Grand Amour

First let me say that the little sample of this that I got awhile back was amazing, which lead me to today, where I was supposed to receive my “giant” order (100g tin) of it, but I am tea-less! :(

So, instead of me writing a great note about how happy I am to finally get this tea, I am super bummed out. The postal service “missent” my tea, so who knows when I’ll get it. It was supposed to be here today, but it didn’t come with the regular mail, and then I finally saw the update that it was “missent.” I really hope that it was just placed on the wrong mail truck, that it is still in my city, and that it will show up tomorrow.

This was a major disappointment to me, because I’ve been wanting this tea for months now and finally ordered it. AND, I had a difficult meeting to lead today at work, and I told myself that once I got through it I would have this tea to look forward to!! Super bummer!!

I really hope it comes tomorrow. New tea is supposed to decrease stress, not increase it! Stupid postal service!

UPDATE: Still no tea :( I hope it’s not lost!

UPDATE 2: It’s here! It’s here! Finally! I snooped through the blinds to see if the postman was putting a box in my mailbox, and he did! My husband was nice enough to go out and get it because I’m still in PJ’s, cuz I’m off work today. ;) It smells delicious! Gonna have some now! YIPPEE!!

Oh joy! Joy! Holy cow! This is not at all what I expected. Instead it is 18273658382 times better. (Tip of hat to JacquelineM there.)

Thank you, Nina’s Tea, for these lovely samples!

It was hard to choose my flavors for sampling from Nina’s Tea. There are so many and they look so good. A few French teas I have purchased have been unbelievably yummy, but a few required tweaking as the base could get bitter to me, like Dammann Freres Charlotte au Chocolat.

Honestly I made this tea because the Je T’aime smelled too good to drink yet. I wanted to save it for a really special time, not the middle of the homeschool day waiting for a student. It smelled so good the dog was dancing around my feet with his eyes wide because he thought I had a dessert hidden somewhere.

Now on to this one – the fruit aroma was absolutely arresting. It was so real, so fresh. So Garden of Eden pure. The fruit rides above, but is grounded and rounded by, the vanilla and caramel notes. I braced myself to sip, in case the base was one of the rough ones, but no! It is as smooth as silk, and you can taste the tea! Delightful, and delicious!

Just as exciting to me – this is a very close flavor profile to the tea my daughter bought in Budapest that we adored but have been unable to get again. Excellent, delicious, wonderful flavored tea, fit for a tea time with nobility. Even better, get it for yourself and sit down with a good book, some soft music, and a cup of this. You will feel like a benevolent Lady of the Manor.

Grand Amour, I love you. I would share you with the one I love, but I drank you all up.

Speaking of the one I love, a little old retiree lady called today to tell my hubby that she saw Safe Haven yesterday and that Josh Duhamel reminded her so much of him that she just had to call and talk to him!!!! I feel just a little bit jealous! LOL! (I confess, I think my hubby is gorgeous!)

i was curious, so i looked up the history: nina’s paris, (named after the founder’s wife mme nina diaz) was founded in 1672 as the furbishers of fragrance to versailles. it shows.

this tea is red, and round. it actually creates a spherical shape in my mouth. i am not referring to the natural process of swallowing here, i feel the flavour in a spherical shape, over my tongue and against my cheeks.

this blend is an exercise in just enough and not too much; had the raspberry been stonger it may have evolved from a balanced tart to sharp or bitter, but it did not. the red currant adds the round component i think, as well a classic element. the caramel is very quiet… three fingers brushing one time lightly between your shoulder blades after a long day. soothing.

this tea is lovely. i was surprised at first when i learned that the french tea apothecaries were also frequently parfumeries, but it makes perfect sense now. how the two vocations could ever be separate is a foreign thought to me now because it is. so. logical.

while she did not send me this tea, i really must thank ysaurella for playing the part of brilliant catalyst for this part of my tea journey. our swap caught me so offguard i think my heart may continue to dwell in parisien tea houses.

Well I definitely have an obsession. Last night, I dreamed that I drank this tea and didn’t like it, and I was so disappointed for not liking it because I’d wanted to like it so badly. Then I woke up and realized it was a dream LOL.

