Mariage Frères

Advent Day 13

I just took a bite of a passionfruit from a friend’s yard and it’s throwing off my tastebuds a little! Most of these MF teas say to steep for 5 minutes, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that to a green so I only steeped it for one. I’ve been taking my tea out of the bags and suspect I’m getting fuller flavors by letting the leaves expand without restrictions. I’m not a huge green tea fan, but I’m liking this one. There is no hay or grassiness, it’s just smooth and light with a slight buttery taste or feel at the end of each sip. The flavor is the same once the cup has cooled. It is a very enjoyable cup and I would drink it again, but it isn’t standing out enough for me to want to buy it.

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 13

Lord. I shouldn’t have joked about food poisoning on my recent Sticky Rice Oolong note. I missed my advents and had a hard time reviewing material yesterday, but thankfully it receded enough for me to complete my final exam today (just finished, hurrah!). Talk about terrible timing (cold cuts are temporarily dead to me).

Unfortunately, I steeped up this tea just before it all went downhill. I got a few nice sips in before it hit though (and got to drink the rest cold today). It tasted like an alright Japanese green tea (and not an oolong, which google says this should be); I thought MF was reaching with the description of “notes of pink praline” but I did taste it before wishing I was dead. Or maybe nuts with sugar is the canary in the coal mine for food poisoning. Currently having trust issues (but if it’s a GABA the sweetness makes sense).

Advent Day 12

Mehhhhhhh. Really could do without all of these fruity butterfly pea blends in this advent. This one is particularly muddled and weird. The butterfly pea flavor is really intense, and there’s maybe a little bit of peach.

Overall, too many fruity teas in this advent…and not enough black teas. Harrumph.

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 12

The third advent tea that’s part of the “In Love” series – which consists of bagged green oolong mixed with blue pea flowers. sigh This is not my favourite collection (make oolong looseleaf), but I also feel super pampered with this focus on green-ish teas.

This one says it contains notes of plums and cherries (as per tea satchet label), and rose petals (on the website description). It’s all pretty light and, at first, indiscernible from the past fruity oolong teas. But then it opens up for me; the stone fruits are bursts of subtle honeyed fruit sweetness, and provide a less subtle signature tangy sour quality to the finish. These flavours build as I continue to sip, as does the dryness. Halfway through, the fruity floral sweetness is near candy-like (and I am thinking of Japanese sweets now – especially rose flavoured hard candies). The floral and vegetal base is hard to discern from the blush of added flowers, which possess similar notes.

Steep Count: 2 – this tea is not great when it cools. Nope.

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 11

I cheated and peaked at this one before going to bed last night; the sugary red fruit aroma is so vivid it stuck with me until I faded out.

This fruity floral black tea feels like a sibling to Marco Polo – all red fruits and a relatively robust malt base. The finish though is sweeter than I remember: like cotton candy, strawberries covered in powdered sugar, and a sweet red apple. I think I also pick up some vanilla but hard to judge on one pot; it creates an almost cream pastry effect. It’s lovely, and after a couple sips couldn’t bring myself to add milk; it’s perfectly smooth and balanced to my tastes already.

Steep Count: 2

Advent Day 11

A black tea! Wonderful! It smells lightly floral with some sort of deep red berry scent. It tastes like that too. Maybe a hint of apple in there too? I’m trying to sip it while it’s hot because I have to go somewhere. I might leave the rest of the cup and see if I like it better when cooled.
I’m realizing that a lot of the MF teas I’ve had and really enjoy are not ones I usually like after one cup. They have to grow on me over time and an advent calendar isn’t really conducive to that method of finding new favorites. Still, I wouldn’t change having gotten the advent. I’m still thrilled at getting to try 25 new to me teas!

Update: Back to half a cold cup. This is way fruitier than before. I’m tasting strawberries very clearly. The finish is a little bitter, but the sip is still smooth. I usually favor greens cold steeped, but this might be a good black to try iced.

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 9

This has a similar vibe to Alexandra David-Néel – an “almost chai” that’s too delicate to handle milk. This has an earthy profile that’s a huge divergent from the bright citrus and berry fruit teas of the last 8 days! However, while I like the spice level (clove dominant), coffee teas are never going to be my favourite.

