Mariage Frères

Narcisse is my first smoky tea and I am not sure what to make of this one. The site made the leaves look like a black tea but it isn’t. The write up doesn’t mention a thing about rose but clearly they’re in there. I suspect there is another flower lurking there as well but who knows her name?! Perhaps this shipment was shanghaied?
Out of the bag, she’s aggressive and I am not sure what is going on in that medley of tightly knit leaves. It’s green and angry and reminds me somewhat of a burnt split pea soup. Split pea and a wet fur smell or brown bag? Dead flowers? Who knows… It’s like smoke and wet ash, split-pea and dog and quite complicated. And yes, questioning my senses, I put this in the water to steep.
I hiked the temp up to a nice boil and then plopped the mess in for about three minutes. The scent became a bit more vegetal and calmed down. The burn split pea note made it through the steeping process and into the cup. It’s another whole mouth tea in my collection which is just lovely with cream. I can even say I like it as I am on my second cup, not to become a favorite but I can say I tried it.
I will have to try a couple more smoky teas and revisit this one. Perhaps I will in time find this review unkind as it the first leap from the English Breakfast pleasantries thus far.

Steeping No 2:
Man this monster just hangs on. I settled last pots leaves in the water after it had reached a good boil and let them go for a full 5 minutes. The brew was just as tasty and I could almost swear they would survive another go.
I am growing accustom to this tea’s personality and couldn’t say who I’d ever offer it to. Perhaps a non-guest too intent on being nosy about what I sip in my cup. A no good looker-on trying to pilfer a sample of Jamaique on the sly? I would simply sip this instead and leave its parcel out proclaiming this to be the nectar of the gods! One wiff and they would let me and all my teas to follow go because clearly my tastes have gone off! While its edges are a bit softer the ever present burnt split pea soup aroma lasts.

I give this the, “It’s okay and we get along” seal of approval.

When you can’t quite make it to Paris.

This is the most wonderful tea I have ever tried. I keep ordering others from Le Mariage Freres but none taste like heaven as much as this delicately perfumed magical tea.

Pairs well with Twilight. LOL Boring Sunday… too much rain! Grrr…

This is the tea I am having tonight. I sat aside a bottle of red wine for you…. I’ll keep you posted if it should sooth the sea weary beast. LOL

Wow… can I say WOW?
This tea rolls out of its black glittering bag already speaking a mouthful. Its pleasantly dark, like a rich fragrance you only dream of finding at the Guerlian counter. I dare to say that this might be a By Kilian fragrance without the lock and key.

It’s plummy, boozy, wonderfully vanillic and a polite black tea. To brew this beauty, they say let it go for 5 minutes and I probably did four on the first steep. In the cup the fragrance was just as divine as what wafted from the sack. The plummy note was a bit more pronounced. On the second steep I let it go and got lazy with its rest. The booziness has faded but the plum is there with a distinct sharpness. Perhaps it isn’t meant to be left alone so long or treated like a left-over?

As for taste… well it’s fine without sugars, milk or cream. It isn’t a fruity flavor in the sense that you recover from the first sip thinking, “Wow blackberry jam.” It’s subtle, elegant, vanilla black tea with the moodiness of a distant plum-berry that at some point snuggled with a soft tobacco or was blessed by fine leather. A fabulous afternoon tea that would make any repast a seduction of the senses.

How it relates to my views on the The de Paques by Mariage Freres: While my The de Paques is assured a prominent place in the teas of my desires (and I crave it often), it is the tea of morning and all things bright. I could dress it up with fruit, delicate cakes and even a ham and brie. Jamaique takes thought and provides mouthwatering contemplation yet not in the way of a zen-Buddha green, think old refined library, deep curtains and soft leather chairs… I swear, I could wear this tea.

I picked this up on a whim when I was in the grocery store the other day. I won’t lie, it was because I thought the box was pretty [but it also helped that I’d had a good experience with Mariage Frères previously].

The dry leaves have a strong scent, reminiscent of the great Marco Polo experience of 2009 [ah, 2009] except instead of smelling like Strawberries on Steroids [coming atcha in 2011] it smells like Cherry Blossoms on PCP. So, delicious.

The scent actually reminds me of a few things. Grenadine, for one. Also, some types of gum. Extra, maybe, or Bubblicious. But most of all, Mr. Bubble bubble bath, which my parents would not let me or my brother have anymore after one of us dumped half a container in the bathtub. [I still maintain that it was him.]

