Mariage Frères

I am so close to being out of this sample it’s not even funny. I have maybe half a cup left. This makes me very sad. This morning I added a bit of sugar and half & half and put this into my tumbler for my drive to work.

So good. Bold and tea-y with a great note of strawberry sauce, like the kind that is put on cheesecake. The taste of the tea was stouter than previous times I’ve had this, probably because I inadvertently oversteeped a bit – but it dealt with it well and actually fit the whole morning tea purpose. I also made up a second steep of this before I left and put it in the fridge. I’m looking forward to seeing how this is cold.

This tea is seriously going to make me find a Mariage Freres vendor since the only one I know of is about an hour or so from my house. But I might have to make a visit there.

Today has not started out all that awesomely. Had issues getting up, kitties decided that the light timer in the bedroom didn’t really need to come on, ended up running late and then I went into the kitchen to make tea before I was (finally!) out the door and oh no! The Zojirushi was not plugged in! Augh! Either I forgot to plug it back in after refilling it last night or one of the cats had gotten on the counter and managed to unplug it. Either way, water for tea was not ready. So I boiled some. Which meant I was really running late but hey, I can’t be without tea.

I decided to try this one with a little sugar and milk since I haven’t yet. I used a teaspoon-ish of sugar and maybe a teaspoon and a half of milk for my 12oz. Something like that. And OMG, why didn’t I do this sooner? So good. Have you ever taken frozen strawberries, sprinkled them with sugar, poured a little milk over them and then eaten them with a spoon? That’s what this tea was like. But instead of regular strawberry, this was a tea strawberry. Tea-berry. Straw-tea? Strawbetea? Strea?

Anyway, it was a perfect blend of tea and strawberry dropped into a bowl, sprinkled with sugar, splashed with milk… and served at boiling. Okay, so not exactly like frozen strawberries with sugar and milk but that’s what it made me think of and it was so good. Fresh and tart but still sweet and dessert-y. The fresh berry taste was still there and kept this from being overwhelmingly sweet but the sugar and milk (okay, half and half) added a great dessert quality to the drink.

The tea didn’t make me show up to work any earlier or make traffic bend to my will or anything but I sure was in a better mood while dealing with all that and I was smiling when I showed up late to work. So go tea!

This tea smells so good. Fruity and sweet and berry-y and good. So. Freakin’. Good. Which is good because someone in the office? Yeah, making it smell bad. Good smelling things are needed. Post-brewing, I’m getting an almost caramel or burnt sugar smell. Like pound cake or graham crackers but richer. This smells like a strawberry sauce-covered dessert.

It tastes like strawberry syrup and burnt sugar. Tartly berry sweet in a dark way (not a white sugar sweet way) and very dessert-y. Rich taste even if it has a lighter body.

I do feel like I’m missing something not drinking it out of my strawberry tea cups though. Totoro isn’t always the perfect cup, I suppose.

ETA: Second steep at a lower temp (boiling water into my cup for a moment then into my ingenuiTEA so 200° maybe?) @ 4:45. More fruit, less burnt sugar. A bit softer, smoother, nice. Definitely worth the resteep.

3g/8oz

takgoti was trying to pressure me into buying a new wallet but when I stood strong, she settled for forcing me to try this tea. ahem Right.

She did send this tea to me though so yay for takgoti! And I can’t stop sniffing this because it smells so. Freakin. Good. Creamy and red-fruity and sweet and rich. Before I knew what it was, I couldn’t quite figure out if it was cherry or strawberry or grenadine that I was smelling – just something red-fruity and creamy. Once I found out what it was, I only learned that it was most likely none of those. But it still smells similar. So I’m having some in my strawberry cup in honor of the unnamed red fruits in this tea.

As I poured hot water over the leaf, I was able to fully identify what it smelled like to me. Strawberry syrup. No, no, not strawberry syrup. Strawberry topping. On a cheesecake. The husband is a cheesecake master and he has made some homemade topping before for one of his vanilla cheesecakes. That’s what this smells like. It makes my mouth water.

There’s no way the taste can match the smell. No way. So I’m a little scared to take my first sip, not wanting to be disappointed… And I’m actually not disappointed! This is different from the smell – it doesn’t have the strong creamy, rich vanilla note. But the berry note is spot on. Sort of like eating the strawberry cheesecake and then having a bite that is just one of the strawberries from the topping with no cheesecake or significant amount of syrup. It’s not as sweet or as decadent as the previous bites (or in this case, the smell) but it’s still really good and yummy.

The berry flavoring is very smooth and natural tasting. No nasty aftertaste here. And it leaves a bit of fresh-berry-ish-tart on the roof of my mouth after a swallow. Part of me wonders how this would be with a little sugar or milk and another part of me is scared that it would be way too rich. But that’s not to say that this tea needs to be sweeter. Because it’s got a good berry-style sweet thing going on that I would hate to mess with. It’s got a nice body to it – not a light, thin feeling tea. Not super-thick for me, but respectable.

