I am a francophile when it cames to tea. Not by design, I think some big name French companies can go a little bit too froufrou with packaging and pricing or just plain esoteric. But for me, more often than not, it´s a couple of French companies which nail what I want in a special tea: good tea with wonderful flavours, introduced or natural, and that specialness. Any tea named Paris is going to have to live up to my expectations, for tea coming in black and gold boxes!
This Paris comes from the other side of the Atlantic. I love that Harney sells small samples, I wish more places did that, it was a way to get to know this without commitment. I got enough for 3 or 4 cups, the first cup was not a hit it seemed to react very badly to my tap water. This is my second (or third?) attempt at this. Mineral water and I was careful of temperature. And it is still not a hit. I brewed it too cold I think, only the bergamot developped and I am getting some bitterness from something somewhere. This is not comparing too well with Thé au Tibet (the most no-fuss very refined tea ever) or Marco Polo. Would I have compared it to either of those without the name and reading other reviews? Dunno. But this is a tough name for a tea to live up, in my house!
I still got enough for one more attempt. Maybe that it will be love at third sight. I really wanted to love this.
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hope I’ll have more success. This is a tea I wanted to taste for a long time and I’m probably going to have a sample of it.
Oh forgot :where did you buy your samples ? would you give me the link ? thank you :)
I got it directly from harney, bought online
(I actually had to put France as my country and send the correct country on the comments field). Shipping was about 14 dollars for a couple tins and some samples.
I hope you are luckier with this than me! It keeps eluding me. Oh well, maybe third time is the charm. I would offer to send a sample, but just got this little smidgeon.
Thank you Cteresa. No problem I should receive a sample from a tea swap.
I’d like to test Florence from H&S as well so will have a look at their shop on line :)
look, I found a website for France :http://www.harneyshop.fr/the/the-en-vrac.html?limit=all
They may ship to Portugal for less expensive shipping rates ?
If you get it, do review it! I am pretty curious.
On my order I got Queen Catherine ( which was a local, LOL, could not resist that) which is quite nice, sort of like Twining´s Prince of Wales but nothing too extraordinary and I got Vanilla Comoro – decaf flavored tea, maybe it´s because it´s decaf but I did not love it. And this Paris which keeps not being nice to me. They sent me on their own samples of Hot Cinnamon Spice which really does not work for me (but american takes on cinnamon rarely do. It´s almost always thr wrong type of cinnamon for me) and a teabag of their japanese sencha which I loved. Did not expect to love it, but it was awesome for a teabag and would buy it at once if the shipping was not a bit cumbersome for just it.
oh Ysaurella, that is quite a find, but currency conversion yikes! What I wanted is 11 dollars on the US site, on the european site 17.19 euros. Xe.com is saying that 11 dollars=8.49€ right now. come on. And the ambessa teas they do not have on stock. This is just not going to happen!
And just playing around with the american site, for the 50teabag bag and a 100 gr tin of tea they estimate at most 17 dollars – I think it will be almost surely cheaper even if the France to Portugal shipping was free (and it won´t). Do check both sites before ordering.
gosh ! it seems the European website is not aware there is a crisis in Europe :)
I’m really impatient to taste this Paris blend and if I am seduced will order H&S from the US website so !
The prices in the french site are quite frankly a bit astounding. These are nice teas, with a lot of effort on the details (the bags, the packaging, very nice tins and I am quite susceptible to the lure of tins) but quite frankly, those prices and with shipping on top? Not even our friends at Mariage Freres charge that!
hope I’ll have more success. This is a tea I wanted to taste for a long time and I’m probably going to have a sample of it.
Oh forgot :where did you buy your samples ? would you give me the link ? thank you :)
I got it directly from harney, bought online
http://www.harney.com
(I actually had to put France as my country and send the correct country on the comments field). Shipping was about 14 dollars for a couple tins and some samples.
I hope you are luckier with this than me! It keeps eluding me. Oh well, maybe third time is the charm. I would offer to send a sample, but just got this little smidgeon.
Thank you Cteresa. No problem I should receive a sample from a tea swap.
I’d like to test Florence from H&S as well so will have a look at their shop on line :)
look, I found a website for France :http://www.harneyshop.fr/the/the-en-vrac.html?limit=all
They may ship to Portugal for less expensive shipping rates ?
If you get it, do review it! I am pretty curious.
On my order I got Queen Catherine ( which was a local, LOL, could not resist that) which is quite nice, sort of like Twining´s Prince of Wales but nothing too extraordinary and I got Vanilla Comoro – decaf flavored tea, maybe it´s because it´s decaf but I did not love it. And this Paris which keeps not being nice to me. They sent me on their own samples of Hot Cinnamon Spice which really does not work for me (but american takes on cinnamon rarely do. It´s almost always thr wrong type of cinnamon for me) and a teabag of their japanese sencha which I loved. Did not expect to love it, but it was awesome for a teabag and would buy it at once if the shipping was not a bit cumbersome for just it.
oh Ysaurella, that is quite a find, but currency conversion yikes! What I wanted is 11 dollars on the US site, on the european site 17.19 euros. Xe.com is saying that 11 dollars=8.49€ right now. come on. And the ambessa teas they do not have on stock. This is just not going to happen!
And just playing around with the american site, for the 50teabag bag and a 100 gr tin of tea they estimate at most 17 dollars – I think it will be almost surely cheaper even if the France to Portugal shipping was free (and it won´t). Do check both sites before ordering.
gosh ! it seems the European website is not aware there is a crisis in Europe :)
I’m really impatient to taste this Paris blend and if I am seduced will order H&S from the US website so !
The prices in the french site are quite frankly a bit astounding. These are nice teas, with a lot of effort on the details (the bags, the packaging, very nice tins and I am quite susceptible to the lure of tins) but quite frankly, those prices and with shipping on top? Not even our friends at Mariage Freres charge that!