Mariage Frères

Sipdown!

I’m not sure I’d pick this up again because of the nectar-sweet sunflowers + the fear of their inevitable rancidity – maybe if my cupboard wasn’t at this level of unmanageable and I wasn’t so worried it’d get neglected at the back of the stash?

Overall though, I enjoyed drinking this fruity green tea blend. The nippy, almost smoky, cruciferous base is not what I generally look for in greens but I gained a strong appreciation for its bolder profile in the mornings and early afternoons; it has something of a “breakfast blend”, or gunpowder, feel to it (bonus pineapple jam included). It also resteeps amazingly well, although the first steep could be mercurial regarding the nippiness – matcha-like in it’s grassiness today, which is a lovely send off for me.

Resteep Count: 4

After sampling it in 2022’s advent calendar, I wanted to spend more time with this tea. After a year of wisdom, and a summer of growing startlingly large sunflowers – I’m 95% certain I can pick out the bright sweetness of raw sunflower seeds. The note behaves like a sweetener to the more acidic but equally bright pomegranate and pineapple notes. It’s quite something, and makes for a cheerful profile.

However, I also know from experience that you don’t want to taste sunflower seeds when they’ve gone rancid. So, out of an abundance of caution in the likely case that there’s real sunflower seeds incorporated into the blend, I’m not going to be hoarding this one – despite enjoying the mix of bright, juicy tart-sweet fruits on a mouth-drying, grassy base. Enjoying it while it’s fresh!

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 5

Ho ho.. another green tea (allegedly from Colombia), and another “nouveau” stamp. This advent is proving to be quite the adventurous trek through MF’s lesser known (ie – new, “green”) teas. Today’s route takes us on a tropical excursion and its hitting me where it hurts. This juicy pineapple/pomegranate tea is delicious and, even in tea bag form, has a smooth, complimentary base (possibly don’t steep this at MF’s suggested 95C @ 5min unless you like your green teas very astringent).

Maybe it’s because I’m not feeling sharp and my throat is like sandpaper, or maybe it’s a testament to how much I love pineapple teas, but I low-key adore this. The pairing of almost creamy, coconut-like pineapple with MF’s “red fruit” obession is working for me in a big way today. I want more of this.

Steep Count: 3. It also paired amazingly with Zotter’s chocolate advent for today – a white chocolate with black currant jam, which powered up the pomegranate flavour.

Advent Day 4

I wasn’t super excited to see an EG…but this one is really tasty! Didn’t look at the ingredients before steeping it, so was surprised to see it turn blue. Luckily it doesn’t taste like butterfly pea flowers. This is a surprisingly mild earl grey. More of a suggestion of bergamot, rather than an in-your-face bergamot flavor.

Advent Day 4.

This has got to be the most mellow non EG EG I’ve had. It’s like EG light. There is a grassy/has flavor behind the light ethereal berg. It’s blue, but I don’t know I can taste the pea flowers which is good because they might make an intriguing looking tea, but they taste like dried peas which is never a flavor I look for in my cup. The start is almost fruity, the finish gets a strange taste and feels dry with maybe a hint of honey. Actually, the dryness starts mid sip wish is such a weird things to wrap my mind around. This is interesting, but not one I’d choose again.

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 4

I like Earl Grey. I like green oolong. But together?! Also Blue Pea Flowers again. Hmm…

I once again freed the oolong from the satchet. Steeped up, “Earl Love” has a much more vivid aroma than Apollon . The flavours and notes, while smooth, are also fuller. One again MF finds the perfect level of sweet (possibly peppery) rose, as well as a finely balanced (light) floral-citrus bergamot. The base is a little tough to make out but it gives me the impression of more floral complexity, and even some butter/milk smoothness (yeah, this one deserves to be called velvety). There are bursts of tangy jam-like sweetness to the finish (along with soft bergamot), which could be from the oolong, ingredients, or both.

Because of it’s blueish hue, odd sweetness, and floral-citrus profile, I’m vividly reminded of Curaçao – particularly a creamy take on a Blue Hawaiian cocktail. There’s no coconut, but there is a hint of pineapple note.

So, surprise! “Against my better judgment,” I like this one a lot and would love to try it in loose leaf form, where the tea leaf would hopefully be better quality (unfortunately, they seem to only do satchets for this one). I guess I’ll try for a second steep later too.

