Mariage Frères

Sample sipdown from ToiToi!

The smell of the blend and liquor took me by surprise; it’s a very intrusive sweet citrus perfume mixed with the berry-like qualities of rooibos. It reminds me both of Raspberry Nectar from David’s tea and SunnyD. Very sticky sweet.

The taste is a mixture of fruity floral qualities and ever present citrus. It has a smooth citrus sweet finish: top notch lemons, oranges, and even some grapefruit? The rooibos is distinguishable but I don’t feel it’s overly medicinal. Some sour puckering. I love the taste more than the smell; I’m enjoying it more than both Raspberry Nectar and SunnyD, thankfully.

Even though I stir up my tea and tisanes, I find when I drink rooibos it first tastes watery but after a few sips that wateriness becomes pleasantly creamy and thick. I don’t know why that happens but I always start to enjoy my rooibos after I’m mid-cup in. This blend is no exception.

I didn’t touch this tea since almost one year as I’ve been disapointed with it.
But tonight is the THE night I dare to make another cup and this is really nice : I didn’t respect anything MF wrote about steeping parameters and this is it !
I have a lovely pleasant cup, nothing exceptional but a lovely tea.
I’m bumping my rating so :)

So I finally managed to find out the right steeping time combination for this Oolong.
I didn’t manage to fully eradicate a little astringency but I think 5 minutes are enough for this tea.

I think the tea base is just not for me. That’s weird because I am not an expert in Oolong but I’ve always read oolong teas have no astringency.

I have a complaint about the Orange blossom aroma, unfortunately I was expecting something really more present. To my opinion, there is a lack of Orange Blossom aroma in the tea (there are a lot of dried orange blossom flowers)

I was expecting a lot from this tea and I am really disappointed.

I’ll keep trying anyway… :)

it doesn’t look like the picture, the blend is more foaming, wery swollen as well and it doesn’t look so dry as the picture shows.
I think I used a too cold water(85°c), that’s what the MF salesman required but I saw on MF website now they do recommend 95°c.
Also they ask to leave it for a long 7 min steep…I left less and it is bitter.
I just love so much orange blossoms I think I just spoiled my tea. I’ll try again tomorrow- I don’t rate it for now and just give myself a zero for preparing it so badly !

I found this tea on my first trip to Paris. I was looking for a decaf tea that had a little citrus flavor and this was the first tea that was suggested. It smelled delicious, citrus-y and a tiny bit floral. I am also not a fan of rooibis but I love this tea and buy it when either I return to Paris or a friend goes :-)

I had bought this mint rooibos, just to try, thinking it should be nicely refreshing with the mint flavor, also because my husband told me he liked the smell in the shop. But I must confess I was not expecting much of it, as I was afraid of the mint.
Yesterday I opened the bag and smelled it: very refreshing mint, natural smelling for instance.
I brewed it and started drinking it.
And there came the surprise…
Even when the brew is hot, it feels cooling and refreshing. The taste is also much smoother than I expected, most probably as a result from the rose petals sparkled everywhere in the tea (which looks very lovely as well).
The only drawback I see to it is that the brew has a slight toothpaste taste, when the brew is really hot; the mint taste is much more natural and pleasant when it cools down slightly.
Tonight I had absolutely no hesitation in what I felt like drinking.
I believe this should also make an excellent ice tea, and it would also be perfect at the office to replace Rouge Rushka that I’ve almost finished.
An almost perfect hit.

It doesn’t smell like tea. It smells like a candy shop >_< TOO sweet. This is even worse that Vanille des lles – it’s disturbingly sweet and lacks any tea flavor at all… I doubt I will ever touch this again…

There really is a world of difference between naturally sweet honey-nectarish Huang Zhi Xiang dancong and this… abomination

Interesting but not more that that. I like vanilla, but not when it’s the entire point of the tea. And I mean it – I couldn’t even really taste much of the base tea itself. Satisfied my curiosity, now in need to pass this to some friend…

I’m back on steepster …with a Dragon tea.
Mariage Frères does a special edition each year with a tea for the Chinese sign of the year.
until February it is the Dragon sign…so I hurried to buy it because it won’t be available after this date.
I wanted the tin…but the scent pleased me very much as well so I rushed after work Place de la Madeleine to buy it + 200 gr of Pleine Lune and 100 gr of Oolong Fleurs d’oranger. I am poorer now but happy with my teas.

