Tea type
Green Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Menthol, Violet
Sold in
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Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by CHAroma
Average preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 4 min, 30 sec

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From Mariage Frères

A lavish tribute to Alexander the Great (Iskandar in Persian), king of Macedonia, pharaoh of Egypt, conqueror of Asia and India, cultivated leader, and political genius.

Mariage Frères has blended a green tea with a large floral bouquet that evokes Greek arts and philosophy, crowned by a hint of menthol that brings a cool yet sunny touch to worlwide conquest.

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7 Tasting Notes

76
408 tasting notes

I requested a sample of Iskandar during my previous visit in a Mariage Frères shop.And hopefully.
I have already drank it in the past but never purchased it. In my memory it was a nice tea but is it good enough to me to purchase it ?
The answer is NO.

I can taste some astringency, tolerable. The point is tolerable is not a synonymous of enjoyable for me.
The first sip is incredible, so strong , so powerful : flowers flowers and flowers. Mainly violet but not only even if I am not able to say which other flowers have been used here.
There is a hint of mint as well.

It’s a lovely cup but too much “parfumey” for me. I don’t know if you see what I mean but sometimes the flavours seem more like perfume rather than aromas and this is the case here. Alas this is something I have difficulties with.
I can recognize this is a very lovely and well blended tea but not for me.
It can probably be a beautiful ice tea because while cooling the astringency is diminishing.

EDIT : almost cold, there is almost none astringency and the perfumey taste totally disappeared – I really prefer it like this

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 15 sec
cteresa

They do sell it as a tea to make iced, in thise fabulous glass cannisters (it makes me go tut-tut at the tea being exposed to light, but they are sooo beautiful).

Hallieod

Black glass though! I know this wouldn’t be a tea I’d like and I know I wouldn’t spend that much on a glass jar, but oh Teresa, you’re sooo right. I shouldn’t have looked but couldn’t stop myself. :)

Ysaurella

they are doing their macarons with this tea as well…and they are just delicious :)

cteresa

I got a couple of the french “summer teas” in regular packages, thé sur le nil and casablanca and admittedly they are fabulous teas. But 40 euros for 160 grams, yikes. But I keep fantasizing about those cannisters – a local store has a few of them, they are smaller than I expected but still I keep feeling the pull for it. but 40 euros!!

Hallie, the cannisters for thé sur le nil

http://www.mariagefreres.com/boutique/UK/ft+the-sur-le-nil-french-iced-tea-in-black-glass-jar+TFG955.html

and casablanca

http://www.mariagefreres.com/boutique/UK/ft+casablanca-french-summer-tea-glass-jar+TFG908.html

are just as pretty and I think you might like those…. And I think I am going to try to cold brew rouge sahara, just to see if that works.

Hallieod

They ARE just as pretty! Why, Teresa? Why would you show these to me?? No, just kidding! I always want to see the beautiful tea wares.

cteresa

Ouch, sorry. A word of advice though, don´t ever check out their teaware (bastards). The prices are unbelievable, but then again it´s also unbelievably fabulous (though they are IMO pretty obsessed with glass cups for tea, which is not my favorite, though I guess most of their client base might not be european)

Ysaurella

MF is very popular in Japan, that’s right Teresa.
You also can get the teas without the jars…;)
personnaly I prefer these jars…http://www.mariagefreres.com/boutique/FR/ft+the-a-l-opera-fruit-tea-infusion-de-fruits+TFBF952.html
I know Hallie….I’m an horrible person :)

Hallieod

Heh, had seen those already when looking for the Iskandar, so no worries, Ysaurella! They are gorgeous too.

