Mariage Frères

I need to sort out the teas from MissB and get them out to the girls. However, silly me forgot to pick up bags and labels so it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. However, it did tempt me in to make another cup of this just because. there should be SOME perks to getting a giant box of tea that needs to be repackaged and shipped out haha. For me, it’s getting to have 1-2 cups of things while i sort through them rather than having to add to me cupboard. This is a pretty tasty vanilla tea. Not my ultimate favourite, but still damn good. Thanks again for all the great (and not so great) shares MissB! :)

mmmmmm so good. Another from MissB omgsrsly, can you tell me if some of this made it out to you guys last box? I have a feeling it went to whatshesaid because she’d requested it and if you guys didn’t get any, i want to make sure you get some to try. :)

This is a great vanilla tea..though i’m not sure i would be able to differentiate it from some of the other vanilla teas i’ve had. What it DID confirm for me, was that i’m on the right track with the vanilla tea that i’ve been making. Just need to find a great base lol. Thanks for the share missB!

thank you ysaurella for this lovely vanilla tea! It might just be one of my favourites now after having had it. Seriously…wish i could say more but this was just delicious and perfectly what i wanted tonight.

Final Count: 148 (but there’s something at the post office…waiting….for tomorrow)

another delicious tea from ysaurella the last decent cup of tea that i’ll likely have for a bit so a nice one to end off with :)

i had a cup of this tonight to try and relax and enjoy something new. Sadly i was distracted and didn’t pay enough attention to this one from Ysaurella what i do remember is being pleasantly surprised by it as i didn’t bother reading to find out what sort of tea it was. tasty for sure! thankfully i have a bit more of this from my lovely french swapping partner to try it again!

Sipdown!! (116)

Thank you Aimee Popovacki for sharing a sample of this tea. It is always exciting to get a chance to try something that is not easily accessible (as is the case with Mariage Frere teas) so I was happy when I saw this in our swap.

Unfortunately, sipping on this tea, I am not so happy. It is soapy and astringent and rather unpleasant. This is just not for me and now I know for sure.

This was sent to me by the wonderful Sil.

Having this tea as I’m getting ready to go out.

Whoa! Did not expect to like it this much. I have no idea what’s in a French Breakfast, and Mariage Frères not giving any detailed info on most of their blends, there’s no way of knowing. It bugs me cause I like to know exactly what I’m having.

The smell once brewed gave me the impression it was going to be smoky. Not in a Lapsang kind of way, but more of a Keemun. Smoky yes, but it doesn’t taste nearly as much as it smells and that makes me happy. Not a fan of heavy smoke. I forgot to examine the dry blend of my sample, but from the look of the picture and the taste, I would think golden tip Assam, and maybe Darjeeling and Ceylon? I’m just guessing here, from the level of fruitiness and astringency. (I steeped a good five minutes, 2 tsp in a 12oz mug.)

Anyways, whatever is in there, it’s a lovely tea, gave me the kick I needed to go and accomplish undesired duties!

Thanks a lot Sil, really digging this one :-)

Scheherazade shared this with me, and it was one that I didn’t even know that I was interested in at all! Only once I had it, it turned out that I was.

I had the black version of MP through a swap years ago, and I seem to recall that I rather liked it. At the time I didn’t understand why a rooibos version even existed, because I didn’t care for rooibos at all during that time. Later on I forgot all about it. It’s not a blend that you see around on Steepster a lot after all.

It’s weird actually, that period. It lasted several years. I started out quite liking rooibos, both unflavoured and flavoured. Then I suddenly couldn’t stand the stuff no matter how it came. That went on for years. I even gave all my rooibos blends to Husband back when he was still Boyfriend. Then Cteresa sent me a rooibos blend with vanilla and strawberry I think it was, which I dutifully tried because I feel that when someone shares something with you, it’s polite to at least give it a go with as open a mind as one can muster, even when it’s something one doesn’t expect to like very much. So I tried the blend Cteresa shared with me and was promptly knocked clean off my feet and I gave a score of 90-something points.

So now, suddenly, I rather enjoy rooibos blends again, although I still don’t care for unflavoured rooibos. That tastes a bit like chewing a pencil.

And I’ve clean forgotten where I was going with this.

Anyway, I can’t remember what goes into a Marco Polo blend on any base, but I think it was something with chocolate and strawberry. I believe there was a third thing, but I can’t say what it might be.

Well, it smells like chocolate and strawberry and rooibos, so so far so good.

It also tastes quite like strawberry, but not so much like chocolate. I’m getting a bit of that on the swallow, but otherwise it just tastes fruity.

I have previously elaborated on my difficulties with chocolate flavoured blends, so all in all I found this a remarkably pleasant blend.

Although it seems to have given me hiccups.

I got a tin of this by accident – thought I had ordered the Marco Polo black while trying to find a suitable alternative to my favorite TWG 1837 Black, which I usually pick up while on business trips in Asia. I was not disappointed one bit, however, once I opened the tin and took that first whiff of the leaves. The ripe and dark berry smell was magic!! Blueberries, blackberries, elderberries, black raspberries, loganberries.. all muddled with some flower blossoms… but, I thought.. will this go as well with green tea as with black?

Surprisingly well, it appears. There are two reasons this doesn’t get a 90+ score from me, however. The liquor has a lot more floral notes to compliment the berries when compared to my beloved 1837 black, which has caramel notes instead of floral. However, this is not a terribble thing because sometimes I want a bit more flowers in my berry-green but not jasmine, and this tea hits the spot perfectly. The second reason it’s not a 90+ is that I only really get 2 solid infusions out of this at 175 (2 mins, 1 min), and they need to be combined post-brew into 1 batch for a good balance. The first infusion has the green tea flavor way too faint, and by the second steeping the floral notes are mostly gone and berry notes completely gone. A third steeping (at 2 mins) produces a mild, weak green tea. I haven’t taken this beyond 3 infusions.