I poured the entire sample the ever so wonderful and generous JustJames sent me into my basket, and steeped for four minutes. I took some time to smell the tea after it had brewed. I could definitely pick up on the fruit, and although I don’t know that I would have immediately identified it as red current and raspberry, it definitely didn’t smell like the typical cacophony of fruit you might find in French tea (stone fruit etc). The raspberry is very clear in the sip though, and so is the base. I can’t say I’m terribly familiar with the taste of red current, although the fruit didn’t taste entirely of raspberry to me, so I imagine it was there. I got a bit of a generically sweet and vanilla end-sip before the relatively strong flavour of the base, which sort of suggests to me that I should have shortened the steeping time by a touch. I’m not sure that I necessarily got caramel though, but that might have been my own rock sugar obliterating that a bit.

I can really imagine myself enjoying the sweet raspberry deliciousness during the summer months. I still think I’m slightly more wowed by Pour Maman, but this would probably make it into an order. That order will probably be placed soon though, but I need to get through some of my h and s teas first. But yeah, definitely a winner here.

Thanks again, JustJames, for not only very generously sending me these samples, but for putting differently shaped/different variations/patterns of raised stickers on them so I could tell which tea was which without any sighted assistance at all! The world is a better place because you’re in it.

Ah. This is the only one of the teas that JustJames sent to me that I had tried before, and I was eager to brew it up again.
This is so complex, so many glorious layers to it, with the caramel lurking under the lush currant flavor. Its a beautiful tea.
Its going to be a busy day. I’ve got an interview with the lady who runs the local arts center (not a job interview, but an informational meeting), so Ineed to be ready and sharp.
This tea is putting me into a delightful zen-ness, which will help in my morning preparations.
Thank you James, for letting me try this again!

Must. have. one. more. sipdown. tonight. Oh man… good thing i’ve got conference calls tonight because i need at least one more tonight to get myself back down to 300 tonight after my swaps arrived (i’m ignoring the fact that i also received some bagged teas that need to go into my cupboard and i say NO!).

Anyway…SIPDOWN! Thank you Nina’s paris for this sample…my last of the bunch that were sent to me.

Edit: So about the tea… I quite enjoy the caramel mixing with the fruity taste. I prefer it just a little more than je t’aime because of the fruitiness, though if i wanted a straight up caramel tea i’d stick with the other one. This reminds me of one of the other teas that i purchased from Damman Frere’s but i’ll have to give it some thought before i say which one it is.

Overall, the black base is present in this one along with the caramel notes AND the fruity notes. The vanilla is also present, though less so imo than the caramel.

More thank you’s to JustJames for sending this along for me to try out.

A small cup brewed in *CelebriTEA*’s turkey cup, and this is heavenly. Raspberry and caramel mingle together to form something dessert-y and decadent, and I enjoy this more sweetened; the raspberry seems to really shine this way. This tea is unctuous, which is an odd term for tea, and yet, it really feels right to me.

I steeped it a bit longer than I likely should have, only because I’m using this in a one-cup allocation instead of my normal 1L of tea in the Breville. Walked away, and, oops! Luckily, this tea can and did handle my mangling well.

Took a sample to work to lighten a dreary Monday. Even in a sloppy work-water microwave environment, this is luscious. Fruit and caramel in very pleasing proportions, although I might not have guessed raspberry had I not read the description. I haven’t had a disappointment from Nina’s yet.

yesterday my sister asked me what my spirit animal is.
i told her Sherlock.

this tea is total yum.
like eating those raspberry filled godiva chocolate bars.

i keep feeling like it’s friday. (it’s thursday)
i can’t seem to focus and just want to read books all day.

Sadness!! I was so excited to try this, after sniffing the dry tea. Berry goodness oh my!
But then I steeped it up and got mostly caramel and vanilla, with a barely a hint of berry. Sighs.
I’m not a big vanilla tea fan, but the caramel seemed to balance it out somewhat. It was more the aroma that I found offputting, when I think about it. Oh well, it was a smooth cuppa, I have to give it that! Perhaps a little biting towards the bottom of my mug. It was a rather large mug because I wanted to use up the entire sample.
Don’t go by my rating though, since I’m not a vanilla champion heh. And hey, I’d never turn down another free sample of it…