Dammann Frères

The perfect caramel blend, I have never had such a spot-on blend that wasn’t too sweet and delivered the perfect caramel-toffee flavor. This blend was malty, sweet, and indulgent. It tasted just like some hot melty caramel swirled in a creamy, malty, and bold black tea base.

Mom and I are enjoying a pot of this blend and watching Christmas cartoons! I know its a bit early but its her birthday and the birthday girl does whatever she wants <3

Another winner from my swap with Cameron! I typically don’t love Christmas blends because too much spice tends to give me headaches. However, what I’ve found with Dammann Freres Christmas blends is that they’re mainly subtly fruity and a bit woody which I love. Even though this is a Christmas/ seasonal blend I think I might grab some for my all-year-round stash ( yes I liked it that much!)

This is one of the many blends that my friend Cameron sent me in our first swap (thank you, Cameron!) Before our swap, I didn’t know that Dammann Freres existed but I haven’t explored many tea companies other than my go-tos. First off, I love the smell of this blend. The scent alone is so comforting and welcoming that I’d steep it just to smell it. Taste-wise, I love this blend! I love figs, Italian Christmas wouldn’t exist without something with figs in it so this blend reminds me of home. I love the subtle fruitiness and sweetness of this blend, I preferred it without any additions.

This is one of the first teas that I tried from the #svttb. Prior to receiving the box, I had only tried a blend or two from Dammann Freres from a swap with my friend Cameron and I haven’t had any complaints so far. I am so genuinely impressed with this blend, normally chocolate teas are hit or miss for me, and this one crossed off every box perfectly. It’s sweet, malty, rich, and packed with dark chocolate flavor with a hint of rose and marzipan.

Catching up on tasting notes, so there are about to be a few, bear with me!

We went away for a few days recently! It was the first time we’ve gone anywhere or done anything special since a year before the pandemic, so we decided to be indulgent and stay at a really nice hotel. We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant and I was a little reluctant to order tea because the quality of restaurant tea is always a crapshoot, even at high-end places. But I was genuinely pleased and impressed when they brought this out! Even in the sachet, it’s whole-flower chamomile of clearly high quality. It was absolutely delicious, a beautiful complement to dessert, and a great way to ease into the night. 

This was a very late evening cuppa and it was fine but was pretty soft and mildly flavoured. Just a hint of floral orange blossom but not much else to it. I suppose it worked with the quiet stillness of the evening and somewhat added to the ambiance of the moment what with the gentle patter of a day’s long rainstorm coming to a close outside.

Sipped on this earlier in the week – it was my first time trying it hot. The neroli reads so much like bergamot to me, it’s kind of crazy! Really aromatic, floral and dense citrus notes. At first I liked the sort of sultry citrus elements with this subtle white tea base, but I realized about two thirds into the mug that it was actually making me tongue get gradually numb which was very strange. By the end of the mug I actually couldn’t really taste it at all; it’s like I’d just slowly become gradually desensitized to the flavour…

Cold Brew!

This was really interesting because the body was pretty light but the flavour itself had surprisingly depth and complexity. It’s top notes were all soft citrus with aromatic bright orange elements that reminded me of the gentle spray of essential oils when you peel something like a Christmas orange. The flavour was darker and had a more heady and perfumed orange element. I know that’s coming from the neroli, but I’m not super familiar with neroli so my brain sort of interpreted it more like bergamot but with a sort of slightly caramelized sugar element? Not the sweetness of caramelized sugar though! I would definitely NOT call this is a sweet tea. More than anything it was the “maillard” part that just tastes kind of… brown? I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not because at times it was pleasant and refreshing but if I drank too much at once it almost made a film on my palate that got to be a little too floral and intense.

I’m so curious now to experience this hot and see how that effects the flavor.

Cold Brew!

Smooth though generic black tea that was perfectly refreshing with a clean finish. The banana in this is present, but so gentle and mild. Overall ends up being a total “whelming” cold brew. No big ups, no big downs.

I was underwhelmed with this when I first tried it, but I liked it a lot more with this more recent cup. It’s still a bit light on flavour, but the banana is pleasantly light and starchy and it goes well with the notes of crepe-like pastry and vanilla. In some ways, it reminded me of banana pudding. Not, like, the Snack Cup kind you’d get in school lunches though. More like the kind that is layered with nilla wafers! Full bodied, brisk black tea though. Yum yum!

Hmmm…

I feel like the flavouring of this is too light, even by DF’s usual standards. I drank it and I couldn’t definitely taste something. Maybe a little bit nutty and a bit starchy with a hint of vanilla? However it was definitely imperceptibly banana to my palate.

I’ll try again, maybe with some neutral sweetener to attempt to lift the flavours a bit.

Didn’t drink much tea today, but this was one of the few cups I snuck in. When it was hot it mostly tasted like smooth, fresh and vegetal green mate with the faintest hint of red fruit. As it cooled, the cherry notes got more intense. Never anything super strong or overt, but it was nice to see them slowly develop. A bit like the lingering sticky, sweetness on the palate after enjoying a cherry lollipop or popsicle. Not much in the way of the citrus, though. It was fine, though just a bit underwhelming.