Taste wise, this tea is light, like sugared flowers. That kind of light. It’s sweet, and that stays with me in the aftertaste and pulses in intensity as I breathe in and out.

It actually reminds me of Ludens cough drops, which, as anyone who has them may be aware, can be most accurately called candy. They do not taste like cough drops. I am 98% sure they are just candy and have little to no medicinal value. They taste a hell of a lot better than regular cough drops do as a result [if you like candy, that is] and I would beg my dad to bring some home when I was sick. [He often did, on the condition that I actually ate one real cough drop for every three Ludens or something like that.] Anyhow, this tea reminds me of that, just with the volume turned down a bit.

If I were to sum up this tea in one word, it would be sparkling. It seems to shimmer with sweetness, and has this almost nectar-like quality to it.

Mariage Frères didn’t offer any insight for steeping, so I put it in for three minutes, drank about a third of the cup, stuck it in for two more, and then drank the rest. The three minute mark had more flavor, so next time I’ll try a full cup there and probably continue to play around with some more steep times and stuff. I know that I’m tired because in that previous sentence, I wrote “but so and,” so…I’m going to stop here.

Oh, except to say that this note is based on the 3 minute steeping because I liked the flavor better there.

Okay, but so and good nighting!

The more I drink of this the more I am assured that I honestly enjoy the Aveda version better. The sweet temped bit of chicory is missed in this brew but come summer this is a perfect tea to enjoy well chilled. Perhaps with a hint of lemon and basil? Experiment!

Hmmm…. Well I made this guy the other day and was at a loss for words. I like the mint and had hoped this would resemble that stuff you find at the Aveda salons. It doesn’t. The Bergamot knocks that idea out of the park. I have the French ice tea version of this which comes with little envelopes for use. I recommend using them. This tea has a lot of particle matter… floaties. Not that I mind floaties but they only added to my dislike of this one.
It’s minty and perfumes the house wonderfully but the bergamot gives the tea an edge while not wholly bad it wasn’t hoped for. I will have to try this iced as the French iced tea marketing would suggest.

This is the star of my collection just now… aside from Violet. The aroma from the can is enticing and when brewed even better. There is a wonderful orange flavor seduced with vanilla that makes the liquor heavenly. Love love love it with milk and honey but it’s probably perfect sipped en seulement.

Just tried this one today… it’s a whole mouth sort of tea. Meaning there is flavor that excites the entire mouth… very filling. It’s a black tea which has that delicate tang of a fine perfume which I can only guess is the bergamot. It is floral with citrus charm and I swear there is hint of pepper hiding in the back somewhere. I should imagine this would pair charmingly with lemon and a blackberry honey. As of right now, I have spoiled my self with the addition of milk, organic acacia honey, a warm shall and Jane Austen’s Emma. Cheers!

Eros tea is floral and fairly light. That being said, however, the lightness is deep, rich, and conveys a sense of yellow like a painting by Turner, who made yellow seem more exquisite than anything nature could offer.

The aroma is not as intense as Marco Polo, another favorite of mine, but it is like being in a French country garden—possibly at Giverny where Monet painted. With Eros I once again noticed the brilliant way that Mariage Frères has deep rich flavors that sustain themselves on the tongue, in the throat and in the aftertaste. A lot of light floral teas I know give a little whiff of their perfume and POOF! they have vanished. This tea stays: like the finest French perfume, it caresses you with its vapors and aromas.

It’s a nice black and would be a wonderful blend to serve at a sophisticated tea party or, as the name suggests, after a romantic tryst.

One of the things I like about Mariage Frères teas is they are resolutely natural: the ingredients must be of the highest quality and there is no hint of anything synthetic or ephemeral. it may cost more than other black teas, but it is worth it. Considering what you get, it’s a lot less costly than a tea bag at Starbucks!

Happy New Year, Steepsters!

So, I said that my first tea of the new year would be Marco Polo by Mariage Freres, and I lived up to my word. takgoti sent me some in her amazing box of wonders, and I’ve been dying to try it since I first smelled it. I don’t know how she held out for so long.

Let me tell you, this has to be the most delicious smelling tea I’ve ever stuck my nose in. Seriously, amazingly delicious-smelling. Sweet strawberries bursting with a juicy and full aroma, layered with creamy vanilla and subtle hints of black tea. It is an experience for the nose, let me tell you. Once you smell this, you may never come up for air again. Unless it smells like Marco Polo, that is.