The tea taste is not so promising as the scent. I think the green tea base should be similar to Sakura 2000. There is just a hint of slight astringency but very very very slight.

It is a fruity tea (goji berries), incredibly perfumed but not unforgettable.Anyway MF doesn’t sell it by weight to refill so that’s great, I have a beautiful tin to put another tea I love more.

I have no more brown crystal sugar (no way to find some here in my new town)…so I will give another try asap I find some in Paris.

Backlog: ToiToi generously sent this to me, along with some amazing samples and candies, after the Christmas swap. I’m so grateful I got to try this!

To quickly sum it up, it tastes like a floral cream of earl grey. There are strands of rose notes and something that reminds me of lavender; the same floral minty flavour that I recognize from other lavender teas is present here but it may just be the combination of bergamot and other flowers. The dry leaves don’t smell of lavender at all; only sweet floral notes and bergamot. That citrus flavour is very present but not freakishly harsh. I think all the ingredients are balanced, and come together nicely.

I was expecting a green/black blend when I opened the packet but apparently it’s black leaves. The base is solid enough that this might go nicely with some milk. I find that this Sweet, floral, creamy, and pointy tea needs little addition, however. I don’t normally like Earl Grey bergamot teas but this one is decent.

Edit: After another day with this tea I’m pretty sure there’s no lavender. There are some very pleasant fruity floral notes that I can’t identify though. :)

Wow, just realized I got at home right now samples from none less than 3 different Mariage Fréres teas named after operas : Prince Igor and Aïda (thank you Ysaurella) and Elixir d´Amour (thank you toitoi!). And I knew there were a few more operas, just went checking and they got even more teas named after operas – Madame Butterfly, Parsifal, Bal Masqué, any more? Plus of course, cheating a bit Swan Lake and Thé à L´Opèra. Hmm.

Aida, I am not going to rate right now, if I can manage to not rate it. I think I brewed it too cold and just come out wrong. It is totally and completely a citrus tea and for me, weirdly this would be a russian tea – citrus and black tea (Far more than Prince Igor, which is to me is a very french tea!). Lemon and oranges, and somehow, maybe because of the temperature used, so sweet! Amazingly sweet (no sugar added or anything) on its own. Another tasting note when i brew it hotter.

Oh my goodness, this tea is delicious. I regularly drink Irish Breakfast tea, and this is a match for that tea in terms of strength, but has a sort of chocolately taste to it underneath that is just delicious.

This tea has such a silky-smooth mouth feel. The other mariage freres tea that I have tried (Marco Polo) had the same delightful feeling.

The aroma in this tea is VERY prominent. The violet flavor is very distinguishable. There is a slight perfumy aftertaste that is not at all cloying like some other foral teas.

I picked this tea up when I was in London and got to visit the Mariage Frères boutique located within the Selfridges department store. I chose this tea because I LOVE my Kusmi Violet and wanted to try another Violet tea…of which there are not that many. This tea has a much stronger violet aroma then the Kusmi and it tastes lovely, silky and floral. I am thrilled with this tea and the boutique was wonderful also.

I’m not a big flavoured tea fan. I find the flavouring in this tea is too intense. I bought a tin online and now I add a little bit of it to unflavoured black tea. It smells wonderful though! The Buddha Bleu, on the other hand, is my favourite.

My favourite tea. I’m very new to the business of tasting tea, notes, etc., so I’m afraid I won’t be able to do any justice to this green tea. What I can say is that it is much more subtle than Stash’s Zen tea and MF’s own black tea, Marco Polo.

I had heard many good things about Marco Polo so I took a chance and bought both it and the Buddha Bleu online. Sadly, I found the flavour way too intense in the Marco Polo but the green BB is just gorgeous. It is fruity but very naturally so. David’s Tea makes a similar tea but it tastes artificial compared to this. I can’t put my finger on what the flavours are. See? I told you I’m a rookie!