Cold Brew!

Picked this up because I thought the cherry lemon combination was pretty cool to see come out of DF, especially on a mate base. It didn’t feel very traditional DF in flavour direction, and it’s always really interesting to see what companies do something a little outside of the box that they sort of build around themselves…

It is majority yerba mate, which shouldn’t be a surprise. The dry leaf aroma is very light but does smell a bit like lemon and some sort of red fruit. I wouldn’t call it cherry, necessarily. As a cold brew I really only got the yerba mate in the taste with maybe just a hint of lemon. It made me think of La Croix, actually, as I drank it because it was sooooo mildly flavoured that it was sort of that “the memory of XX flavour” or “XX flavour in the other room” vibe that La Croix gets made fun of for a lot. The mate itself was nice though; grassy and naturally sweet with a bit more of a smokiness to it than I’d expected.

Flavours are harder to perceive when cold though, and there’s so much yerba mate in this that I think when cold brewing it was probably SUPER easy for it to quickly over power what small amount of flavouring has been used – so I’m not judging this one yet until I get a chance to make a hot cup. And, just to clarify, I don’t expect it to be wildly flavoured/sweet or cherry lemon flavoured in the way that I would from other companies. In know that with DF blends the base tea always comes first, and I appreciate that quality greatly. I just want to taste some flavouring.

Sipdown (1824)!

As I just said in another tasting note, I love the taste of straight rooibos. However, it’s not really something I would ever think to buy from another tea company because I have DT’s Wild Grown Rooibos so easily available to me and that’s the best straight rooibos I’ve ever come across. That said, I was pleased to see this as one of the free samples in my most recent DF order!

The little sachet actually seemed pretty generously leafed/portioned so I made this in one of my bigger mugs. It came it pretty rich, with a lovely woody and nutty profile. Not as red fruit leaning as some straight rooibos can be and not as nutty either – mostly woody/mineral but very clean tasting and with a good level of natural sweetness.

I’m happy to have tried it, but it doesn’t top my beloved Wild Grown Rooibos.

Sipdown! (99 | 196)

I’m not sure what to think of this one, it almost tastes bland to me? There’s a light sweetness and a hint of hazelnut, but otherwise I mostly just taste the woody black base. Maybe a tiny hint of chocolate flavor?

Strange, because Mon Petit Chocolat is fairly strongly flavored.

Sipdown! (89 | 186)

I like this one a bit better than the l’Ôriental Noir from yesterday, but I still don’t love it as much as I thought I would.

To be fair, I’ve never had a mangosteen, so I was mostly just expecting some sort of tropical flavor. And this does taste tropical, though it’s difficult to place. The description calls it peach-pear-passion fruit, which I can sort of see. I would guess mango, but perhaps that’s the passion fruit tartness. I think I get some peachiness in the aftertaste.

Similar to l’Ôriental Noir, the base is a bit too earthy in my opinion, and it’s an odd combination with the light, tart, fruity flavor. Maybe if the flavoring were a bit stronger, it would stand up to the base better. I don’t remember having this issue with other fruit-flavored black teas I have from Dammann, so I’ll have to try those again and see if it’s a different base or if I’m just being crazy. :P

ETA: Forgot to mention, this was another sample from Courtney!

I had this last night and though I didn’t taste a lot of banana I thought the floral blueberry flavour and fresh green and orchid-like notes of the oolong were both quite smooth and sophisticated. Very easy drinking, and just switched up enough from feeling like a plain blueberry blend.

Cold Brew!

This was another commute cold brew enjoyed this past week. I definitely thought this brew was all blueberry and no banana, though the light floral blueberry notes were so complimentary with the crisp, greener florals that the oolong itself contributed. It had a very Spring-like quality to it that made me think of gardening. Smooth, and refreshing and all together pretty lovely as a cold brew!

Deciding to pull out this tea to have something pleasantly soft, fruity, and floral to ease into my day with. I am really digging the way the banana has a creaminess to it but also still some of that greener edge, and it works very nicely with the semi-sweet and very floral notes of blueberry. Neither of these interpretations of the two fruits would probably fly in the mass/commercial North American market and it’s a shame because they’re both accurate to the fruits in very specific but very real ways. Definitely feeling the cozy, lazy morning vibes as I sip on this really lovely blend.

This was essentially the reason I ended up placing a recent DF order in the first place. The idea of the combination of blueberry and banana was so appealing to me, and because this is a French tea company I knew the composition would be wildly different from anything North American facing – not heavy and decadent/sweet but probably softer, floral and very elevated in interpretation. I feel like I was super dead on with that expectation, too!

Because of the choice of oolong base, this would be a blend predisposed to tasting floral and slightly “green” already – but I think the exact blueberry flavouring they’ve chosen really leans into that. It’s not a jammy/syrupy or candy like blueberry in the slightest, and has a very fresh and floral natural taste to it. I get blueberry quite a bit more than the banana, but I do think the banana has a nice (but light) natural creaminess to it on top of its own unique greener note. It mostly appears in the finish of the sip, and is a nice way to round out the florals of the body.

Overall, this feels very sophisticated and nuanced and I’m really digging it!