Mariage Frères

A delicious tea with or without milk, especially comforting on a rainy day.

This is probably one of my favorite teas. The vanilla aroma and the rooibos works perfectly together and even though there isn’t any caffeine, it really helps when trying to get homework done.

As others have stated- aroma is rich and amazing – reminiscent of cocoa and yet this tea is not flavored. It is excellent with or without milk. I steep for 4 minutes.

Much like in the case of Rouge Provence, this is a tea I gifted someone who ended up hogging it relentlessly – you know, ‘I swear I saved some for you, but then I was all out of tea and I HAD to drink it!’ (Uh-huh.), so it does seem it has a certain suave appeal.

In terms of looks and scent, it far surpasses the Rouge – it’s very pretty, and adds complex layers of fruits and florals to the nose.

The flavour, though – it’s a perfect, green echo of the rooibos, but it’s so polite. So elegant. So sophisticated. This reminds me of the Thé à l’Opéra (Mariage Frères)/Bravissimo! (Lupicia) comparison I made earlier this week.

I suppose I just have to face that my crush on the Mad Hatter is permanent and that I’ll always favour the anti-heroes.

[Surreptitiously acquired from Mariage Frères in London, August 2013.]

le thé que je prends trés peu et pourtant je l’aime beaucoup délicieux j’adore et je n’arrive a dire pourquoi !!!!!

ce thé je l’ai pas sepuis longtemps , mais je vais vous avouer que je ne l’aime pas vraiment donc ce sera moyens je trouve qu’il est trés fort !!!!

ce thé est vraiment un de mes préfére un the noirs de qualité j’aime beaucoup cette arome d’amande vraiment délicieus !!!! ce thé est a la fois doux et fort enfin c’est ce que je pense !!! désolé je suis francaise vu qu’il ya beaucoup d’américaine sur ce site …. bref un mélange d’arome trés agréable

Okay, so I had a pot of this today, and it’s a little too perfumey and handcreamy for a whole pot, at least that early in the morning.

I’m mostly posting this to screenshot what happens – there’s a bug that shows the most popular note for the tea rather than the new note upon posting. Let’s go bugfix!

The first time I smelled this tea, it was so familiar. I’m absolutely elated it only took one more whiff to figure it out, because it’s a weird one and it would have driven me crazy trying to hunt it down.

Dry, Thé des Impressionistes smells like… Shea Butter Hand Repair Cream with Cocoa Butter & Sesame Oil from Burt’s Bees.

It really, genuinely does.

The tea is more elegant, of course; where the hand cream speaks of long days in the freezing potting shed, the tea is smooth and creamy and indoorsy with a hint of something delectable baking in the oven – most probably Nigella’s Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake (http://food52.com/blog/5226-nigella-lawson-s-dense-chocolate-loaf-cake).

This is all scent so far – I’ve been so torn about tasting this (It smells like hand cream! And Nigella!) I’m doing a live tasting note in case it’s so horrifying I need moral support.

…

Okay, in the cup this just gets stranger. No hand cream. A dash of Nigella, but it’s a good dash. This comes off as a light, sophisticated gingerbread-esque shortcake.

I’m extremely confused by this tea right now, but I do enjoy it.

[Surreptitiously acquired from Mariage Frères in London, August 2013.]

I’m up early, which is always absolutely horrible for me, so I decided I deserved a cup of this. It’s such a very good tea. So much flavour – this is what I love about Mariage Frères’ greens – they’re present throughout the entire sip. None of that Dammann nonsense where you have to sit and inhale in a staccato-like manner at the end of each sip to possibly get an inkling of an aftertaste.

No – this tea is right there, all along, just like a good friend.

When I buy teas, I generally pick them out myself, going on scent alone – this is why so many of my ratings are clustered in the 80-90 range; I know what I’m going to like in the cup. When I procure tea in a different manner, though, anything can happen. For my latest Mariage Frères batch, I used reviews to put my list together. When I then smelled the actual teas, some of them were really surprising – the Marco Polo blends more than any other.

Overripe, boozy plums are what I get from the dry tea. This carries through into the cup, but not overwhelmingly so, and with a stronger addition of florals. Not well-behaved cutting flowers, however – cryptid, deceptively lovely plants alive only as rumours in the journals of long-dead explorers, maybe.

This really is a very tipsy blend. It’s walking around the orchard in the fall, trying not to crush fat, juiced-up wasps feasting on rotting fruit underfoot. It’s an autumnal tea, echoing that brief half-mesmerizing, half-terrifying time of year when the death throes of decaying summer are balanced perfectly by the crisp, clear freshness of impending fall.

