Thé à l'Opéra

Warning: this review involves abusive levels of oversteeping and inappropriate water temperatures. Sensitive readers are advised to read my main Opéra review instead: http://steepster.com/chai-mera/posts/286519

Excellent travel tea under adverse conditions! A few days ago I put 2tsp in my tea thermos with hot water before leaving for work. Had no opportunity to remove/empty the steeping basket so it stayed in there all day. There was one cold-water refill and one hot-water refill in said thermos. I don’t know whether it was the alternating cold/hot water or something else, but it still tasted delicious at 9pm and never got that bitter flavor that over-brewed green tea sometimes has. (Now whether I should have been drinking caffeinated tea at 9pm is another question entirely.)

Some people may consider this to be horrible treatment of a good tea, but there are days when one needs a tea that maintains its class and poise under rugged conditions, and this, my friends, is that tea.

Evidently I’ve reviewed this before… hm.

Another old sample from Shmiracles that I waited ridiculously too long to try!

It smells delicious in the bag, I decided to go for it and just use the rest of my leaf up. I was too lazy to check steeping parameters and I may have shot myself in the foot.

I went 180 degrees for 2 minutes, and it turned out very bitter. I actually ended up dumping half the cup out. I wish I would have checked first because it had potential to be tasty, based on the smell.

I’m sure age must be a factor also.

But yeah, super bitter with a hint of berries.

SCHMEH.

EDIT I just checked the parameters used by others and HUZZAH i didn’t screw it up! So it must just taste that way to me. Ah well. Another sample bites the dust!

This tea came to me from Anna, all the way from Italy! Now if that isn’t love, I honestly don’t know what is.

Despite the fact that I don’t typically gravitate towards green teas, I’m always happy when i get some in a swap because it means I can try one and perhaps find one I do like.

The people who described this as smelling of lifesavers are spot on—and because of Anna’s expert packaging, the lifesaver smell was contained really nicely in the little bags, so I was hit with a wall of it as soon as I opened it. When brewed, you can still smell what seems to be candied fruit, and I also get a bit of vanilla.

I mostly taste green tea, although especially when still hot, I can pick up on trace notes of candied fruit in the aftertaste. These seem to subside for me as the tea cools, and then the base seems to just take over. As far as green teas go, I actually don’t dislike this one. I wouldn’t go out of my way to acquire it or anything, but I wasn’t turned off by it, either.

Thanks again, Anna!

A sample from Shmiracles. This isn’t quite what I was expecting, somehow. I don’t know why, but it isn’t. I think I was expecting a more “green” taste, maybe mint, but this is actually a ref fruit/berry tea. It’s strange what associations a name can conjour up!

As red berry teas go, this is really nice. It’s a natural tasting flavour, maybe a mixture of raspberry and strawberry? It reminds me a little of Marco Polo in some respects. The description says that this tea also contains spices. I’m not really picking much up in that respect, except maybe the merest hint of nutmeg. The berry flavouring is delicious alone, though, and doesn’t really need anything else, so it’s not a terrible loss.

The green base is pleasantly light and unobtrusive. It looks to me like sencha or dragonwell, but I’m probably wrong — I’m no green tea expert! In any case, it’s the perfect base for this tea, and carries the flavouring well without getting in the way. This is definitely a Mariage Freres tea I’d try again if the chance arose — thanks again to Shmiracles for sharing this with me!

It’s great if you drink it cold.

Taste like a candy, good but not fantastic.
Brewed at 80°C.