I like rooibos, flavoring that mix flowers with fruits and had purchased this tea on the pure basis of the description without smelling it in the shop.
When opening the bag, I was startled by how nice this blend was looking with the blua mallow petals being softly curled and not crushed into small pieces. I believe this is probably the nicest looking rooibos blend I’ve seen yet (very shallow comment but nonetheless true – I always look at it with pleasure).
I brewed already a few teapots of this and was totally puzzled by the taste, which was very different from what I expected, did not really correspond to the description, as I could not find any hints of vanilla, blackberry and could not reconcile the fruit taste with exotic fruit (I was thinking at the flavors of exotic fruit juices).
Then two nights ago, I got hit by an awakening: lychee, the sweet and sour taste that puzzled me was that of lychee. It’s supposed to taste like guava, but guava gives me a completely different gustatory experience, in the sense that the fruit has a grainy texture which almost dries the tongue. I do not reconcile that experience at all when drinking this blend.
Now that I have identified the main flavor, I’ll try to look out for the secondary ones…
My rating takes into account the fact that I really prefer sweet and tart fruits and flavors to anything a bit sour, like lychee, which I only eat in very small quantities at one time. Had I realized that this would be the dominant flavor of this rooibos, I probably would not have buy it.

He made the journey to my house and arrived yesterday evening.
After such a long trip, I had to try him. He is my new best friend. Yes, Marco Polo lived up to his reputation. At first, I wanted to wait, as I had a huge fear of possible disappointment. But at my daughter’s urging, we forged ahead. Once I told her that I ordered him because when I googled “best tea in the world” his name popped up, there was no waiting. At first whiff out of the sealed bag, he instantly took me back about 50 years to the smell of my dad’s cherry blend pipe tobacco. He smelled like leather and tobacco with a mysterious fruity fragrance… is it cherries, strawberries, raspberries, or some berry type blend? Then we brewed, being ever so careful with timing and temperature. The aroma fills the senses like a great wine. The taste and flavor fills your mouth with a full bodied chewy goodness that you don’t want to ever leave. I love him. There was no bitterness, just smooth fruity and full bodied black tea goodness. Can you tell I love a good black tea? Why did I only order 2 oz.? Foolish virgin!

This morning, I did a second steep using the same leaves. I couldn’t bear to throw those leaves away. Its even smoother, more velvety and has lost some of the more pronounced berry and cream flavor. There is still great yummy goodness. It is still fragrant with good body. What is in this tea??? Does anyone know? Marco Polo and I may go on a long journey together. I love him!

A lighter, sweeter version of French Breakfast tea.

Let us be honest, I am usually more of a green tea man, but this earl grey is just the best remedy against the grey of winter! The lavender flavour complement bergamot beautifully.
Very energetic and I simply felt drawn back to South of France: a pleasing moment indeed!

Marco Polo! I’ve been wanting to try this for ever so long! Well, kinda. Back then, I didn’t really like black tea much. So while I found Marco Polo intriguing with all the stellar reviews, I wasn’t really motivated to try it. These days, I find myself craving black teas quite often, though usually chinese blacks. I’m not sure about the source of the tea in this blend, but it tastes Chinese to me. It’s satisfyingly dark and rich without being too strong. There’s a lot of smooth vanilla and berry syrup flavors. Tasty! Not tasty enough to be worth $24 for a box of 30 tea bags… but tasty! Thankfully I acquired this box of tea with a Dean & Deluca gift card I got for Christmas. I would never buy it with my own money at that price. Crazy! Too bad they didn’t have this tea loose. I rather like their tins.

Fig! so that was what the fruit was. I smelled it and was thinking plums or nectarines or something else, but they are right it is fig indeed.

And I got to say this is the weirdest named Mariage Frères tea I ever had. According to them an hommage to America and its pilgrims so they but blue flowers which according to them bloom in the Pacific (! It´s a whole continent away!) rivers and they flavour it with fresh figs and vanilla. Oh dear. Ah, geography.

This was a sample so kindly sent by Ysaurella, thank you so much! I love trying these lesser know Mariage Fréres teas, and often they can be so very good. That is the case this is a very nice smooth black tea base (Ysaurella reports some trickiness while brewing it, I had not read that note yet and was admittedly careless in that first brew but either I got lucky or it just likes my tap water). I do not get much vanilla though I would swear I keep getting a note like plums! Merci, Ysaurella!