I can’t wait to try the Marco Polo black tea after this though…

It’s not a complex oolong and not as creamy as other oolongs but it is smooth and has a delicate sweetness that makes it quite comforting. One of those teas that can be drank whenever, wherever.

When I opened the bag of this tea, all I could smell was rooibos. It made my tongue feel dry just smelling it! Spaced it during stepping and left it sitting for a few minutes longer than intended, but hey, the dishes got done so it is still a win.

I really don’t taste anything on the actual sip, but as soon as it goes down I get a fruity flavor on the aftertaste followed by strong rooibos. I’m keeping in mind that it has been an allergy-rific day for me, but I don’t remember this tea wowing me last time we met. The longer aftertaste is a pretty even mixture of woodsy rooibos and fruit. I have read that this is supposed to be cherry, but I’m just not able to pick that out. This rates as pretty meh for me.

I think this is still definitely my favorite from the Héritage Gourmand collection. I like that the flavor here is very mild. The texture is smooth and silky, and the toasted rice really makes it smell like an authentic baked good. I used to live right near St. Honoré in Portland (this was during a veganism hiatus) and my favorite things to get were the Cannelés.

Thank you greenteafairy for sending me a sample of this. I’ve been eyeing the Héritage Gourmand collection on Marriage Frères website for a while now because they look so good, but I’ve been hesitant to purchase these teas without trying them first because of the price. But this tea was incredible. The flavoring was wonderful and the texture was perfect- it is so, so smooth and, yes, almost custard-like. This is definitely going on my shopping list!

Yum. This is pretty good. It’s a creamy, fruity, floral green tea. It is really difficult to pick out which fruits I am tasting. By the aroma, it seemed like a lychee/pineapple/citrus tea. There is also a hint of spice. I’ll probably add this to my order list. Thank you greenteafairy for giving me a chance to try this one!

Welcome to Day 8 of little terri’s Sipdown Extravaganza!
I was debating with my selves yesterday evening as to whether I should keep the sipdowns coming, as there are some seriously amazing looking (& smelling!) teas in my cupboard, just waiting to be sampled. And I really want to sample them!!

But I also really want to clean up the loose ends, if you know what I mean. So I’m gonna take it one day at a time, until I either can’t stand it anymore, or run out of sipdown material.

This is a sample from Sil, and as others have said, it bares a similarity to imperial wedding. It’s not a tea I should have drank on an empty stomach, unfortunately.

Thank you very much JustJames for sharing this fabulous tea with me. It’s scent brings a lot of distinct memories forward while I sip it, ranging from hiking in the bush in the Carolinian forests of Southern Ontario, my friends mother’s cherry torte, and a cream I loved and can no longer get. I love it’s mix of cream, cherries and spice.

The dry leaf contains pieces of what appear to be cinnamon, fruit and cornflowers. After
3.5 min I was left with a fragrant maple blended with copper coloured brew.

The tea smells of vanilla cream, cherries, and white cake. It is a light cherry cream scent, not sharp, closer to maraschino with cinnamon underneath, with a scent that reminds me a little bit of sassafras or spice bush.

The flavour reminds me a little bit of cream soda. Cream tinted with spice bush, cinnamon and cherry almond note. An undertone in the taste, leaves a feeling like cola at the back of the throat. There is a hint of a light almond flavoured fluffy biscuit, almost like ladies fingers.

The aftertaste is of cinnamon, a cherry like fruit note and cream soda/ cola note that lingers.

The base is pretty smooth and rich, mostly hidden by the flavouring but It seems to be contributing a sweet and faintly tart note and enough tannins to give this tea some body.

Thanks again James! I can see why you love it.

Okay, my tastebuds must really be off, because this is tasting merely mediocre to me at this moment – or as someone said to me last night, “Aggressively mediocre.” I get a bit of astringency, a hint of maybe burnt butter or maybe (if I stretch) caramel, and that’s about it. Boo me. I should stick to teas that I like less already right now, methinks.

This is delicious cup of mostly creamy caramel, with a tiny hint of chocolate at the end. It’s really quite lovely both hot and cold, although I do prefer it warm-ish.

I think (?) I bought this from Starfevre in her tea sale, and I feel badly that I bought it at a time when I’d yet to think of marking each sample with the handle of the person who sent it to me. :$ Silly MissB. So, to whomever sold this to me at a greatly discounted price because it was in a different tea’s bad – thank you!

I’ve never had a tea with chestnuts before, so this one intrigued me in a swap with KittyLovesTea.

I can only guess the chestnuts are the main flavour here, and the vanilla lightens it up a bit. However, I’m getting something that’s coming through as floral that ins’t working out so well for me.

Thanks for sharing KittyLovesTea!

A sad sipdown. It’s also sad because I think this is going onto the “don’t reorder” list. I do like it, but I don’t think I like it enough.

With cranberry honey, it’s really fruity even though I steeped it for something ridiculous like 10 mins. Apparently I forgot to press “go” on my timer! Oops. :)

Thank you for the chance to really try this one out, MissB.

Mmm, tea.

I only have one cup of this one left. To drink, or to save… that is always the question.

(240, as I made up a tea box for a friend..)

(1.5 tsp in 12 oz H2O)

(PS. Not a snow day.)