Mariage Frères

Oh la la it’s so good ! I’ve let the salesman at Mariage Frères choice for me an Oolong and he picked up this one and he was so right. It’s exactly what I wanted : a mellow, nutty and earthy Oolong.

The small tea leaves are folden but full. The dry leaf smells like chesnut and the very dark liquor is the same but with this heavy earthy taste, the kind of taste the earth has probably after the rain.

I was sceptical about this plain Oolong (at Mariage you should buy at least 100 g and this is an expensive tea, so it was risky !)and I was so wrong, it is really a wonderful blend.

I have now more and more difficulties to drink flavoured teas. At least at picking them first in my cupboard.

This is a sample kindly sent by cteresa. This is clearly not a tea I would have bought by myself because I am not familiar with Lapsang Souchong and was quite afraid of.

But I am nicely surprised because even if for a LS beginner like I am the smocky taste seems heavy, it is so lovely blended with a light bergamot that I can only love it.

The tea base is really mellow and the bergamot touch is perfect to help to
tame this type of tea.
As it cools the smocky taste seems lighter now.

Thank you so much for permitting me to discover this type of teas cteresa

thank you to sil for this gem…..

i didn’t get caramel and toffee out of it (i never do) but i got SOMETHING! it wasn’t just tea….

i got brown sugar, coffee? or something akin to. vanilla. an unnameable fruit tone…. very smooth.

thank you, sil! i’m a day behind, but it was a lovely celebration!

Casey and I are drinking a pot of this tonight. We are maybe two pots away from a sipdown.

This doesn’t taste as strongly flavored as last time, but I’ve been drinking a lot of flavored teas today. I’m also noticing some vanilla, which I wasn’t sure was present last time I brewed this. It’s also more astringent than I remember it being. I still plan on ordering some of this when I place my big Mariage Frères order in March, mostly because Casey really likes this, but otherwise I probably wouldn’t purchase again.

Casey really likes this tea, and brewed this first thing this morning. To him, it reminds him of pipe tobacco. I can’t really speak much to this. I can’t remember the last time I’ve smelled pipe tobacco.

I’m not a huge fan of this tea. It definitely tastes like it’s been artificially flavored, and I’m more of a “pure tea” fan. It’s pretty good for a flavored tea, though. It has cocoa notes and maybe a hint of caramel. I’ll keep this in stock for Casey, though.

Backlogged from earlier tonight.

Went to Faubourg with some friends tonight, a French patisserie in downtown Vancouver. They sell Mariage Freres tea there, and this was the first one that caught my eye. (For the record, they also sell them in the tins, however 50g is $38… Holt Renfrew is $24).

I found the smell of this tea to be standard rooibos, however the flavoring was very vanilla-rich, almost like a custardy booze. I re-steeped it twice with zero flavor loss, however I still wanted more out of this. More… bourbon? I dunno. I guess I just expected more from such an expensive tea, and one that’s hard to find here. I’ll order it again if it’s around, however I’ll likely never buy any loose for the house.

It annoys me every time to have to classify a Darjeeling into black teas . Yet it is … technically . But the heart of Darjeelings remains green in my opinion. Darjeeling Chameleon should be the real name of these teas .

This Sungma is quite exceptional . At the same time I really like Sungmas …

The liquor is really orange , a dark amber.

This Sungma is not bitter , just a touch . The taste is sweet and fruity . Muscatel is indeed the guest of honor in this summer Darjeeling and normally of most of summer Darjeelings and I am absolutely delighted because this is what I love . It does not have a too green taste. The texture is light, almost Sparkly .

I still love this one and it remains a staple.

Pics of my session with Sungma are available here : http://thevangeliste.wordpress.com/2014/12/06/sungma-ftfgop1-mariage-freres-2nde-revue/

I spent all my day with this unique tea. This morning and tonight as well. In the middle I went out with my daughter in a funfair.