Advent Day 8
Things have been getting busy and I haven’t had time to enjoy tea while taking notes. I steeped this last night while helping the tiny roommate with her school report and explaining the meaning in the songs in Hamilton since she had a song on her playlist. This cup was neglected in the mix and picked back up cold today for notes. I recall not being impressed by this last night and I’m getting the same feeling today. It’s light and fruity with a hint of alkaline at the end of the sip. The finish is almost more fruity than the sip. If I was offered this tea again I’d skip it for another.
And what’s up with the steeping time being 5 minutes on all these teas?!

Advent Day 8

This tea is just not living up to the name. It’s a muddled fruit flavor- a bit of citrus, a bit of melon, a bit of berry. Nothing really stands out and I’m not super wowed by it.

Advent Day 9

What the….? I was so confused by this tea! It says chai, so I expected chai spices and it says breakfast, so I thought hearty chai. Nope. If this was a chai I’d have been disappointed. Then I saw that I had this on my wishlist and was wondering why. Looks like it was in last year’s advent (they have a million teas and this is just the third year they have done an advent… you’d think they wouldn’t have repeats this soon) and RoswellStrange had left tasting notes about it being a spiced coffee tea. My interest is peaked again. It’s definitely hardy! I had been getting bored with all the ethereal light and fluffy teas in this advent and then MF answers my boredom with something heavy. I do get some spices. It reminds me of a light version of a strong cinnamon tea a local brunch place is known for. It has the depth of coffee, but not in the overpowering way coffee has. It’s hard for me to taste the spices on the sip, but the end and finish let them out more. As it cools the spices come out more and light coffee is more discernable. I’m tempted to add cream and sugar like I’d have in a chai or coffee, but I’m also afraid I’ll ruin this. My intuition was right. I hope I never defile a cup of this like that again. At this point I probably wouldn’t buy this tea, but I’d happily have another cup of it.

Advent Day 9

Absolutely did not realize there was coffee in this blend. Tasted like a pretty average chai. Pretty mild/not overly spicy. Probably would’ve been better with cream and sugar.

Advent Day 7
My tea timer didn’t start, so I way over steeped this before suspicion about the amount of time passed set in. This tea seems very forgiving to that. I had released it from the bonds of the tea bag it came in and the leaves had unfurled significantly making an odd blueish brown steeping. It smells very fruity, but I can’t pin what fruit they might be. I can’t taste any rose, but as my cup cools I get the tang of rose petals on the sides of my tongue. This tea tastes like it is all high and mid notes, which makes it seem very airy and light. I think I’d like it better if it had low notes to ground it more. It’s another perfectly fine tea that isn’t quite to my tastes.

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 8

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?

I don’t know because this tea, as named on its satchet, does not exist on MF’s website! Is Rainbow Rhapsody just White Rhapsody rebranded? Cue existential questions.

This is another fruity white-green-oolong spectrum tea by MF (the 2nd white tea of the advent). Some hay, citrus, and melon notes from the base are difficult to differentiate from the light fruit flavouring. Citrus is a kind of pomelo (gentle grapefruit) flavour, or even a cherry-ish blood orange. The subtle melon comes out cantaloupe. It’s a tricky muddled fruit salad tea, where all the juices have mixed. The broth hue is pinkish red (from fruit pieces; I opened the satchet to check!).

Steep Count: 2 – I found cherry to be a consistent flavour. Unfortunately, it’s not my favourite fruit in tea. Still, not bad.. just not exciting either.

Advent Day 7

Another blue fruity blend. This is fine. Candy-sweet fruit. Kind of boring.

Mariage Frères Advent Calendar – Day 1

OK… I didn’t love this when it made it’s appearance in the 2021 calendar – but I kind of like it now? The candy-sweet floral aroma of this tea is beginning to win me over. I’m also happy to get my violet oolong fix in any way I can, even if it comes with blue pea flowers (in 2021, I picked up more rose – and the label says rose – but I swear there’s violet too).

There’s also a zesty vegetal-mint aspect too, which could either be due to the natural profile of the Oolong, an added ingredient, or contamination. I hope it’s intended because I like it.

Steep Count: 5

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 7

Another “blue” oolong! The flavouring is a lovey berries & rose cream – subtly tart, floral, and juicy. The base is pretty light – coming out more as the tea cools down for +10min; I’d say indistinct floral, grassy, and mineral notes, with maybe a hint of cream. It’s silky smooth and has an aroma that makes me crave pastries and jam. I think I like this one.

