Pleine Lune - Full Moon

Mmmmm, this is good. Thanks to CharlotteZero for this one!
I’m getting mainly stewed cherry in this, but also some muted spice notes. Reminds me a little of mulled wine. I’m not getting the honey, which is ok, though I do love honey! This holds up well with skim milk and sweetener, which is a plus for me, not all teas do.

Look at the MF trend in my life lately! I’m actually really glad, because I actually got these teas in October of 2013, and figure I need to actually get to them instead of just hording them because they’re “too nice”. But I was craving this tea ever since I got home last night, and chose to have it with breakfast this morning. As I sipped at it, I found it passingly reminiscent of glitter and gold, but only vaguely. Perhaps it’s because both have a touch of spice to them, although this one also has the delicious marzipan component, whereas glitter and gold is more similar to a pumpkin tea (in my opinion anyway—I know it’s an odd comparison). I also like that I could really get a hefty base here, and I don’t know how to describe it other than to say that it’s a base that MF is proud of, because there aren’t any attempts to obliterate it with a ton of flavour, although this tea is very flavourful indeed. and not in the “delicate but nice” way—there really is a lot of flavour here.

This is definitely a magnificent, well balanced cuppa of quality tea I’d expect from our favorite brothers Mariage. The dry leaves have a very strong, intoxicating smell, like a shot of krupnik (a spiced honey liquor from my homeland) diluted with Amaretto.. smells almost like it has alcohol. Made me think I’m about to get drunk brewing a bit of Amaretto with maraschino cherries or some other divinely sweet desert drink.

The brewed tea loses the “alcohol” scent but the almond/spiced honey fragrance is joined by some smashed red berries, I’d say closest to strawberries and dark brandied cherries. One of the “spices” is definitely mahlab, which gives that bitter almond & cherry flavor. That part brought me back to Egypt the moment I took my first sip, but in some European-style cafe in Cairo next to a hookah/sheesha bar. I can’t quite pinpoint the other spices (saffron? black sesame?), but they are very well balanced, neither muting the concert of sweet honey with cherry amaretto nor fading into the background.

The brewing suggestion was 3-5 minutes at 95C water, 2.5g/20cl. I found that 200F, 2tsp/300ml at 3 minutes works best for me, as some bitter notes from the mahlab start becoming more pronounced at 5 minutes. 4 minutes and I already needed some sweetener to bring it back to balance, but the flavor was a bit more robust. When I brewed a cup for my mom at her house, I used freshly boiled water (no precise kettle) I’m guessing was around 205-210F for 4 minutes and it definitely needed sweetener.

Finicky and you’ll have to play around with the temps to get it just right for yourself, but when you nail it, it’s a real treat. Also got mine fresh direct from Mariage Freres, so maybe the longer steeping times are for leaves that have been sitting around for a little while.

I really like this tea, but it definitely has a very strong, sweet marzipan flavor. It may be a little artificial tasting, but somehow I still really like it.

Love it love it love it! It’s delicious! A never disapointing tea!