Steep Count: 2 ( No.2 at 5min. Blue hue is gone but the flavour is still pleasantly floral, creamy, and mildly sweet while hot. It’s also a tad drying).

On a side note, Mariage Frères hasn’t had a black or herbal tea yet this advent cycle, so I think we are due for one. Total so far: 1 green, 2 oolong (wow, my life), 1 white.

Advent Day 3

I thought this was lovely! This tastes like actual dried rose petals, rather than rose flavoring. Simple and enjoyable.

Mariage Frères Advent Calendar – Day 7

Another repeat from 2021. Again, I wish the tea satchet didn’t use what appears to be broken silver needle (the loose leaf image looks promising though). I’ve also been forever spoiled by Butiki’s sublime “Champagne & Rose Cream” (Stacy used amaranth and vegan cream flavouring and it’s, hands down, one of my favourite teas to ever exist). This tea is not that. Not even close. However, it does deliver on its namesake – the rose and white tea. Resteeps nicely too.

Steep Count: 3

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 3

Yep, this is a nice one! I think MF uses a broken grade of bai mudan for the sachet (as opposed to the Silver Needles pictured); their website supports the tin/satchet discrepancy too.

The sweet, dusky rose flavour is at a perfect level for me (essence of Turkish Delight). While distinct in profile, it’s delicate enough to allow the lighter white tea notes to shine through – including sour lemon, cucumber, and cream notes (faint but good companions to rose). There’s also a hint of pepper. The tea sachet yields a nice golden broth; I’m hoping it will resteep well. I’d potentially pick up more of this as a “fancy” casual drinker, if it were accessible.

Steep Count: 4 (No.2 @ 5min; No.3 @ 7min with a minor temp increase)

Yep, it did it! The rose has a minty undertone along with the pepper on No.2. Life is good. No.3 is pretty light but the rose is delicately “sweet” and there’s more cucumber in the last sips.

I put the tea bag from the advent in a jar of water in my fridge and left it there for it looks like 11 days. A lot longer than I had intended, but I’ve been busy. The rose flavor is very bright. If I think about it really hard I can imagine mint and lemon, but if they are really in this tea they are added in such small quantities to be indistinguishable from the rose. Maybe that is what is special about this blend? Like adding a pinch of salt to something to bring out the flavors without even noticing the salt? I’m trying to be kind, but it’s still not striking me as that special of a tea. Enjoyable yes, but that’s about it.

Advent Day 3!
MF puts steeping times on their teabag tags, but I wish they would include temperature as well. Luckily they have it on their website.
From what I can tell from the two rose teas I’ve had from this company, they do rose really well. It’s a very true to life or scent rose. This tea is light and delicate with just a hint of tea flavor peeking out behind the rose which gently and smoothly dominates this cup. it fades away gracefully towards the end of the sip and just a hint of rose is left on the finish. As delightful as the flavor is I find I get bored with it partway into the cup and wish they would have paired it with another flavor to make the experience more interesting and not all high notes. I like it and I’d drink it again, but I wouldn’t buy 100g of it.

Advent Day 2

Not a fan. It’s a beautiful color, but kind of tasted like nothing? Like fruit nothing. I took w sips and forgot about it, let it get cold, and then dumped it. At least it was a beautiful color.

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 2

Aww, Apollo gets a bad rap in modern depictions. Lore Olympus , Rick Riordan, or even Osamu Tezuka’s (graphically disturbing) Apollo’s Song – to name a few, have not been kind in their portrayal of this figure. Although, truthfully some of the source myths and old plays are not endearing either (in Orestes he’s an arse). Back in an undergrad course on Classical Myths, a fellow classmate asked why all the female characters (ex – Daphne) seemed so repulsed by the seemingly attractive, young god. The prof answered that it had to do with Ancient Greek gender/age norms and expectations (ie- male youths should be courting the attention of and “learning from” older men, not women and girls. So Apollo chasing after the nymphs would’ve possibly been viewed as icky and presumptuous). And so ends my tangent.

