Iskandar

I requested a sample of Iskandar during my previous visit in a Mariage Frères shop.And hopefully.
I have already drank it in the past but never purchased it. In my memory it was a nice tea but is it good enough to me to purchase it ?
The answer is NO.

I can taste some astringency, tolerable. The point is tolerable is not a synonymous of enjoyable for me.
The first sip is incredible, so strong , so powerful : flowers flowers and flowers. Mainly violet but not only even if I am not able to say which other flowers have been used here.
There is a hint of mint as well.

It’s a lovely cup but too much “parfumey” for me. I don’t know if you see what I mean but sometimes the flavours seem more like perfume rather than aromas and this is the case here. Alas this is something I have difficulties with.
I can recognize this is a very lovely and well blended tea but not for me.
It can probably be a beautiful ice tea because while cooling the astringency is diminishing.

EDIT : almost cold, there is almost none astringency and the perfumey taste totally disappeared – I really prefer it like this

Absolutely one of my favourites… As a classics student and overall nerd anything named after Alexander the Great is going to appeal to me!! :D Somehow I remember the blend being different a couple of years ago when I went to Paris, the last time before I went this year, and it had spearmint and things I didn’t like… So to find it to be a green tea with violets (never had a tea with violets before!) in it was quite the pleasant surprise. And so, I have a tin of it to accompany my delicate rose tea. You can’t have one without the other…

The scent from both the leaves and the brew are beautifully fragrant and sweet, like they used an essential oil in it as well as the flowers. To me it smells exactly like parma violets… probably because I’ve only eaten two things with violet flavouring in before, parma violet sweets and crystallised violets chocolate. This is very much like that— sweetened as well as naturally sweet. And the colour of the tea is lovely! A pale green rather than the yellow you might normally expect from a sencha or bancha (which is what the leaves look like)!

The first sip is always surprisingly overwhelming in its fragrance and sweetness, just because, although I know green tea takes floral flavours rather well, I never expect it to take it THIS well. If it wasn’t for the mellowness of the liquor and the slight, pleasant astringency at the end of a sip I would think I was just drinking violets without the tea. But the slight roastiness of the tea is there, like a backup to the violets, and gives it maybe a second little kick to renew the sweetness in the mouth. And the taste is so clean and pleasant… I can’t find any drawbacks on this tea at all; you asked for violets, you got violets. It’s certainly unique, and very simple- can’t help but wonder how an extra couple of flavours might taste in this. Vanilla? Cream?

Alexander the great smells like violets.
Sweet, bold, aromatic, flowery.
Fit for a king, great hot or cold.

Another tea I decided to grab when I ordered my MF advent. I love violet flavored things, so was quite excited to try this. I was even more excited once I tried Thé Des Impressionnistes, the other tea I added onto my order, which was incredible. This was not incredible. It’s not a nice violet. It’s a cat litter violet. The terrible musty perfume smell that scented cat litter has- that’s this perfume. I really need to retry this, hopefully it will be better on a second try.

This was another 50 grams of Mariage Freres teas from a recent splurge, and the only one of the small 50 gram packages which really is a a hit! The concept of it is fantastically alluring (to me), it has been on my wishlist for ages: green tea with violet and menthol and named after Alexander the Great. I had sniffed at it before and not been sure I wanted 100 grams of it, but this time I did risk it, and I am glad I did.

I brewed it not too hot (and I must try it as a cold steeped tea, they do sell it as a summer tea), and decided to when smelling it to sweeten it, and I am glad I did. I don´t usually sweeten tea, but it really brings out the violets, like violet candy (or maybe it is just my brain thinking if I am ingesting something which smells of violets it must be sweetened). And I do love it, floral (mainly violet, maybe some unidentifiable others), with menthol very discreet, at the end of it, and in the tongue, if that makes any sense. And I might very well be imagining this but it also seems fruit-y, red berry-ish, to me.

Really lovely tea

This tea is my first Mariage et Frères. The odour was not convincing but I’m appreciating the deepnss of the violet taste.