417 Tasting Notes
This is my favorite tea from my recent Mariage Frères order. I had a busy weekend, so I wanted to start Monday off well. :-)
I’m trying to plan a trip to Japan soon, and if it works out, I will definitely make the Mariage Frères in the Ginza district one of my stops. Heh, but I have no other ideas on where else I should try to go. Maybe the Steepster message boards have some good suggestions….
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There’s the Fortnum and Mason tea salon in Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi. There is a Harrod’s tea shop in the same Mitsukoshi The TWG tea salon in Jiyugaoka. Lupicia in Ginza. Also, all the Department stores have food markets in their basement. There’s a wide variety of Japanese teas you can buy there. On weekends, they might have small paper cups of brewed green tea samples. All the hotels, Peninsula, Shangri La, Mandarin Oriental will have tea salons.
If you go to the Mariage Freres store/salon in Ginza, say hi to the store manager, Nozaki-san, for me.
Thanks for the advice!!! :-) Is TWG worth stopping at? They have a great reputation, but the only teas I’ve tried from them have been a couple of flavored ones from Dean & Deluca, and I was not impressed. I will say hello from “Excelsior”. Haha…
This was another excellent gift from my excellent mother. I brewed this gong fu style while Casey and I watched the original Terminator movie tonight. Some of the outdated special effects made me giggle. It was like watching that Russian alien in the X-Files episode from “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”. Never mind.
Anyway. This tea was really nice. The first steeps were like caramel and nuts and coffee. The texture of the tea was creamy and smooth. It held up to many steepings, and didn’t become too drying at the end like some teas can. Looking forward to enjoying a few more steeps in the morning, but for now we’re going to bed.
Terminator is my hubby’s all time fave. he can watch it any time from the middle and even the end is good enough for him. He introduced my 7 yr old son to it and now they watch together;)
Neither Casey nor I had seen it before last night, and we both really enjoyed it. We’ll probably watch the sequel either tonight or tomorrow. Apparently there’s also a new Terminator movie due to come out next year…Are your husband and son planning to go see that one?
yes. Im going to watch it too. After all I saw it so many times, i practically know his lines. Some other my hubby faves are Robocop and Die Hard. So you have an idea:) i watch lots of movies, foreign, independent, sometimes I forget if i saw it. we love Charlie Chaplin. its endless but those 3 i mentioned above are like DeBeers diamonds. Funny right?
Sounds like you have a broad range of movie tastes! I also haven’t seen Robocop or Die Hard. Now that I’ve found that Terminator was an enjoyable movie, maybe I will give some other vintage action movies a try…
This was an awesome birthday present from my mother. I’m still not the biggest fan of Dragon Well tea, but of the Longjing I have tried, this is one of my favorites. What I like about this tea that makes it better than others I’ve had is that it has a beautiful long-lasting finish. I made 4 infusions of this. I believe this is also the greenest in color of any Longjing I’ve had. I wonder how the flavor of this typically varies between different harvests.
I have had bad luck with finding a chocolate tea that I really like. This one smells amazing (chocolate & cream), but when it’s brewed according to the instructions the cup is pretty tannic mid-sip. I think I may have over-leafed this, so perhaps it will turn out better next time. I might also try lowering the steeping temperature to see if I can make the tea taste more like the dry leaf smells smells.
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TranquiliTea81 sent me a sample of this with our swap. Thank you!!!
I really want to like this, but when the most prominent note in a tea is rose, it just reminds me too much of being in a Crabtree and Evelyn. Rose has only worked for me when it’s accompanied by a more assertive note such as a citrus. I’m really glad I got to try this one, though. :-)
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I got this in a swap with ashleyelizabeth. Thank you!!!
So, I realized at almost 8 last night that I hadn’t consumed any caffeinated tea all day, and I still had almost 5 hours worth of work to do. I was not going to make that mistake today! I brewed a 3-cup pot of this and made it strong. I also got a work call, so I steeped it for much longer than I intended. It still turned out really well anyway. I could only wish the banana flavor was stronger, because what I really want to do is blend some of this with my favorite, Pancake Breakfast, and have Hot Buttered Banana Pancakes with Maple Syrup tea!
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Here is the last one from the Héritage Gourmand collection. This is a nice apple tea with some slightly savory/buttery notes. At first I could have sworn that there was cinnamon in this because it smelled very sweet. Anyhow, this is really very good, and I am really happy with the Héritage Gourmand collection as a whole.
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All of the holiday blends I just received from Butiki smell amazing. Every time I start thinking that my try all the teas phase is winding down, I become aware of new teas that I must try. Oh well. It’s one of the more healthy addictions one can have…This one reminds me very much of drinking eggnog at Christmas. This would go so well with a pear or apple tart.