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95
82 tasting notes

Absolutely one of my favourites… As a classics student and overall nerd anything named after Alexander the Great is going to appeal to me!! :D Somehow I remember the blend being different a couple of years ago when I went to Paris, the last time before I went this year, and it had spearmint and things I didn’t like… So to find it to be a green tea with violets (never had a tea with violets before!) in it was quite the pleasant surprise. And so, I have a tin of it to accompany my delicate rose tea. You can’t have one without the other…

The scent from both the leaves and the brew are beautifully fragrant and sweet, like they used an essential oil in it as well as the flowers. To me it smells exactly like parma violets… probably because I’ve only eaten two things with violet flavouring in before, parma violet sweets and crystallised violets chocolate. This is very much like that— sweetened as well as naturally sweet. And the colour of the tea is lovely! A pale green rather than the yellow you might normally expect from a sencha or bancha (which is what the leaves look like)!

The first sip is always surprisingly overwhelming in its fragrance and sweetness, just because, although I know green tea takes floral flavours rather well, I never expect it to take it THIS well. If it wasn’t for the mellowness of the liquor and the slight, pleasant astringency at the end of a sip I would think I was just drinking violets without the tea. But the slight roastiness of the tea is there, like a backup to the violets, and gives it maybe a second little kick to renew the sweetness in the mouth. And the taste is so clean and pleasant… I can’t find any drawbacks on this tea at all; you asked for violets, you got violets. It’s certainly unique, and very simple- can’t help but wonder how an extra couple of flavours might taste in this. Vanilla? Cream?

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 3 min, 0 sec
Tea Pet

Would you mind horribly if I followed you? I am also a huge Alexander the Great nerd and used to study Attic Greek.

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97
80 tasting notes

Alexander the great smells like violets.
Sweet, bold, aromatic, flowery.
Fit for a king, great hot or cold.

Ysaurella

I absolutely need to buy this tea when I’ll finish my full tin of Dammann frères ’s violet black tea !
I had the chance to eat a Mariage macaron Iskandar and it was a great pleasure.

Mélissa

You make me wish I lived near Paris! And yes, this tea is one of ‘’the greats’’.

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1776 tasting notes

Another tea I decided to grab when I ordered my MF advent. I love violet flavored things, so was quite excited to try this. I was even more excited once I tried Thé Des Impressionnistes, the other tea I added onto my order, which was incredible. This was not incredible. It’s not a nice violet. It’s a cat litter violet. The terrible musty perfume smell that scented cat litter has- that’s this perfume. I really need to retry this, hopefully it will be better on a second try.

derk

Ha, cat litter – that’s a bummer but reminded me… Have you tried Macaron Cassis Violette from Dammann Freres? When I first got it earlier this year, it smelled like cat pee. Let it rest for a while and it turned into lovely, delicate violet.

Crowkettle

Good to know on both counts XD

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88
362 tasting notes

This was another 50 grams of Mariage Freres teas from a recent splurge, and the only one of the small 50 gram packages which really is a a hit! The concept of it is fantastically alluring (to me), it has been on my wishlist for ages: green tea with violet and menthol and named after Alexander the Great. I had sniffed at it before and not been sure I wanted 100 grams of it, but this time I did risk it, and I am glad I did.

I brewed it not too hot (and I must try it as a cold steeped tea, they do sell it as a summer tea), and decided to when smelling it to sweeten it, and I am glad I did. I don´t usually sweeten tea, but it really brings out the violets, like violet candy (or maybe it is just my brain thinking if I am ingesting something which smells of violets it must be sweetened). And I do love it, floral (mainly violet, maybe some unidentifiable others), with menthol very discreet, at the end of it, and in the tongue, if that makes any sense. And I might very well be imagining this but it also seems fruit-y, red berry-ish, to me.

Really lovely tea

Flavors: Menthol, Violet

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 3 min, 45 sec
OMGsrsly

That sounds really interesting. Violets and mint are not a combination I would have thought of!

cteresa

It´s actually menthol, like a throat pastille – just a hint, right at the back of the taste so to speak, but indeed very interesting!

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93
21 tasting notes

This tea is my first Mariage et Frères. The odour was not convincing but I’m appreciating the deepnss of the violet taste.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 5 min, 0 sec

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