Mélange Mystérieux

I can’t believe I am just now logging this tea after having it for months. I thought I had tried all of the Dammann teas from the mass tea order Doulton organized, but I guess I missed one.

I really love the quality of these french teas. The base is so rich and beyond words I have to describe it, but it really holds this mix of fruit flavors well. The fruits blend together more than stick out to be noticed individually. I really smell an apricot type scent, and taste a lot of peach/cherry flavors. This is a nice smooth hot tea. I shouldn’t have had a caffeinated tea this late, but I really wanted to try this one.

Day 5!

This dry tea smells like fruit punch to me. Almost like Hawaiian Punch.

The brewed tea smells more like just black tea with a twinge of sweetness. The brewed tea again tastes like fruit punch. I am definitely getting strawberry and strong cherry. But I also get hints of peach and blood orange. Hooray for blood orange that actually tastes like blood orange. This one is sweet on its own but it could have used a touch of sweetener to bring out more of that fruit punch flavour. The black tea base tastes fairly mild to me. I am not getting much mallow or sunflower but the liquor is thick so I attribute that to those ingredients. As the tea cools, there is a definite creamy feel to the liquor. I feel like if there was a twinge of bergamot in this one it would make a phenomenal earl grey.

As always, this one was delicious!

Dammann advent calendar, day 5. Another new-to-me blend. This one I never went for because of the strawberry and cherry, neither of which I am usually that much of a fan of in tea. Of course, I should know better than to think that I would actually dislike this tea, haha.

A lovely blend. The cherry and strawberry remind me of their typical deployment in “red fruits” blends, where I do like them, with nice citrusy blood orange notes and sweet peach. It’s a very fruity blend, but very well balanced. I definitely drank this one up with pleasure. It would probably make an amazing iced tea.

The dry tea smells like the orange raspberry peach juice you can get in the grocery store. It would probably make a great iced tea.

Orange,cherry and strawberry are the most apparent fragrances once brewed. After 4.5 min. in 10 oz, the resulting brew is a nice blend of fruit and base tea. The fruit flavours balance each other, with the peach and cherry tempering tartness from the other fruit, and the orange adding a certain brightness while tempering the sweetness. The blood orange is well done and has notes from the blood orange compote from theJaffa cakes I had recently. This is a really nice fruity black that would be great in summer!

I’m astonished to realize that after all this time I still haven’t written notes on all the fab and gear Dammann Freres teas from the virtual shopping spree Doulton organized weeks… no wait, it must be months ago now. I am going to remedy that post haste! And yes, I did do the weight work out. [self-congratulatory one handed applause] Now I’m just “resting” before the aerobic part. I wonder if it’s possible to read War and Peace while on a stationary bike?

Golly, I love how their teas smell. I really do think the French teas, for the most part, win the best fragrance award all around. This one has a fruity scent that is sweet and fresh smelling, and so well blended that I fully understand why they named it as they did. Once you read the ingredients, you can pretty much isolate all the individual scents. The orange and the cherry stood out most to me, though I could get the sweetness of strawberry underneath. What I understand to be peach actually smells somewhat fig-like to me, rather like the figgy aromas of some of the other Dammann Freres teas that actually do have fig as an ingredient. The leaves are pretty, too, with the purple mallow and yellow sunflower petals. I have been all along, but I’m now starting to appreciate more fully exactly what I sucker I am for flower petals in tea.

Now for something really mysterious. The aroma has shifted with steeping so that I’m now getting a much more obvious peach fragrance, followed by cherry, with just a tad of orange. Tres interessant.

In the flavor, yet another shift. The orange is back to the front, then there’s a mellow, water-color like flow from one flavor into the next, rather like riding a very gentle wave. Orange to peach (figgy still) to cherry, with a cherry/strawberry tail.

This is a happy way to end my caffeine for the day. Dammann fine tea! (Apologies, A&D!)

Day 5 Advent calendar, but I’m a little late getting around to it.

