812 Tasting Notes
2013-05-23
late night. a rare occasion that i’m alone at home. watching Merlin and drinking a Mousse au Chocolat latte in my brand new tea cup.
http://instagram.com/p/Zra-kDIc83/
and here are the strawberries we picked from the garden!
so many!
http://instagram.com/p/ZrTabjoc-k/
2013-04-26
wow there are huge chunks of chocolate in this tea. mega decadent!
and dark. a dark decadent tea. it’ll be easy to drink this one up.
and i bet it will be AMAZING as a latte. like it should be outlawed or something.
dramatic effect.
(further notes redacted)
:P
holy crap imperial wedding!!
i only steeped it for 2.5 minutes because everyone seems to comment on how strong it is.
and it IS only our first date after all.
and yes, though i will try longer steeps just to see, i think for me 2.5 minutes is very good. definitely malty and hearty assam. and i can smell the chocolate caramel notes on the nose very easily.
i guess it’s darling subtlety is what has gotten Mariage Freres it’s reputation over the years.
i did buy two capital D dessert teas while i was there, plus 2 straight teas (one black and one green).
this will probably turn into a pre-run staple during the upcoming race season. i can see it already.
I got my local fancy tea shop to add my name to a list for an order of this. $33 cdn for 100g but I need it. Tried it once and fell in lovvvvve!!
totally worth it. TOTALLY. when i think of how much glee i get from a cup or tin of yummy tea, i know the price is always cheap compared to the experience. always.
drink up whatshesaid!!!
I probably won’t get it for awhile but I. Can’t. Wait!
i was in Paris in the Dammann Freres tea shoppe with no sense on smell. i had been trying many different sinus remedies over the past few days and that morning i bought a nasal spray. i had used it a few times by the time i was tea shopping and it was SLIGHTLY working. i mean, i could finally slightly glean really strong scents. (whomp whomp)
so when i smelled this tea, i got a vague whiff of peaches and immediately started carrying my box to purchase around the store. now, i’m a gal who flocks to black dessert teas. but i think that is because of the weather. and as winter turns to spring all of my oolongs are suddenly more bright and brilliant and delicious than before! i knew i needed to buy an oolong. even if the dessert teas knew me by name.
this tea is beautiful. i KNOW i am bringing my shopping experience into my tasting, but i can’t help it.
also, idk why i smelled peaches. i blame the sinus goop. but now i know that osmanthe is a flower and this is basically a delicious take on a jasmine oolong.
i will post a picture of the store once my boyfriend uploads it.
until then i will fantasize about buying these 2 things someday… (not gonna happen)
http://www.dammann.fr/512-coffret-quadrille.html
http://www.dammann.fr/bols-tasses-mugs/984-impressions-de-printemps-tisaniere-verte-.html
my favorite tea picture!
definitely inspired by the Magritte Museum in Brussels
http://instagram.com/p/YQZw76Ic9o/
and i mean, look at the creme cake!
ok so i don’t LOVE chais. they’re fine enough.
and i don’t LOVE mate. though it’s fun for variety.
but i’ll try ANY tea once. maybe even twice. :)
i got a local running friend into tea and she came over to my house SO excited about this one. which is the cutest thing. and i already knew we had very different taste in tea (among other things; ie; i went to art school and she is in the military) but i told her i’d gladly take a sample anytime!
so. i tried it.
‘if you don’t have anything nice to say…’ so, um, i liked the lemongrass very much :)
haha OKAY OKAY i’m joking! this was actually a very nice mate. i’m not gonna buy any, but it’s a cup that the label and smell would have me thinking i would hate, and i actually truly enjoyed it.
it’s good and sweet spicy balanced. invigorating is a good word for it. lemongrass and licorice. but still light and bright. i might even take another sample if it’s offered to me. cheers.
i’m back at my work desk after having traveling for two weeks and running 3 marathons:
Paris, France – http://instagram.com/p/XzzkguIc0E/
Rotterdam, Netherlands – http://instagram.com/p/YFsdacIc1Q/
Hamburg, Germany – http://instagram.com/p/YXxvjgoc9Z/
it was a wild and unforgettable ride.
and i brought back as much tea as i could possibly carry!!
i’ve tasted half of them so far, and every single one is great. i’m so happy with my purchases.
but for me, the Della Terra chocolate teas are also something special. there’s something about them that i can just drink cup after cup after cup. no additives, no frills, no need doll them up.
just deep tea.
ya know?
deep.
tea.
