Pêché Mignon

oh, wow, this is maybe the fruitiest green tea I ever had. It smells amazing though I worried it might be “too much”, like those scented pens or stationery when I was a kid. Brewed up it smells slightly different and at first sip it´s not cloying, but a very strong taste of peaches and melon.

I had to go check on the Theodor website what were the notes of this – the peach and melon are obvious and far stronger than everything else, though I think in retrospect there is a hint of the passion fruit. The website specifies it is vine peach which vindicates my nose, I did think it was vine peach. The melon is the dominant note here, though interestingly it seems to spread, move to the forefront as it cools – when I poured the hot water the peach was more obvious and also more present at first sip, then it started to get more in the background with each cooler sip. It´s still there on the last lukewarm sips but just as a background.

This is just lovely. I think this would make an excellent (though probably quite expensive) ice tea. And it´s very summery as well, a great tea to have, hot or cold, on a warm day (is spring finally here? cross fingers!). While Mélange de Galice, another peach Theodor tea, was a sort of summer dreaming tea to have in the darkest of winter, Pêché Mignon is a summery tea to have when summer is coming – or maybe that is just me being fancy.

This is going on the to-buy list for sure, though in practical terms, it might not happen anytime soon.

PS – second steep, using a little hotter water, a bit less water and a slightly longer steep also good. But less intense melon and more noticeable peach. Not sure peach is stronger actually, I think it is just that by the melon being more toned down you notice the vine peach more.

Feeling like I need something fruity and tasty and mellow, but not weak this afternoon… I went for a black breakfast tea rather than my usual green which was a strange experience, reminded me why I always have a green tea first thing. Ah well! On to the tasting.

I have so little of this tea that using it feels like I really need a good excuse and a long time to savour it. The colour in the cup is bright and golden and the aroma is nothing but cantaloupe, whole and delicious. Despite how soft the flavours are this tea is a tad dry and astringent on the tongue, but I can overlook this for the beautifully smooth fruit flavours. It’s like eating a cantaloupe melon and peaches (the peach isn’t as strong as the melon), it’s nothing but delicious. Another high score!

It’s funny how you can sip a tea and taste one thing, then read the description and totally pick up on other flavors. I was totally tasting peach in this cup. A bright juicy peach. The start of the sip is a little bland with a hint of tart and then it turns into an almost gummi peach flavor. After reading the description, it totally morphs into melon with a bit of pear. It tastes very similar to Lupicia’s Momoko and I wonder if I’d taste melon in that one if I thought about it. Still need to try this cold steeped and after just having bought a bag of this, I’ll have plenty to play around with.

I forgot to mention, google translate says the name means “cute sin”. LOL! Does peach translate to cute?

Recently I tried this tea cold brewed. After putting it in the fridge I forgot all about it, so it sat there for approximately 1,5 days. This tea turns into a rather nice iced tea. The flavor is a bit less potent cold brewed when comparing to hot brewed but very suitable for a hot summer day!

Resteeped the leaves of this tea from a cup I made for my grandmother. I didn’t want to waste it and it looked like it would resteep well. It definitely did resteep well but I’m not getting peach but that may be because it’s the second steep?
There’s a lot of really nice melon flavor though and it’s very similar to Lupicia’s melon tea flavor.

French Friday! This sampler came from Dustin, thank you! I figured I wouldn’t have enough time to brew tea before work (as has been the case most Fridays lately) and I’ve gotten so used to just grabbing a water bottle of iced tea out of the fridge in the mornings, that I dumped this into my cold brew bottle and brewed over night. I accidentally left it on the counter instead of putting it into the fridge, though… room temperature brew?

Attempting to shock the tea into ice-cold-without-using-ice this morning, but took a small amount for sampling. Smells very peachy! I feel like I even get an impression of the fuzz from the peach scent of the brew. The… green tea has gone quite bitter on me, so I don’t know if that is on account of me being a derp that didn’t get the cold brew into the fridge, or me being a derp that didn’t measure the leaf and figured I’d use the same amount of water (24 oz.) that I’ve been using for all these samples when made hot. If I wince through it, I can taste a sweet peach and a melon flavor. This would probably have been a wonderful cold brew, if I’d managed to prepare it right. As is, it’s too bitter to drink.

Out of curiosity, grabbed the water bottle I’d filled out of the fridge and it isn’t nearly so bitter/astringent! Perhaps the sample I took from my cold brew bottle, which was at the bottom and could’ve been a stronger concentration of leaf dusties, was the problem. To further combat the astringency I got in this brew I decided to carbonate the tea rather than just drink cold brew… and that helped immensely! Get a nice peach and melon candy flavor, and the edge I was getting from the green tea leaves is gone under the Co2 taste/texture.

SIPDOWN 2
A sad sipdown. Thank you Dustin!

I am just glad I have finished another “one last serving” tea. Fruity green tea, a perfect companion to today grey weather.

I’ve been under the weather the past few days. Fought it off for a while, but it hit me hard. Asthma that lingered is what got annoying. The mucus exacerbates it & had to go to visit the doctor (boo). The only doctor I ever liked was dad, and after he passed, I’ve been stuck with people who either don’t know or don’t care. Left me waiting in a room for 2 hrs (during a severe asthma attack). Hello? I’m dying in here. They finally realized I needed a steroid shot…

I never realized how lucky I was in that respect… To have a dad who took care of all your medical needs (he was also a surgeon so he took my tonsils out, for example.) and no lines to wait in. lol

So, I’ve been quiet here since the cold destroyed the little bit of ability I had to taste anything. lol It’s a good time though, I’m still waiting for my December package(s) from TeaVivre and YS, so I don’t really have anything new… But then, I found another sample from Theodor. hehe I guess they gave me 5 free samples!

With that knowledge, this has a Chinese green tea base with a strong melon flavor, and slight peach, pineapple, passion fruit, strawberry, green apple notes. ^^ It’s a very nice fruity green tea. I normally wouldn’t rate it due to my dislike of strong melon taste but it was more like an exotic slurry of fruits.

175 °F, 3 steeps: 2m, 3m, 4m

When decanting this tea, I noticed an overwhelming melon-type aroma. Very nice melon flavour on the sip- reminiscent of the great flavour that I would find in Butiki Teas blends. Slight creaminess to it. Green tea flavour seems to stand out a bit in this blend. This is a rather old sample so it may just be that I need to give this one a try with a fresh batch.

Lovely cantaloupe and melon cream indulgence. Smooth, smooth. The green tea base is barely barely there. Just a lovely tea.

Thank you, Sil. I am really enjoying this one.