Balance really is the key word here – this is a tea that could easily have gone wrong, in spite of all its velvety smoothness. But go wrong it doesn’t.

It’s exactly what it should be.

[Surreptitiously acquired from Mariage Frères in London, August 2013.]

I’ve been a bit scarce around here, and will continue to be, because I am entering the home stretch of my dissertation and I don’t really have time to do anything but work. I am reading Steepster still, but tasting notes generally take too much time. I’m throwing a quick one for this tea up, though, because it’s new to me. Thanks to wheezybee for this sample.

Due to some less than stellar experiences with some Mariage teas, I have not done a lot of seeking them out. I know they can vary widely because the bases can be very different, but I’ve never been impressed enough to go through the (somewhat considerable) effort of trying more of them. However, when wheezybee contacted me about a swap, I decided this would be a good opportunity to try out some of their Earl Greys.

I am certainly more pleased with this tea than most. It’s nicely blended… The bergamot is nice and well-balanced, citrusy and slightly floral, and the base tea is smooth, without astringency or off notes (for me). Nothing about it really stands out, but it’s a tasty Earl Grey, and it does make me believe that there are other MF teas that I would likely enjoy.

I feel bad about my feelings towards this tea, but I’m enjoying it so much more now that’s it’s a little older.

The floral and juicy fruit components held up fine, there’s even a bit of lychee and pineapple I can distinguish now. Even the slight green flavor of the tea is still there. But the baby powder finish is all but gone, and it’s more mellow than it used to be, which makes it so much better.

I cold steeped this overnight and while the flavor is very similar to making hot and icing, there is more juicy berry/fruit than floral this way. There is definitely still a floral component, but it’s not quite the level it was before. The green tea also comes through and adds a layer of veggie flavor in there. The almost powdery feeling at the end of the sip is also minimized, which makes this the better way to drink this tea (for me).

I just had a crazy Tea ja vu.

This tea = ATR’s River of Heaven.

It’s a dead ringer. I was absolutely not expecting that!

It’s a sweet flavored green, with a generic fruity, flower taste. The fruit reminds me of pineapple and citrus, but doesn’t quite taste like either. The sencha base is good — smooth and slight vegetal.

The aftertaste is mildly astringent with a sweet-tart taste that reminds me of drinking baby powder. It’s the exact same feeling the River of Heaven left. I don’t know if it’s cornflower related (though I have no problems with them in EG blends) but it’s not really my favorite feeling.

The all-faves birthday week tea consumption concept clearly calls for some more Mariage Frères. If you’re still on the fence about getting this, and like Cookie, or if you’re on the fence about getting Cookie, and like this – Cookie is like Wedding Impérial with popcorn.

Now I’m off to pick up cakes number 1, 2 and 3 so I can spoil the staff tomorrow. They really are the very best and take care of me so well.

Steeped, and re-steeped. It just gets better.

I suppose the time has come for me to confess I’m not a big fan of the kind of ‘dessert tea’ that contains large chunks of chocolate and caramel and whatnot. I’d rather just have a hot chocolate, complete with rum and whipped cream and vanilla extract and all the decadent little trimmings. I do love flavoured teas, but it has to be subtle – aside from the occasional petal and delicate piece of fruit, I want the magic to be all in the leaves.

So holy hell am I excited about this tea. It smells SO good dry. So good. I could sniff this all day. And steeped? This is full-on malty caramel chocolate fudge decadence in a cup.

It doesn’t have the masterful complexity of Pleine Lune, but it’s definitely up there with the smoothest, lushest of the Mariage Frères blacks. In addition, this is a tea I look forward to experimenting with. I got no bitterness at 4 minutes, but definitely hints of coffee; that’s how much punch the main flavours pack. A shorter steeping time might very well result in a subtler, lighter brew.

Only on the rarest of occasions do I put milk in my tea, but this is definitely one I’d like to try it with – maybe even as an iced milk tea.

Very worthwhile re-steep.

(ETA: It just gets smoother as it cools. This is seriously tasty tea.)

[Surreptitiously acquired from Mariage Frères in London, August 2013.]

This was just as beautiful as the last time around – a light, elegant, floral pick-me-up.

It’s struck me on several occasions that many of these greens from Mariage Frères would probably be excellent iced, but somehow they appeal to me more brewed hot. I think back at chilly winters in Paris, I guess, whereas Lupicia’s greens are all Hawaii to me and hence my favourites to ice.

I wish it were possible to redrink all these teas for the first time, entirely without the shackles of mnemonic, emotional and spatial attachments; to crumble and toss away the madeleine, if you will.

But, then again, that would lessen the experience. Beauty lies all in the context, after all.