Nosy Bey

mmmmm delicious! Thank you again ysaurella for the lovely teas you sent me. I really have enjoyed nearly all of them so far! This one is no exception :) Peach and vanilla and delicious! I’m glad i have at least one more cup of this to enjoy before it disappears and i need to try and decide which teas to beg my mother to pick up next month haha

Sample Sipdown #2 Another wonderful tea from Ysaurella!
This has been a delightful peach tea, with just enough vanilla to compliment. Definitely on my list for when I finally order from DF.

I’m coming back to tea life after a big cold.

I wanted to taste Nosy Bey for a while now.
The perfume of the dry leaves is absolutely divine : vanilla and peaches.
The aroma is clearly a vine peach head note (not peaches but really vine peaches- In France our vine peaches are almost red (pulp) and the skin of the fruit is more or less grey ).
We can taste a very present and opulent vanilla behind.The black tea base is absolutely sweet and has no hint of astringency.

This is a delightful aroma, vine peach is a wonderfully perfumed fruit and this tea reveals perfectly its qualities.The presence of the vanilla just sublimates it and makes it very generous and luxurious.

A great afternoon tea, almost a fruity dessert tea.

of the lovely samples that the indomitable ysaurella sent me, thus far this one has been my least favourite. i didn’t get the expected flavour…. but apparently my son did!

he’s become quite the loose leaf afficionado and will often swagger in and walk off with my mug of tea (!!!) or pull dramatic faces declaring that it tastes off. my wife sips her coffee and laughs.

with this particular cup he piped up:‘is the tea from france here yet? is that it?’ and he slurped some up, going on and on about how perfect it was. lol.

not quite my cup of tea… but absolutely our 14 year old’s!

i have enough for another cup, but honestly, i think it will vanish before i can try my hand at it again… blake was that big a fan!

This tea would have fared better if it hadn’t been the last stop on my Dammann Frères journey. It’s a bit unfair, I know – I will try my best to keep an open mind. It’s just that both the dry tea and the steeped tea are saturated with this – as I have now come to know it – unmistakable DF perfume.

I can’t really explain it, but it’s this opulent, contrived richness that just seems inescapable. It’s the tea equivalent of orientalizing, exoticizing 19th-century art, pretending to be something it’s not, glorifying something that shouldn’t be glorified.

I guess the evident response would be, ’It’s just tea,’ but I don’t think we should make it too easy on ourselves.

Either way, this is a beautifully scented fruity black. In the cup there’s a light peach-apricot presence, some floral notes, and a smooth vanilla to round it off. Again – and this is turning into a bit of a broken record, I know – DF’s vanilla isn’t really my favourite. It’s a little too much, a little cloying, and has the slightest aftertaste of alcohol.

For someone who’s into elegant fruity blacks, though, this would be a perfect choice.

[From my epic Instant-Thé order to Rome, October 2013.]

I think it was Ysaurella´s review of this a few weeks ago which has made me crave a peach and vanilla black tea. I was at the time ordering Thé-o-Dor teas and her review of Nosy Bey made me choose their Mélange de Galice. So an inevitable comparison from the start!

In the meanwhile Ysaurella oh so kindly got into another tea swap with me and sent me this as well (and oh so many other so fascinating goodies. Thank you so much!). I now got two dreamily-named black teas with vanilla and peach, not just one! And I do love to compare and contrast flavoured teas, how different companies can make such different takes on the same idea.

A warning: there might be a bias by previous acquaintance, that I would always prefer the first one I tried. Theodor ended up the winner but maybe I was biased because I had it first? Dunno.

The teas: Mélange de Galice is a mix of chinese and Sri Lanka black teas with peach and vanilla flavours and some sunflower/marigold petals sprinkled around (for prettiness, I guess). Nosy Bey is a chinese black tea, with vanilla and peach flavors with rose petals and I think tiny sugar cubes? (or is it dried peach?) Both teas smell divine when dry. I think Nosy Bey smells a bit more floral and bit more like orchard peaches, while Mélange de Galice smells a bit more like regular peach and orchard peach mixed together, and has a stronger vanilla scent with no floral notes. Honors even here, both wonderful scents, different but equally lovely.

Nosy Bey brews very much like a chinese BLACK tea. Mélange de Galice has (predictably) a bit more body and is (unexpectedly!) smoother as well, even when brewed at the same 85C that I brew Nosy Bey. I do not understand why a ceylon-chinese blend brews so so smooth while having some body, but there you have it, even at several temperatures it is always smooth and even naturally sweet.

And then, the liquor: and it is here that Mélange de Galice pulls ahead to win me, it just tastes more, a richer, more intense, more layered taste. But Nosy Bey is still pretty lovely on its own. And drinking peach and vanilla tea in December, oh it is so mood lifting!

Thank you Doulton – you are the best!

The aroma of the dry leaf is magnificent! It smells like peaches and cream! There isn’t much fragrance from the rose petals, maybe just a hint of floral essence. Once brewed, some of the earthy qualities of the black tea emerge in the scent.

The flavor is also quite magnificent! Smooth and rich. The peach and cream flavor is there, however, the black tea is much more pronounced. This is black tea with peach and vanilla flavor, not the other way around. It has a very bright flavor. Astringent with a slight tannic quality – but not an overt bitter note. Just a little something that sort of rests upon the palate to let you know that it’s black tea that you’re drinking.

I was sent this tea by Doulton (Thanks so much). I was in search of a black tea in my cupboard and decided to go dig through my stash and here I found this little gem of a tea. I didn’t know anything about it besides the name and who blended it but while steeping I noticed an interesting smell filling up my kitchen. I then sipped and boy was I surprised it is this wonderful cup of black tea with hints of peach. I really do not get much more than that taste wise but the thing that really impresses me is this is a strong black tea that has NO astringency a very smooth cuppa. Thanks Doulton! :)

I actually can’t stand smelling it dry, there’s just too much going on. It’s really nice brewed though – peach for sure but there’s an edge to it. Not sure I’d repurchase as it’s a bit too fruity for me but it’s a good tea.

This has a fascinating scent that really does smell like the components noted — vanilla and rose at the forefront with subtle peach. The taste is a mix of vanilla and peach, with the vanilla more predominant. For someone who enjoys vanilla, this would be a good tea!

This came in my order in error instead of Pêche Abricotée, but when I contacted DF, they immediately sent the correct tea and let me keep this one — customer service for the win!