the fact it’s an ice cold temperate. So summery and fresh.