Steep Count: 3 – there’s something here that’s grape-like. Almost an acidic wine note. I think I’d like a different oolong type as a base (a red oolong would be perfect but then the gimmicky “blue pea flower” may need to be sacrificed MF), with more of a grounding note – although I still got a lot out of this one.

Advent Day 6

A black tea! This was pretty nice. I appreciated the balance of orange flavor. Not really something I’d buy, but it was a nice enough cup of tea.

I wanted Violet Cremes but there’s sadly very little left of that (hoarding ensues). Instead, I opted for this brisker black tea to get my violet fix. It’s delicious in its own right, but I want buttery oolong too! Sometimes life is challenging like this.

Note to self: find more violet teas to fill the void in my life.

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge, March 2022: A French tea
I have so many French teas from December still. I’m honestly sad to see any of them go, but one had to be first, and of course it’s my only MF tea.

I now have in my possession Violet Cremes. I bring this up only because my fam and I noticed that this tea shares the fruity violet notes (and petals) with it. Violets are delicious.

I will miss this complex blend of vanilla, violet, pepper, and fruity delights on a bold black tea base. À bientôt, delicious tea (wishful thinking – the best I can do is next December).

Ugh, my throat is so sore. I love my sister, niece and nephew, but every time I see them this happens (they are adorable little plagues, and now I’m a not so adorable big plague and must act accordingly. sigh).

This tea has citric snap from assorted berries and citrus (and maybe the bright black base), with a hint of indulgent pepper and vanilla. It tastes great with or without milk, despite having what I suspect is a bergamot inclination.

There’s a lot going on here but it’s pleasingly well-balanced and round; it also feels like a “everyday” drinker, despite the pretenses it gives off. Unlike some teas from this company, I fell in love with it right away too. I’m trying to savour my 100g because I don’t know when I’d order from Mariage Freres again, but it’s likely in vain. I reach for this one a lot.

I’ve always wanted to try this, so I caved and added it as my sole addition on my Advent Calendar order (now I wish I’d indulged more). It’s lovely yet hard to describe, in typical MF fashion. There’s definite citrus, although exact varieties are hard to pinpoint (tangerine, kumquat, lemon?). Vanilla is also a confident yes.

Then there are the berries and fruits. MF berry/fruit flavouring and lack of ingredient list can drive a person mad and make them doubt their own sanity (how well do I know my palate? Magic 8 Ball says “reply hazy, try again”). It tastes like ALL the berries but also distinctly like specific ones (mostly darker ones, like black currant and blackberry). Is that goji? How about raspberry with a bit of tangerine? I wouldn’t rule out mangosteen, but I’m not super familiar with that fruit since I only had it once or twice. (Ahhhhhh).

There’s also malt from the black tea base. It’s a bright, semi-brisk one that boosts the tart, fruity notes. it goes well with milk and/or sweetener.

Taken with milk today, and loved very much by me for being bright, juicy, tart, and almost floral from vanilla. I’ve been reaching for it a lot lately.

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 6

A black tea! And just in time for our first snow (I need to shovel snow).

The sweet orange flavouring here is subtle, allowing the bright, orange-hued base to accentuate the citrusy notes to a point where it feels like a natural component of the tea. “OA” is making a good modified “breakfast tea-like” satchet – with enough robust malt and tannin to dry me out and remind me of my grandmas (both of them were big tea drinkers). Taken with milk and dark chocolate, which really brought it up a notch.

Steep Count: 2 (with milk there’s a bit of a chocolate orange vibe occurring due to malt).

Advent Day 6

This is a fairly mellow orange tea. I’ve had some that have a very bold orange flavor and this one is moderate, but well done. It has a light sweetness to it. Angelic is a good description of this since it is so light and ethereal. The flavor is balanced well with the tea base. This is a good tea, but it’s also boring. A one trick pony that is very well trained, but gets old. I would not buy this tea.

Advent Day 5

Tasting this without looking at the description first, I never would have guessed pineapple and pomegranate. Mango maybe? Something tropical, but not pineapple. Definitely not pomegranate. Kind of a nondescript tropical candy flavor. It’s fine, not something I’d buy, but definitely not something I’d toss.

Still waiting for a black tea in this MF advent.