So I dumped this in the pot, nearly jumping up and down with excitement. The leaves are fairly small, although there are some wiry pieces mixed in, and each single leaf has the intoxicating aroma I’ve been describing. How do I know this? I picked one up and took a big sniff. Yep. Marco Polo.

The tea juice that arrived in my cup on the pour was rich and decadent smelling. The wet leaves smelled very similar to the infusion, so I’ll just skip that. A lighter version of the dry scent, with the vanilla battling the strawberry-ish tones in a symphony of amazing. First sip… and I’m happy surprised! No, this tea does not taste as it smells. But would you want it to? That’d probably be ridiculously cloying and overwhelming.

The taste is a rich, slightly bitter and astringent black tea, layered with a hint of creaminess (without the taste of vanilla). There’s a bit of a floral soapiness. And I mean this in the best way possible, although that sounds a bit bizarre now that I’ve typed it out. Unless there was soap in my cup/IngenuiTEA, which would then be pretty interesting. Then the tea opens up in pure berry goodness. It’s not a strong, domineering flavor, so if you’re expecting to be assaulted by berry, then you’re thinking of the wrong tea. It’s almost entirely in the aftertaste, a sweet-tart combination of strawberry-ish bliss. Very full and red and rich. It’s a sweetness and specifically strawberry taste that lingers on the tongue long after you’ve swallowed.

I definitely did hit the temperature point that takgoti mentioned. There’s this magical point when the berry comes to the forefront of the cup. It doesn’t last for very long, but it does indicate that there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface than what you first might think.

This tea tastes distinctly French. I have no idea why. It just does. And it’s completely a tea for the senses. You should be smelling and sniffing this as much as you’re tasting it and allowing it to roll around on your tongue. I highly recommend that you aerate the tea on your tongue. Slurp some sips, that way the full body can be tasted. Sort of like what you do with wine.

I finished this about 5 minutes ago and the sweet berry and cream components are still lingering in my mouth, in a wonderful fashion.

Yes, Mariage Freres is expensive, but it’s so worth it. One of the better flavored teas I’ve experienced!

Feeling inspired by JacquelineM’s post the other day, I decided to give this a try with sugar and milk. I almost always do my tea straight because milk and I don’t always get along so well in the morning and it’s carried through into my tea habits throughout the day. However, I am slowly learning that sometimes adding a dash of something can help bring out and bolster flavors in ways I could never imagine a tea capable of achieving so thoroughly.

This is a tea that I can firmly say that, for me, benefitted from additives.

Strawberries and I don’t always see eye to eye, because quite often they can be too tart for my liking. But, dress them up with some freshly whipped, lightly-sweetened cream and a warmed, spongey shortcake and I will nom that shizz regardless.

With a short tilt of cream and a shake of sugar, this tea boarded the train in Berryville and got off in the Hamlet of Strawberry Shortcake. The heavy richness from the cream swirled around the lightness of the strawberry and the sugar lifted the tartness just a smidge, but not enough to make it taste fake. And somehow, somewhere in there I was definitely getting that distinct flavor of those little bowl-shaped store-bought sponge cakes that are sweet with a bit of roughness and breadiness to them.

I never liked that Nestle Quik Strawberry Milk stuff, or even strawberry milkshakes, but this is like what I think would happen if Strawberry Quik grew up. Get outta here, cartoon rabbit.

I’m very happy to know now that I can get two distinctly strawberry tasting, though different, versions of this tea – one for lighter fare and one when I’m seeking out the richer fulfillment of strawberry shortcake. It’s especially lovely now, as I am a bit past indulging in winter and ready for the sunnier landscape of spring. Jumping into summer for a spell doesn’t feel unwanted.

I was already sending tea packages to Auggy and teaplz, and I knew that all of us wanted to try this tea. So when I was standing in line at Williams Sonoma, and it was staring at me I finally said, “Oh, fine. What the hell,” and grabbed a tin so I could split it three ways.

I honestly don’t know how I held off for this long, because the tin explodes in your face with delicious scent. I mean, if it tasted as strong as it smells it would be undrinkable because it would be like kool-aid on steroids, but scent-wise? Mmmmmmmmmmm.