It almost seems a shame to have this hot. All the fruity flavors just seem like icing it would be the way to go. Alas, it is December and I really only have the one teabag so maybe some other time.

This smells amazing dry – I mostly get the red fruits. Once steeped the smell remains unchanged (yay!) but the taste is strangely all the fruits that aren’t in the smell – namely orange with a tiny bit of peach.

I’m having this with no additives but I do think that sugar when iced would knock this out of the park. So far my experience of Dammann has been that the teas are all very smooth, true to flavor, but delicate at the same time. Perhaps sophisticated would be the word? All I can of is that my boyfriends mother, who loves all things French, and who loves tea, would probably enjoy a few of these for Christmas this year…

Thank you Doulton

This tea smells amazing! The fruity aroma is very strong. The blood orange is the most pronounced scent, but I can smell that there are other fruits there, and upon closer examination, I could detect a distinct berry-like scent as well as that of peach. I knew there was something else there too, but I wasn’t sure what… so when I checked the Dammann Frères website, I saw that this is a blend of blood orange, peach, strawberry and cherry. It was the cherry that I couldn’t discern, but now that I know what it is, it seems very clearly to me to be cherry.

As other Steepsters have noted, the flavors are quite a bit softer than the aroma would lead one to believe. But that doesn’t bother me at all, because I like that I can really taste the tea in this blend. The fruit flavors are there though, don’t get me wrong. I really like the balance of flavors in this cup. I like the sweet fruity flavors, the strong black tea presence, and the slight sharp note that I detect in the finish that I contribute to the sunflower petals.

A beautifully flavored tea!

from the advent calendar pile!
it’s quite a lovely pile.
i really like this one more than i thought i would have. citrus and airy. kinda like a light and breezy early grey ya know. these dammann teas are a joy to try.

hey!
do you guys have a milk frother?
has anyone tried that little david’s tea one?
is there one you have seen and recommend?

A big THANK YOU! to MeghannM for these teas!

I had a WHOLE POT of this one during the virtual tea tasting with Sandy via Skype! THis is my last sanple of Dammann Freres tea. The dry leaves are lovely with the petals mixed in, and the aroma is very nice as well. Brewed, the aroma is as special as you would expect from a good French tea. The flavors in the tea are not as pronounced as you might think they would be, but they are not hidden. They are very well balanced with the tea flavor. I noticed the blood orange flavor most, the cherry and strawberry next, and really didn’t pick up on the peach much.

These are not my favorite flavors for teas, but for anyone who loves berry flavored teas this would be an amazing cup. It was very good (I did say I drank the whole 22 ounce pot!) but I must say The de Cigales and Coquelicot Gourmand (I think that was the name of it!) were absolutely divine and I MUST HAVE THEM!

This “mysterious mixture” is good, but I don’t find anything exotic or mysterious about it. It’s a black tea with a variety of fruit flavors. A lot of flavored blacks have bergamot in them, so I was pleased to see Melange Mysterieux does not have it (if I want to drink Earl Grey, I’ll drink it — I don’t always want that Earl Grey flavor creeping into other blends).

I let this steep for five minutes, because when I’m drinking a flavored tea, I like the flavors strong; that’s just how I roll. On first sip, I detect strawberries and raspberries, along with some juicy peach and perhaps a tad (but just a tad) of orange flavor. As I continue drinking it, the black tea base comes through more. I like this black tea – it’s stronger than one would expect in a flavored tea. I can actually taste the tea, and it’s rich and dark, which I like. The finish is sweet with a bit of creaminess.

Overall, this is a good flavored black without being obnoxiously fruity or tasting like dessert in a cup. It’s less fruity than, say, Mariage Freres Marco Polo; but it’s more fruity than Harney’s Paris; and thankfully, the fruit flavors are natural and not artificial tasting. I especially like the rich and smooth base of the black tea, and I like that a variety of fruit flavors are present. It’s a perfect tea to have with scones or other pastries. All I have is a sample tin of this, but I’d be more than happy if another one came my way.