I loved all your pics! What a dream, travel Europe and bring home a bunch of tea. I hope I get to do that one day! Glad you’re back, I like your reviews :)
it’s nice to come home with pics i actually like for a change! hah
i hope to review the teas i posted pictures for, but that will be a huge project and will take me a while to get around to it i’m sure.
if it makes you feel better i’m not in my 20s anymore. that’s how long it took me to finally take this trip. but i’m also already calculating where i will go next.
and honestly, i missed the teathusiasm of steepster while i was away! honest!
Yeah the thing about traveling is it’s more addictive than tea! (maybe!)
I’m not in my twenties anymore either but that’s a new development, hehe. I am hoping to have my shit together enough to do that within like 10 yrs or so! Mind you I won’t be running, haha. Probably just eating and drinking tea :)
Also probably wine and beer.
i’ve been joking that i think i also completed a marathon in beer, wine, and cheese. but that one wasn’t chip timed. haha
my beer photos are on untappd if you’re curious? but i think the tea photos i took are all better by far :)
https://untappd.com/user/shmiracles/photos
Everything looks so good!! Question, we’re you drinking beer out of an orange coffee mug??
Oh gosh we need to be friends on Untappd also. Now I’m triple jealous (GET IT), I didn’t even try a Trappist beer until a couple weeks ago and I am in LOVE and I regret not trying some tripels where they were easily found.
yay more untappd friends!!! beer is just hoppy tea am i rite?!?!
i went to a brewery in Brussels called Cantillon brewery that had the best lambics ever.
http://instagram.com/p/X-wuE-oc77/
i WAS drinking out of an orange mug haha. but to explain… my bf and i had purchased some bottles in Belgium but didn’t drink them, so then took them to Rotterdam, and then didn’t wanna carry them in our bags anymore so we opted for a breakfast beer party for 2 in our hostel room before check out. ah vacation.
the room was painted bright pink because it was the ‘Love Room’ so fun.
I just started using Untappd recently and didn’t even know you could add photos! Oh man, I clearly need to play with that app some more…
Also, isn’t Rotterdam awesome? I love the Netherlands; so laid back and a perfect place for beer fans!
Awesome! Looks like an amazing trip for sure. Dunno how you found the time to balance the beer and the tea drinking!
(the grammar nazi in me has to tell you that my iPad autocorrected “were” to “we’re”)
the whole trip happened because i saw the Rotterdam marathon on tv because it was an Olympic qualifier, and i was immediately like OMG it’s so heavenly i must go there!!
being such a mega city gal i’ve never owned a car myself (though i do drive) and the way bicyclers and pedestrians are treated in Rotterdam brings a tear to my eye it’s so beautiful!
Ah yes, the Dutch do love their bicycles! (Seriously, when I was there for a semester back in ’04, it had the highest incidence of bike theft IN THE WORLD.)
WOW. That is so awesome. 3 marathons is a lot of running!
This sounds devine!
ditto!!
mmmmmmmmmmm, sounds crazy GOOD!!!
shmiracles – hoard the rest of this. my parents were in paris and couldn’t find it anywhere lol
oh no don’t say that! that is awful! and you’ll give me no choice but to obsess about ordering them all online. today. arg.
haha my mom got it in her head that that was the one tea she had to get me…so her and dad were calling around to stores etc while they were there. It might be re-stocked i suppose but they had difficulty finding it…still not sure if they managed it since they’re keeping the tea they bought me a surprise heh
oh hah maybe they’re trying to fake you out! like they got the tea and are trying to bum you out for the big reveal.
oh that’s possible, but it’s likely they still ran into issues trying to find it. heh