So the tea – it’s a kind of green oolong (Jin Xuan? Four Seasons? Don’t ask), combined with fruit essence (it’s grapey, but also that hard to place MF “citrus-berry” note). Then, of course, is the decorative butterfly pea flower (never been a fan). The oolong base is very light – with creamy, mineral, and floral notes. It’s also slightly drying. I decided to “free” the oolong from its tea bag so it could expand properly while steeping (oolong doesn’t belong in tiny baggies and these ones are the tiniest). There are almost-whole curled leaves, but also lots of flower petals and broken leaves; it’s not a super fancy looking specimen and not really enough for a full pot, fyi. (Not making an Apollo joke).

I thought this was pretty weak when I first started sipping away, but it’s growing on me as it cools. The fruit is sort of guava-like now. My Mom tells me this is now here favourite tea and I must get more for her. At least one of us is ecstatic.

Steep Count: 3

Advent day 2!
This tea steeps up to a nice aqua grey blue. I had to switch to a clear glass to fully enjoy looking at it. Unfortunately it tastes like faded fruit nothing. Like the 2nd or 3rd steeping of something stronger and more interesting. It’s a smooth nothing, but none of the flavors are strong enough for me to even guess what they were supposed to be.

Advent day 1

This tastes very green Marco Polo like! I’ve had MP black before and aside from fruity vanilla I haven’t been able to ID the individual flavors. This has that and a bright green tea flavor added instead of the depth that black has. It’s nice and very well balanced. I’m on my second steeping of this. I am very much enjoying it, but don’t know that it’s one I’d add to my cupboard especially when I’d have to buy 100g.

Advent Day 1
Very excited for this advent! I’ve been wanting to try more MF blends, but haven’t wanted to commit to such large quantities.
This blend was good! Softly sweet and fruity. The fruit flavor read as a bit of a generic candy fruit, rather than an easily distinguishable or specific fruit.

Mariage Frères Advent Calendar – Day 23

Bumping my old rating up a notch. This year it lives up to its “sublime” namesake. I was choked when I finally resteeped it to the point of death this morning. Can’t recalled the last time I had such a smooth, silky, creamy flavoured green tea that manages to convincingly play the role of a rich, fruity dessert – without tasting artificial and heavy-handed.

Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 1

Combining green tea with the red fruit notes of Marco Polo is a nice way to kick off a Christmas advent. When it was still piping hot I thought there might be mint; there is something “fresh” about how the (straw)berry and green base interacts (assuming Chinese Sencha by the flavour profile). Although not one I’d purchase myself, it’s pretty tasty. It became sweeter as it cooled and left the most delicious candied berry aroma in my empty cup.

I’m not too sure how this one would vary from Thé Vert Marco Polo, except there’s no blue cornflower here.

Steep Count: 2

Another tea I decided to grab when I ordered my MF advent. I love violet flavored things, so was quite excited to try this. I was even more excited once I tried Thé Des Impressionnistes, the other tea I added onto my order, which was incredible. This was not incredible. It’s not a nice violet. It’s a cat litter violet. The terrible musty perfume smell that scented cat litter has- that’s this perfume. I really need to retry this, hopefully it will be better on a second try.

Still absolutely love this blend. Smells incredible, tastes delightful and creamy. Luckily I have quite a lot, but will certainly be repurchasing once I run out.

This smells absolutely incredible- white chocolate and jasmine. It actually reminds me of one of my favorite fragrances (Nightgown by Solstice Scents which has very similar scent notes to the flavor profile in this blend).

Just a beautiful scent and beautiful flavor.

Added this to. my advent order, and very happy that I did. I absolutely love this. Sweet, creamy jasmine. The vanilla note is rich and custardy, and the jasmine is warm and bright. Really a lovely tea and something I would purchase again.

I didn’t realize when I added this to my cart how little tea I’d get. I think it’s only 50g. It has a really rich smoky flavor that I’m not finding overwhelming. It has something light and tart in the sip that I can’t quite pin point. It almost has a sweet yet savory taste. Part of what made me curious about this tea is the tonka bean notes. I’m not exactly sure if it’s flavored with tonka beans or just tastes like it. French translated to English sometimes gets a little choppy. This past year I was able to get my hands on some tonka beans, so I have an idea of the flavor established. The finish definitely tastes like tonka and is a little dry. Overall I’m liking this and am looking forward to sipping more!

It’s one of those absent minded mornings where I forget to put the steeping basket in my freshly rinsed cup before scooping tea into it and have to sort out what to do.
I think this tea is growing on me already. The coconut adds something really nice to the malty flavor, rounding it out well. Already half way through my cup and thinking about a resteep!