Mariage Frères

A nice, refreshing tea. I think I’d love it iced for the summer, but I don’t think my tin is going to last that long!

I don’t have a lot to add to what others have said, except that it’s pretty tasty. Good mix of strawberry, and black tea smoothness. I’m sure it would be good with cream/sugar, but it was perfectly enjoyable without.

Finally get to try this renowned tea from MF!! I love it though Marco Polo is still my favorite. It smells of candy and more precisely, bubble gum! But I don’t mean it tastes artificial, rather you can tell the berry and vanilla flavours are all natural… That is the amazing part! Goes really well with strawberry macaroons I think!

I am becoming a rooibos blend snob. Not avoidable. Some rooibos I can not drink and sound woody and musty, other blends I love and leave me with a wonderful comfortable glow. Mariage Frères´s rooibos blends are of the good kind. And this Nil Rouge is pretty special to me, a totally balanced :rooibos and lemongrass and some citrusy thing which seems to me to be verbena but is probably lemon or orange or even bergamot.

It has became a staple for me now. Though not sure which I love best, this or Marco Polo Rouge.

A word of warning : I used to brew rooibos very hot and very long, but I am changing that. This particular blend I think should not be left for too long, pour it after 5 minutes or even less. And do not use free boiling water, 90 or 95 at most for optimal deliciousness.

I am getting more and more converted to this one.

Nice, so nice, now a staple for me. Though admittedly I also love the original Thé sur le Nil. Description is rooibos with citrus, lemongrass, “oriental” spices and marigold petals. I am not so sure I detect the spices or any flavour from the petals, so a citrusy lemongrass-y good rooibos. Very good and pleasant, I love rooibos with citrus and this is so very good.

I’ve had a long relationship with this tea. When we first met, I thought it was the most amazing thing ever. (I’m sure being introduced in a friend’s gorgeous flat in Paris helped.)

This is a perfumed tea. To me, it requires sugar, though I’m not sure milk would work.

As I’ve moved to more natural flavors, I drifted away from Marco Polo. But lately, I’ve returned. Perhaps not as enamored, but still really glad to have it. Would I restock when I’m next at Mariage Freres? Unsure. But I would eagerly gift it to a tea-loving friend.

I really like this tea. It is strong and has good flavor throughout the cup.

I am liking this more and more all the time. Not my number 1 favorite rooibos or not yet, if I keep loving it more and more it might reach there yet. A really elegant flavour – fruity, strawberries and green apples and maybe vanilla ( just my brain finding these there) and a nice rooibos undernearth.

I need to upgrade this a bit – I tried it with more rooibos and while not going to replace my number 1 favorite fruity rooibos, it is much nicer than I was giving it credit. I like the underlying rooibos very much, the fruity part is also very nice.

This Marco Rouge is lovely and nice – it is rooibos (duh) and upfront about being rooibos. If you hate or just dislike plain rooibos this one might not be a rooibos for you.

The tea smells heavenly on the package, brewed up its smell seems far less complex – but then again, it is rooibos, it brew very hot and long. But then again Berry Berry Nice (by Yumchaa, a small London tea company) which is my favorite rooibos ever and to which I can not help comparing this with, is also brewed very hot and long and seems more intense and complex when drinking. A lot more.

After brewed Marco Rouge tastes of plain rooibos (stating the obvious, sorry. But a good rooibos) and strawberry and vanilla. Nice. Not bad, but for this sort of thing, my beloved Berry Berry Nice is much better and deeper. IMHO and all that.

I ran out of my first 50 grams, and yeah bit the bullet (the €€€ bullet) and bought myself a tin of it. I do love it that much.

A warning, this is (obviously) sensitive to brewing temperature – more than most green tea blens. It is ALWAYS drinkable (to my taste buds calibration), just some times sharper, sometimes smoother. Keep it in mind when brewing this, experimenting a bit might be worth it till you know how you like it.

I had been rationing this a bit, but even so I just went to make myself a cup of this and got a bad scare, there is hardly any left. What, already?!? So yeah, this is a huge favorite of mine. Which I will need to rebuy.

Tastes like green tea with lemongrass and lemon and something else (tangerine?), all very balanced. It is lovely. It is one of the few teas I love when it´s really hot, and I love it as well when it is cold, dreary and damp.

I was expecting to lurve Marco Polo. I didn´t – very nice and our relationship might develop and grow, but no love at first sip. I was expecting to not particularly like Thé sur le Nil, it has lemongrass(? erva príncipe?), which I do not like. And it´s not subtle about that lemongrass, it is the main taste note to me, though there are also lemons and I thought (without any foundations since nobody mentions it) a chamomile-y sort of flavour.

But I did love this Thé sur le Nil, and left me with a very nice inner glow that nice teas leave you with. I still do not like citronella, but here it works, even for me. Really lovely and I am definetely looking to buy.

I had this with a slice of lemon meringue pie, and the combination is highly recommended.

This will probably make a fabulous iced tea.

I bought a small ammount to test at home. And I do like it better if I brew it myself, on my small teapot and just so. Better.

This tea smells incredible in every stage. The tea leaves with a thousand fruity smell, then after brewed, like strawberry jam and green apples and maybe caramel. First taste is for me strawberry with green Granny Smith apples coming later at the back of the mouth. Nobody else seems to have tasted apples, never mind green apples, so my brain might be just wrongly assigning a particularsmell to a very complex blend of flavours.

Must retest, less brewing time I think and maybe try milk. Lovely indeed, though it did not knock my socks off as much as expected.

I was expecting somebody taller, I think. More intense maybe. It was lovely the strawberry smelt natural and delicious but it felt a little bit short of the OMG-ness I expected.

Still I mean to buy some to brew at home and experiment with dosage. And yes, it is lovely, even if it did not awed me.

Light in flavor, not bad for when you feel like just having a little pick me up.

How is this a tea? It tastes like candy and dessert at the same time, without the toothache or tummy-bloat. More caramel than chocolate, but you can smell both. I love it.

When I read the description of this tea, I thought it might be too sweet and fruity. However, it’s my FAVORITE fruity tea. The green tea is light and the red fruits and vanilla work together perfectly. It’s aromatic and perfumed without being cloying.

So, yesterday was a trip to Stratford that involved great theatre but also a lot of money in gas, a pair of shoes I don’t really need, and taking advantage of the rare opportunity to buy this tea even though I really, really don’t need to be paying $18.50 for 100g of tea. But, I have to think it was worth it. The pretty black tin helped me wake up this morning, looking forward to making it to take to work. Unfortunately the lid for the steeping basket of my Breville has gone missing (seriously, how far could it have got?) so I didn’t have it pre-set to be ready for me, and I ended up running late (as per usual) so this suffered a bit from a too-short steeping time. Still a deliciously delicate balance of fruit and floral.