Weather is quite hot around and Darjeelings are the type of hot teas I can drink with pleasure during summer time. They are refreshing teas, energizing teas. Not heavy at all, light but deep on the same time. Deep joy.

I particularly enjoy sungmas and this Mariage Frères is really a staple for me.

This is a sparkling, shinning Darjeeling.It resteeps very well.
The more I drink you the more I love you !

I bought this one because of Nicole!
She kindly sent me months ago a sample of Sungma Darjeeling from H&S and I loved it. Unfortunately it is not available here in France and I found this Sungma at Mariage Frères so I decided to give a try.

It was clearly a good idea : this is a fruity, light and energetic Darjeeling.

The classic muscatel taste is really there.
However it resteeps quite nicely (2nd steep) and even if you oversteep it (15 minutes this morning as my boss came in my office and I forgot to pull the basket off my mug :S) it doesn’t become bitter : incredible.

Sure I got my Darjeeling staple :)

This tea is so damn old right now, but it’s still really great. Had some Thai red curry and a pot of this for breakfast. What a good start to my day.

This is one of the Darjeelings that I am trying to sipdown because it is getting old. I ordered this just about a year ago now. This morning I am having it after my favorite breakfast: tofu scramble + potatoes + hot sauce + lots of nutritional yeast. Anyway, this tea has a real peppery aftertaste today which I am actually rather liking.

It usually rains for days on end during the winter in Napa Valley. Most people don’t even call it winter, they refer to it as “the rainy season”. But we haven’t had a good rain all season, and today it’s very warm. It must be in the 60s and it’s just past 11 AM. There are blue-belly lizards out sunning themselves on the rocks. There’s no need to turn on the heat and the windows are open in my house. People are talking about drought this summer and the possibility of budbreak occurring soon, which isn’t supposed to happen until March. I’m trying not to worry too much about all of this, and to just enjoy the sunshine.

Anyway, about the tea…I don’t know what the heck I did wrong with this tea last time I brewed it. I had given this a dismal rating, but this time I didn’t even have to finish brewing it and just by the aroma I could tell this was going to be lovely. This has just wonderful florals and a beautiful muscatel aroma. It’s nutty, but not too much so. It’s citrusy, but not harsh. I’d definitely buy this again, and I’m glad to have been able to try it a second time!

I’m brewing this to Mariage Frères’ instructions for this morning in my new teapot: http://www.redblossomtea.com/teaware/xdj-teapot-iron-spot-1017.html. I may have over leafed it. It’s been so long since I’ve attempted to use an recommended amount of tea that I have misplaced my tea scale…That’s embarrassing.

Ugh. I really didn’t think there was anything special about this tea. It was incredibly smooth and, but just didn’t have enough going on. Oh well. I have a lot of this, so hopefully my next steeping will be better.

Well I purchased 100g of this tea randomly because I needed something fruity and100% theine-free in my cupboard for my late night treats ..
This tea is actually not popular in the Marriage Freres scented tea collections, well in a way that’s one of the reasons it attracted me ..
First of all, the smell of the dry leaves is lovely without killing the rooibos natural fragrances. Sweet, light and mellow, a true defintion of warm joy. Light roses, cherry, strawberry and mallow are all in ..
Once steeped it offers that yummy jam fragrance —→ And once in my mouth : An explosion of taste and rich mellow Hmmm quite refreshing too .. And after few sips it leaves that greedy taste of fine almond in my mouth..

A true sin of gluttony

noms. delicious afternoon cup. this one will be back in my cupboard i’m certain of it. Just need to get through another 4kg haha

Almost out of this one…sad. I still have hopes that come christmas holt’s might bring this one in, but suspect it’ll be french breakfast they have…which is a close second to this one, so not too bad :)

if i have paris breakfast, i might as well drink up some american breakfast as well. Still trying to decide what tea(s) to bring with me next week – suspect i’ll stick to maybe just 2 as i’m not sure how much time i’ll spend on tea. still really like how this one is much more malty, cocoa-y and smoother than paris breakfast. I’ll be sad when this one is gone.