High end tea suggestions!
Holy crap! You all are so nice! Thank you SO much for all of the suggestions and time you have taken to help me! Good grief! You all are great new friends.
I live in Oklahoma….. So nothing exciting around here. We have Teavana—-which gives me hives and the cold sweats when entering their store… Whole Foods, WS…. That’s about it!
Butiki looks amazing! And Golden Moon! The O Dor looks cool! PDT looks awesome as well. Those are the brands so far I have scoped out since last night!
I love Flavored teas……and am plotting an order with somebody soon!
My problem is—- I get on a tea buying spree, and then I have too many and they all expire! Ahhhhh!!!!
The really high end teas from Mariage Freres are not offered from the retailers in the US. I would classify the Darjeelings as high end, where most of the premium Spring Flush teas are around the 30 to 40 euro price point. For me, the teas like the Spring Flush Castleton, the Spring Flush Namring are worth the expensive cost, the added cost of the shipping, and the customs handling charge. Unfortunately, the 2013 Spring Flush Darjeelings did not meet my expectations and I am currently purchasing the Mariage Freres Vintage Castelton and Margarets Hope of Spring 2012 which are both very fine teas.
Aside from the high end teas, Mariage Freres has some of the most beautiful tins and extravagant gift sets which also are fairly expensive. The gift sets I have purchased at Mariage Freres in Japan were perfectly wrapped in the black on black gift paper with the Mariage Freres sticker to boot. Was it worth the price. Without even tasting the teas, my friends were enamored with the Mariage brand, and the crafting of the tins, as well as the beautiful box it comes in. You will see lots of women, spending more than JPY,3000 (30USD) at the salon and then purchasing JPY30,000 (300USD) worth of tea. What the manager told me is, in Japan, for most women, it is about the Mariage Freres brand name regardless of the price. They had some tea pots selling at over $2000 USD sitting on their shelves.
The MF teaware is just exquisite. I would have said the same about their special edition tins, except more recent ones are just atrociously tacky. Not a word I ever planned with associating with them but there you have it. Actually, pretty as they are their special edition tins teas are usually very hit and miss ( and miss and miss) with me – regular blends and teas are much more likely to be to my taste. Though I might have a fitness of madness over Maori blue ( yo Santa!)
Not all French tea is high end – palais des thes is IMO middling, dammann as well though a bit more chic. A few of the more glamorous names like Fauchon or Hediard are not really tea companies, just companies with tea lines – in some cases their blends are from other companies and sometimes very overpriced.
High end I would mention TWG which are building such a high profile, bbc piece and all – though i disliked the tone of that piece, expensive tea as a status symbol basically ( talking about tacky, worse than garish tin). I do not know their teas too well but basically they seem also pretty overpriced and been so far underwhelmed.
The second Mariage Frères tea that I ever purchased was Iskandar (I’m obsessed with Alexander the Great) in its green, glass blown, Summer collection jar. The weight and craftsmanship of the jar was astounding! I am always impressed by how well Mariage Frères does glass jars. I’ve now, thanks to a wonderful friend who has family in France, added yet another glass jar of Iskandar to my collection and some beautiful tins. It is always best to buy directly from France, when possible. The prices are far better and the selection is phenomenal. Some jars are well worth the extra price as you are paying for a beautiful art piece as well as (usually) wonderful tea!
I obsess over Mariage Freres teas and product because much of what they carry is of high quality. Their customer service is top notch and I have had long correspondences with them concerning tea. Cteresa, eventually, I will try all the other tea companies you have mentioned, for now though, I am quite pleased with the Darjeeling teas from Mariage Freres and the High Mountain Oolong teas I purchase from Taiwan.
Last week I had the chance to try some Fortnum and Mason, Harrod’s, and some other teas in Japan but I was not impressed. I have had several teas from Fauchon in the past yet none of them has made a lasting impression. There are times when I wish my wife and I had never tried the high end Darjeeling Spring teas from Mariage Freres. Then we would be quite happy with all the other retailers offering fine Darjeeling tea.
cteresa, I’m also underwhelmed by TWG. I know they market themselves as super high end, and a lot of their stuff is quite expensive, but I also find that they take teas and add so much perfume to them you can’t really taste the tea. I’ve only tried 2, but even smelling the tins in the store for some of the teas burned my nose they were so strong.
TeaPet, oh those glass jars, they are incredible. really amazing.
Mind you, Iskandar is one of their regular, pre special edition tin, tea blends. Those are IMO a bit safer than blends they create specially for the special tins.
OMGsrsly, I have flirted with TWG teas, but so far I remained untempted to pay their prizes. Though I admit packaging is also cute, though also a pet peeve, paper lined tins, what good is a pretty tin if the pretty is paper deep only? (japanese tins excepted!).
