Bali

If Bali smells like this, I need to go there (I need to go there, anyway, but still). This is what scented island-life travel ads would smell like – floral, fruity and with a dash of something boozy.

The florals, however, amount mostly to a distinct rose flavour in the cup, drowning out the fruit notes. Rose is not one of my favourite flavours, and DF’s take on it is far too perfumey for my tastes; it’s a very cosmetic rose.

I understand why this is a bestselling tea, and why so many people like it – it’s just another case of DF not being a good match for me.

[From my epic Instant-Thé order to Rome, October 2013.]

This tea was super smooth and lovely today. Fruity, floral and refreshing. I love this rose so for me it is not overwhelmingly floral, but I could see how it might be too floral for some. To me it was fruity and delicious.

It’s nearly identical to Fauchon’s Rose et Litchi, but unlike Fauchon I can order this one any time. But I have a 50g tin of it that hasn’t been hit very hard (not to mention 100g of Rose et Litchi), so I will be set on rose and lychee blends for a while!

A sample from a friend and wow this is fruity and flowery – though I admittedly used a very generous dosage.

The green tea base is innocuous, nice enough, with some bitterness which I blame on not having been careful enough with temperature and time. The leaf I used was full of jasmine blossoms including the cutest whole blossom just starting to unfurl. So for me there is definetely a strong jasmine note, just behind the lychee, and the rose coming third to the jasmine.

I do not know quite what to think of this – it´s really intense, maybe too intense for my tastes though a nice enough blend to have now and then.

SIPDOWN and well — I won’t miss this tea too much.

While the aroma is very nice, mostly rose, bit of jasmine I have to say, I am not a fan of flavour. The base seems okay, even noticed some peach, I get none of lychee or grapefruit. The taste is as well quite strongly floral, which is kind of dismal for me.

As I said in previous, ehhm 11/06/2019 note, a good tea for floral lovers but not for me. Ageing (unintentional), even though it was wrapped in outer sachet and that in closed box, didn’t helped much. Maybe the peach went bit stronger. Cooled down — why it is so soapy?

I have thought about dropping the rating a bit, but keeping 77. Deserves lower probably.

Similar to L’Oriental by Damman Freres. Less peach and more floral. Fruity, fresh and exotic. Sounds like Bali right?

I love it but not likely a daily drinker for me. I continue the quest for the perfect green tea…

This is a sample I brought back from France. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to go to any tea shops in Paris, but I found this at a breakfast buffet and smuggled a few pouches to try at home.

The flower petals do a good job of accenting the floral green base (I actually thought it was a jade oolong until I read the product description). There are some definite lemon, orange, and rose notes that linger as an aftertaste. It tastes tropical (mango and lychee), but also a bit perfume-y because the rose is so intense. I find the jasmine is more in the smell of the dry leaf and the brew, but somewhat hidden once the rose makes itself known. The orange might be mixed with grapefruit, or it might be blood orange I’m tasting. Either way, it made a nice iced tea.

This is a sample that came with a gift I received. Unfortunately I have allowed several DF samples to get a bit of age on them, so they are not as fresh as what most of you would be tasting.

When I drink samples like this, I am usually joined by my youngest daughter. To stretch the tea so that we can both have a small cup, we make it in a kamjove and resteep immediately, combining the two steeps. Usually we still get good flavor.

This time we did get a good tasting tea, but I feel that this one would have been really truly tasty full strength. The grapefruit was the predominant flavor I picked up, and it was so good that I wished it was even stronger. It didn’t seem overly floral but then I don’t mind floral tea as long as it is natural tasting rather than perfume-y or blatantly synthetic.

Overall, a good tea that I would definitely drink again and would be a great choice if I wanted something tropical.

Advent Calendar Day Fifteen

Didn’t check the ingredients prior to brewing this; I was relatively rushed on my way out of the house this morning. However, at least I managed to find time to brew this for my commute rather than leaving it for the evening ‘cause I ended up working an unplanned shift at DAVIDsTEA so I wouldn’t have had time to drink it in the evening…

Anyway; it was obvious as soon as I started sipping at this one (and really even as the water first hit the tea leaf) that it was a lychee tea! Damn, that lychee comes through REALLY clearly! However, I also tasted a lot of citrus – I would have said either a semi bitter lemon OR grapefruit, but I suppose the correct note is grapefruit. As for the jasmine? Well, I thought the lychee was definitely a bit more floral than it usually tends to come off in blends, but I’m guessing part of what I was tasting was the jasmine just blending well with the natural floral notes of the fruit.

Didn’t taste any peach…

This was nice! I enjoyed that it was tropical, sweet, fruity and floral and had very strong flavour notes that were still able to retain an air of delicacy to them.

Feels like I’m drinking a bitter perfume or a pot-pourri infusion. You know, as in something artificial and inedible. I regret buying a 100g tin of this, it is taking me forever to finish it. It says on the website that it is made of Jasmine green tea and Sencha but I don’t get the grassy taste that I like from sencha. As if the sencha was too old and lost all its flavours and all we could taste was the added rose essential oil. Is rose essential oil even edible?

Here’s Hoping TTB

I haven’t had the opportunity to try very much from Dammann Freres, so I was excited to see one of their teas in this TTB. Unfortunately, this one didn’t do much for me. It came across as just a basic rose-flavored green tea, good but not very exciting. I wish I could have tasted more of the other flavors. Could just be the age of the sample, though!