I’m going to sound mildly repetitive here because Auggy and I had very similar drinking experiences with it, but I’ll try to deviate a bit. We all know I can deviate.

As a liquid, this smells rich. Rich like…thick cream rich. I also get strong whiffs of vanilla. And lying on top of all of that decadence is strawberry. Beautiful, beautiful strawberry, glistening above the warm and heavy aromas. Like Auggy, I was slightly hesitant to sip it right away. Part of me felt like nothing could possibly compare, but part of me also felt like if it truly tasted like this I wouldn’t be able to finish it because it would be so cloying.

Once it had cooled down enough for me to take a confident sip of it, I was pleasantly surprised. The vanilla wasn’t there. The creaminess was kind of present, but not overwhelming. Mainly what I got was berry. Specifically, strawberries – like when they’re not quite ripe. The strawberry taste was definitely strong, to the point that the tea almost felt like it was bleeding strawberries. And yet, it never reached the point of “too much.” It was sweet sometimes, but not obviously sweet, and more so when I sucked air in over everything. There was a distinct tartness that hit the back of my tongue as well, that sang of strawberries.

Most impressive to me was the mouth feel. It was thick, heavy, viscous, silky, and it made me feel like I was eating strawberries and cream. If there had been more creaminess in the taste, I certainly could have fooled myself into it.

And then, all of a sudden, the bomb went off. This tea blew up in a very good way. I’m not sure if it was because it had cooled to a magic point, or because Auggy mentioned that she was doing that silly looking slurping thing that people often do with wine and so I started doing it in earnest, but wow. It was like berry-palooza. It was like I had won the lottery, and they paid me in berries. It was like I was the queen and all of the townspeople were berries and I was drinking them. The only two I could pick out were blackberries [sweet, ripe ones] and strawberries, but there were more. It was more complex than that. The tea grew in sweetness, and the texture was making it all slide around very pleasantly, and I officially fell in love with Marco Polo.

I really, really wish I could give this a 100, but I know that the reason why I loved this so much today was because 1) I drank it out of my Sorapot [more on that in a forthcoming review – I’m logging this first] 2) I was really in the mood for a fruity tea and 3) I think drinking tea with someone else is always more enjoyable, even if you are both basically just typing “OH MY GOD WOW!” back and forth.

If this ends up being something that I find myself craving often, or could see myself drinking on any given day, it may reach that point, though. It’s pretty damn good. Never would have tried it if not for Steepster, too, so thanks Steepsterites!

It’s been forever since I’ve had this tea. But not because I don’t love it. It’s actually the opposite – I adore this tea so much that I haven’t been able to force myself to open the new tin of it. Gotta save it so I don’t run out, right? So it has languished on my shelf for months and months.

But I’ve been wearing my grumpy pants quite a lot lately even though I should be celebrating (since I only have 22 more days of work). So I decide to enforce some celebration in my life by finally opening my tin of this.

Ahhhh! Yes, such a good choice. It’s strawberry shortcake in liquid form (I did use some sugar and half & half this morning, which helps that idea along). Desserty sweet but also fresh-fruity tart (there is some astringency that, combined with the delicious strawberry taste of this tea, reads to my tongue as a light tartness almost exactly like biting into a fresh strawberry). For some reason, I also get the idea of cocoa when drinking this tea. Not so much the taste, but a hint of it in the texture – a richness or sponginess – that just makes it so deliciously dessert-like and happy-making.

And additional bonus is the caffeine. My hands have just a wee bit of a tremor to them this morning thanks to this tea. Which is good because it means that hopefully I won’t be tempted to crawl under my desk for naptime today.

Before I left the house with my tumbler o’ deliciousness, I did a second steep of this to ice. So I quite look forward to seeing how that turns out. Mmmm.

I am so close to being out of this sample it’s not even funny. I have maybe half a cup left. This makes me very sad. This morning I added a bit of sugar and half & half and put this into my tumbler for my drive to work.

So good. Bold and tea-y with a great note of strawberry sauce, like the kind that is put on cheesecake. The taste of the tea was stouter than previous times I’ve had this, probably because I inadvertently oversteeped a bit – but it dealt with it well and actually fit the whole morning tea purpose. I also made up a second steep of this before I left and put it in the fridge. I’m looking forward to seeing how this is cold.

This tea is seriously going to make me find a Mariage Freres vendor since the only one I know of is about an hour or so from my house. But I might have to make a visit there.