Excelsior, I would probably not recommend you any of those other french brands, apart maybe from Theodor and that with reservations, I think it unlikely they have a better network for Darjeeling than MF. I think Theodor is the only likely to be that obsessed in the tea (rather than the image), and they have extremely interesting single origin teas, but I think they are not focusing too much on Darjeeling – they seem to have more japanese teas, and a japanese website (actually much less annoying than the regular english one). They are worth checking, and not promising anything, but the rest, not likely. Sadly.
cteresa, they sell loose leaf locally. 50g minimum (Urban Tea Merchant), most of the basics are about $10/50g which is still expensive, but they do have a tea that’s $500/25g, so that needs to be taken into consideration. :) If I pick up more from them, I’ll keep in mind that you’re interested.
Here, I can not get TWG by the loose leaf (though not sure, must check this café which served it from huge tins, but I was with friends and hurried and could not check if they were selling it). But it´s 22 euros a tin (paper wrapped!though the tin has that little stopper inside which I love, i admit), or maybe 14-16 euros a teabag box. Not even tempted.
500$ for 25 gr, oh wow. And me thinking the other guys were being too greedy with their gold scissors cut tea and gold wrapped green tea pearls (I suspect they are not planning to sell that particularly to the europeans or other westerners, but for the asian market).
Butiki teas look great quality – some proper rare stuff on there
You can keep your flavoured stuff but there is some really nice long looking teas on there
Just remember expensive doesn’t mean good. Mariage freres look ridiculous money based on reputation alone lets add a few quid to the price.
I started low end and work upwards
Not all of the teas from Mariage Freres are expensive. They have a large range of teas which are quite reasonable in price. I’m not here to start an argument but have you tried many of the 500 teas Mariage Freres has to offer?
I should bite my tongue, really I should. But if you think Mariage Freres is expensive or “ridiculous money”, I can buy 100 grams of their flavoured rooibos (my gorgeous Nil Rouge) for 7.5 euros (8.5 euros for marco rouge) which is IMO already high end of reasonable prices for flavoured rooibos.
But you mention on your very first comment, Butiki. If I go and buy Butiki´s no doubt also gorgeous flavoured rooibos, prices seem to be 9 dollars per 2 ounces (60 grams), that is if I make my calculations right around 15 dollars per 100 grams, and xe.com tells me that would be 10.90 euros per 100 grams (as compared to say 7.5 for Nil Rouge or 8.5 for the pricier Marco Polo Rouge, both of which are awesome and very high quality grade rooibos).
Mariage freres is not too crazily expensive – I do not feel I am ripped off unlike some other expensive brands. And frankly some American tea companies are taking the piss so to speak for single estate it is difficult to compare but when I do the math and see ctc teas or flavored rooibos at 10-15 euros per hundred grams before tax, lol.
Mariage freres by the weight is cheaper than a lot of American brands mentioned here.
Special edition tins and tea ware is a different matter but that is also a different way of measuring value.
Agre with this cteresa! Shipping is what makes the cost slightly more expensive over here but if I away comparing buying where available without shipping, MF is actually the same price or cheaper than some of the teas I would personally consider inferior.
Yeah, problem is shipping, though that usually is a problem for me no matter where I buy so am more sensitive to just the plain prizes.
But I seem to have dug up my calculator because I wanted to check a comparison above and now am in a roll. For example I got at home two chocolate mint black teas. One is choco-menthe by Mariage Freres which on their site they says costs 5.5 euros per 100 grams. The other is Davids Tea Read My Lips, which their site says is $6.75 per 50 grams or $13.50 per 100 grams though admittedly they throw in a free (plain) tin. I think those are american dollars anyway (sil, help?)but 13.50 USD is 9.80€, a lot more than 5.50€ and I think choco-menthe is probably a better tea, less filler and a bit more intense. Though Read My Lips is cuter as a present.
You got to compare the prices of the simple plain teas, not the stuff tea merchants are marketing as gifts and collectibles and stuff.
That is such a fascinating comparison, cteresa! I know I myself have never found MF or the other french companies that expensive, as long as you are buying the loose tea and not a fancy tin or something. The tins are where it really gets inflated!
Cteresa – agreed! if i could find MF/DF here i’d be all over those teas. In fact, depending on how my experiment goes with ordering from europe, i may just start doing it more often since it’s about the same price.
For shipments to the US, a customs handling charge is added to the cost. I have no idea what this charge is based on. Size of the package, contents, value, weight? I really don’t know but is has been added to every order from Mariage Freres. As for shipment time to California USA, the package usually arrives within five days.
I was on the fence about trying MF’s teas after learning that there is a local shop which sells a wide selection, but I may bite the bullet now! They will also let you try the tea before buying, so huge plus there.
Excelsior- are the packages you are ordering very large/expensive? Because I have ordered small packages (<$50) from other French tea companies (not MF) and never gotten a customs handling charge applied. Just wondering if it applies once you hit a certain value threshold.
