Fall In Love (black)

Happy 4th of July to my U.S. peeps! Today I intend to spend planning our vacation to Italy!!!! I haven’t been to Italy in years. I can’t now remember whether it was the late 80s or early 90s, but now I’m looking forward to going back. No. 2 is quite a sports car aficionado so we’ll be visiting the Ferrari and Lamborghini museums, but otherwise I expect the trip to be similar to the one I took years ago. Though this time I’d like to try to get to Lake Como.

Anyway, it being a holiday, I cracked open a couple of teas. The first, the Art of Tea green pear, was in a tall, tubular tin, so I thought I’d go with that same theme. This is in exactly the same tin design, with the little interior “plug” with a knob on it. Cute.

I had to read up on what this tea is supposed to be because Mariage Freres is nothing if not coy in their descriptions. Spices can mean anything — here it means caramel/creme brulee apparently.

Which is amusing because when I opened the tin I smelled chocolate and rose. After a while, I realized it wasn’t chocolate so much as caramel.

Now, I’m not a custard fan. I don’t do creme brulee, though the BF is a huge proponent of it. It’s a texture thing for me. Still, this is a tea worth having.

The aroma is pastry-like, cream-caramel with rose at the end, and that’s how it tastes, too. The tea is very dark amber and clear.

This is a blend that shows off Mariage Frere’s blending prowess. It’s very well done; the blend is one with all of its elements and with the tea base, which is smooth. It’s sweet without being cloying, and there’s a bit of a coolness in the mouth after the sip, which is pleasant.

I like it better than the last tea I had with something close to this flavor profile, the Leland Bogart. This is not as “dark” a flavor. Rather like the difference between dark roast and medium roast coffee, and I prefer the more medium for this flavor.

A lovely sample from Dinosara! Thank you.

Sadly I did something bad and the tea has turned out really bitter and quite astringent. My first thought was to add milk, but all I have is eggnog…

Anyways, it’s worked! I didn’t toss the leaves right away so I’ll try a second steep. It is indeed very caramelly, and the rose is present but not in your face. And the rose petals look so lovely floating at the top when you steep the tea. :)

Here’s hoping Take 2 works a bit better.

(3.5-ish tsp in about 24 oz.)

I had not planned on buying this tea, but one sniff of the caramel and rose blend and I had to have it. I was again crossing my fingers on the base tea for this one.

And yay, it’s one I like. This is also pretty delicious. Base tea is smooth, caramel is on the burnt toffee type flavor to it (not so buttery or creamy), rose is light but adds a nice sweet note.

Neither of these special edition teas are quite special enough for me to justify ever purchasing them again (since they only come in pricey tins), but they are special enough that I will be happy to have them in my cupboard.