Mariage Frères Advent 2021 – Day 6
A black tea! And just in time for our first snow (I need to shovel snow).
The sweet orange flavouring here is subtle, allowing the bright, orange-hued base to accentuate the citrusy notes to a point where it feels like a natural component of the tea. “OA” is making a good modified “breakfast tea-like” satchet – with enough robust malt and tannin to dry me out and remind me of my grandmas (both of them were big tea drinkers). Taken with milk and dark chocolate, which really brought it up a notch.
Steep Count: 2 (with milk there’s a bit of a chocolate orange vibe occurring due to malt).
Flavors: Chocolate, Citrus, Fruity, Malt, Orange, Sweet, Tannic
Preparation
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I am wondering if black tea has gone out of fashion of what. It does not seem to be making much of an appearance in advent calendars or in tea festival boxes.
Right? Except for a few obvious companies (ex- F&M) I’m seeing a larger spread than I’d expect of advent herbals and green-ish teas in everyone’s tasting notes!
In the case of MF, I suspect it’s more an instance of trying to push new and/or less popular teas – many of which happen to be green, white, or oolong blends. We’ve had to add pretty much every one so far to the database on here, and I haven’t seen any of their old “flagship” teas yet, except for a “upgrade” of their Marco Polo Green tea version. To be fair, I would’ve likely never picked these out for myself and I’m enjoying the novelty, if not always loving them to bits… :)
DF’s seems to be trotting out their new and/or more obscure ones too. I am pleased to discover the more hidden things, I suppose. That said, out of three tea fest boxes, I got only something like 60 grams of black (plus 50 grams of black from DT’s, one of the fest sponsors so I am not counting that).
I do have enough tisane to take me to the end of my days.
The good thing about tea bag portions is if you don’t love something it’s not sticking around anyways. Any tisane more than 3 servings usually stays with me for five years :P
Elsewhere (librarything.com), a tea enthusiast posted an article that does point that black tea is losing some market share: Unilever offloads black tea business as UK passion for cuppa goes cold (Guardian) As a lover of strong unleaded, this troubles me.
Oh, no! While white, green, and oolong teas are my personal favourites – black teas are still essential to me. If I’m in a social setting or working, the robust, brisk ones are my go to; I’ve been craving a nice CTC lately even!
Hope the market rediscovers their love for them.
Thanks for that, gmathis. Massively troubling information.
I hope the market rediscovers their love for them too.
Another thing is that climate change and this ongoing COVId situation may influence tea supply, maybe not immediately. I suspect we will be feeling this at some point.
Black tea for me, flavoured and straight, is number one, with green and oolong coming up behind. Everything else trails behind.
I am wondering if black tea has gone out of fashion of what. It does not seem to be making much of an appearance in advent calendars or in tea festival boxes.
Right? Except for a few obvious companies (ex- F&M) I’m seeing a larger spread than I’d expect of advent herbals and green-ish teas in everyone’s tasting notes!
In the case of MF, I suspect it’s more an instance of trying to push new and/or less popular teas – many of which happen to be green, white, or oolong blends. We’ve had to add pretty much every one so far to the database on here, and I haven’t seen any of their old “flagship” teas yet, except for a “upgrade” of their Marco Polo Green tea version. To be fair, I would’ve likely never picked these out for myself and I’m enjoying the novelty, if not always loving them to bits… :)
DF’s seems to be trotting out their new and/or more obscure ones too. I am pleased to discover the more hidden things, I suppose. That said, out of three tea fest boxes, I got only something like 60 grams of black (plus 50 grams of black from DT’s, one of the fest sponsors so I am not counting that).
I do have enough tisane to take me to the end of my days.
The good thing about tea bag portions is if you don’t love something it’s not sticking around anyways. Any tisane more than 3 servings usually stays with me for five years :P
Elsewhere (librarything.com), a tea enthusiast posted an article that does point that black tea is losing some market share: Unilever offloads black tea business as UK passion for cuppa goes cold (Guardian) As a lover of strong unleaded, this troubles me.
Oh, no! While white, green, and oolong teas are my personal favourites – black teas are still essential to me. If I’m in a social setting or working, the robust, brisk ones are my go to; I’ve been craving a nice CTC lately even!
Hope the market rediscovers their love for them.
Thanks for that, gmathis. Massively troubling information.
I hope the market rediscovers their love for them too.
Another thing is that climate change and this ongoing COVId situation may influence tea supply, maybe not immediately. I suspect we will be feeling this at some point.
Black tea for me, flavoured and straight, is number one, with green and oolong coming up behind. Everything else trails behind.