Super glad someone pointed out things are often not what they seem when you compare similar tea blends or types by unit weight. I am often quite surprised at how that turns out comparison-wise; places that don’t “feel” expensive are and then stuff like MF ends up being surprisingly reasonable. I think it’s the mandatory large sizes ordering that can throw me—Butiki by unit weight can be quite pricey indeed but she offers much smaller size options that feel affordable, especially when you don’t know yet if you like something. MF and DF and all of them end up fine unit-wise, but you have to order over 3oz of everything you want to try (and usually can’t know beforehand if you love or not as they’re overseas), and then yeah, the killer on top of that is the shipping/potential customs.
Honestly I’m sure difficulty obtaining is part of what adds to the allure for me (that said this whole discussion has been interesting and reminded me “high end” is a nebulous thing and one man’s treasure is another’s meh—I tried Fauchon when it was available to order here recently and am wildly in love with those teas, more so than any of the MF flavored blends I tried earlier this year…I will be genuinely sad when I finish them up and a bit haunted, ha). But anyway, when you bother to do by oz or gram price comparison things often surprise me for sure. Thanks for pointing that out!
The orders I place are usually 200+ euros. There might be a threshold at USD100. I was thinking to break my orders up but that would drive up the shipping costs.
I’d try some MF teas first.
Price is all personal to you. When I used to drink a £25 bottle of single malt would be gone in a weekend.
£25 worth of tea would last longer.
Whats a good choice of MF teas that don’t require a remortgage
this is a good point too. i love similarly fancy liquor and was pleased when i discovered similarly well crafted tea is just about always cheaper by quite a large margin. it might be enabling me but i do keep that in mind—that even my favoritest fancypants tea is not costing me nearly as much per serving as the whiskeys and liqueurs i love and used to drink more often before i fell back into tea.
For flavored tea, Marco Polo. This their most popular tea.
If you like flavored rooibos, then as cteresa stated Nile Rouge.
For a malty/chocolate type tea, Cha Thai.
For Earl Grey, Earl Grey Imperial.
For Darjeeling, Princeton.
I have tried them all and they are good. One word about Darjeeling though, I feel Darjeeling teas are extremely temperamental. They can be very astringent, especially if not brewed properly. I tend to favor Spring Flush Darjeeling and this is what separate Mariage Freres from all other retailers. The taste, aroma, flavor, and quality of Mariage Freres Spring Darjeelings cannot be matched. However, the IMHO the 2013 MF Spring Flush teas were a big disappointment. MF France has limited quantities of the Vintage Spring Flush Castleton 2012 which is still very good even though the tea was picked well over a year ago.
Morebloodytea, do you want recommendations? Depending on what you like and what you can get – in France MF has lots of ceylons, and I would say they are likely a very good source for those.
Flavored rooibos of theirs, I love both Nil Rouge (citrus and spices maybe) and Marco Polo Rouge (red fruits and vanilla, or something else. It just was my evening cup). Nil Rouge is sort of a staple for me. Rouge Sahara is awesome if you want a rooibos with mint and (subtle) rose and Rouge Provence is going to be my next MF rooibos, it smells so wonderful. Rouge Bourbon is IMO lovely but a warning, I think it is only for people who like plain rooibos, the vanilla is very subtle there, it´s like plain rooibos just made better. I do not like their surabaya or methis.
Otherwise go with their versions of what you like – their lapsang souchong imperial, their earl grey blue and their Yunnan Imperial are pretty good as examples of their kind of tea.
Of their breakfast blends I adore madly American breakfast which will be a rebuy for sure and has staple potential.
Of the flavoured teas, I would say always smell it if you can and then make up your mind, but rebuys for me are, besides the rooibos and American Breakfast (and the Lapsang), Chandernagor (my favorite chai ever, so far) Thé sur le Nil, Pleine Lune, maybe Casablanca ( there are tons of cheaper versions which should be similar, but sadly are not the same). Lots more I enjoyed very much but these seem to be the ones which I reach for the most and will miss more when I finish my stock.
You all are AMAZING!! Thanks for all of the suggestions. I made a list of them all! I made an order from Butiki so far!
What size in inches or cm are the MF glass jars ?
The summer icea tea ones? these ones?
http://www.mariagefreres.com/boutique/UK/ft+violetta-iced-tea-french-summer-tea+TFG997.html
They are bigger than the tins. The description there says the measuring cup that serves as a stopper is (h. 175mm – Ø 85mm)
I guess the 17.5 cm is the height of the jar, though I would have guessed a bit more. if you know their regular tins, the jars are noticeably larger, maybe as tall as the slim special edition tins but might wider than those.
The Maori blue glass jar is smaller, much smaller, smaller than a regular tin.
I mean the ball shaped glass jar is it sort of same size as what the link shows? Example madame butterfly fruit tea pink ball jar.
Ball shaped glass jar? ah, the fruit infusions! (LOL, forgot those existed)
http://www.mariagefreres.com/boutique/UK/ft+happy-birthday-fruit-tea-fruit-tea+TFBF7255.html
IIRC they are bigger than a regular tin, but not quite as large as the summer tea glass jars.
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