And my cup is empty. That was fast. I might have been a bit enthusiastic in my sipping. But what can I say? This tea is good!

ETA: Second steep @5:30. The flavor is lighter but remarkably consistent with the first steep. Maybe a little cleaner tasting? But not by much. Still very nicely fruity. And zero bitterness so I imagine it could go even longer without oversteeping.

#2: And just because I was curious, third steep @ 9mins. Okay, the flavor is fairly weak now but surprisingly true to the first steep still with still no bitterness. I think a 4th steep might be pushing it a bit (unless I steeped it for 20mins or something).

2.25g/6oz water. Eh, to me just your basic slightly sweet black tea. I don’t care for black teas normally but if black teas are your thing, I’m sure you’d give it a 70-100.

Jesus Christ this tea gets me every time.

This has black tea and as far as I can tell strawberries and vanilla. This smells mostly like vanilla. I brewed this up. And you can taste a slightly tannic black tea with vanilla and a hint of strawberry. The strawberry in here in nice while I can not taste I’t alot. The vanilla you can really taste but to me it tastes to artifical this really I’s just ok to me.

Very nice for lazy Saturday mornings and the strawberry cream flavor combines beautifully with Silk Soy Creamer. Mmmm.

A sweet fragrance of vanilla and strawberries rises from this enticing reddish brown brew. The taste carries the strawberries and cream through, though there is additionally a strong black tea underneath with some bitterness and astringency. The sweet taste lingers in the mouth like good cream. From sniffing the dry leaves I’d thought it might be too powerfully sweet for a morning tea and might be better in the afternoon, but the strong tea is a good enough contrast and the sweetness is subtle enough that this is not an issue.

Yet another tea I am finishing from my stash today…I can really smell the spice today. I infused an heaping-helping because I didn’t have just-enough for another cup…so I figured WHY NOT.

I can taste the spice, too…cinnamon??? This is one of the few teas I like where the cinnamon is ‘just right’.

Received another sampling of this in the mail today! YAY! Thanks Melanie J.

Masculine scent – very nice!

The color of the liquid is a little lighter that I remember it but – it’s the taste that counts, eh!?

Still comforting, still a nice cup

I received this in a swap as well. The sample wasn’t very large so I oversteeped what I did have. It’s a little perfumy to the nose…maybe more like Cologne. It’s not as dark in color as I thought it would be but then again that may have been due to the amount that was steeped. It’s a pleasant cup but no individual tastes come thru too much to be individually identified. I can taste a very little bit of a vanilla-bourbon type aftertaste if you really think about it. Regardless..it’s ok…I would like to try more from this company if I could ever find it.

EDITED NOTE***
I tend to use a larger Tea Cup so…I think this had a lot to do with it. Had I used a regular size cup I am sure it would have been stronger and darker. I really did like it and hope to find more of this brand locally.

This tea is amazing. A bit pricier than I think I will pay, but if I was paid more I would stock this tea for sure.

I cannot place all of the flavors, so I’ll just walk through the experience: the first sensation across my tongue is a mildly fruity, buttery tone. It’s like the aftertaste of a fruit salad. Then, in the middle, I feel a smooth, natural green-tea flavor. The finisher is a mix of green-tea flavor (mild, mild!), fruit, and perhaps something floral? Perfumy, but I can’t identify a specific scent or flavor. Slightly astringent and a touch bitter in the after after taste. This is an absolutley delightful tea.

This is a complex cup. There are more flavors happening and more parts to the taste than I described above, but I can’t pull them apart enough to catalogue. I think it would taste great with sugar, though I can’t see spoiling this intricate experience. This is a good tea for lovers of all experience levels, though I think experienced drinkers might appreciate it more than neophytes.

Simply delightful!
I ordered a tin of the loose tea based on its reputation. The dense, compact leaves smelled as if I had somehow landed in a delectable strawberry field. I was transformed from a dreary November afternoon into a fruited dream world of sweetness. I thought of some of the lucious music I know—-if you like Puccini at all, this tea is the equivalent of that gorgeous candied aria, “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta” from “La Rondine”. Ah! mio sogno! Felicita!

But I really should be referencing the sweets of France—perhaps this tea has an Italian name because it well represents the robust spectacle which is Italy? It is based on tea leaves from China and Tibet, so it really is an international melange.

I am now lusting after the jams made by Mariage Freres.

I typically try a tea dark and then decide whether I want to add sugar and/or milk. I think that Marco Polo could handle those but I was into the deliciousness so much that I could not bring myself to change one single thing.
I understand that this tea is more costly, but it is worth it.

Brewed at 70°C in a big teapot.
I’m not a big fan of the Yuzu flavor. It was ok though, the flavor is strong enough without being overwhelming. This tea is only avaible in metal box for now, making it way over-priced.

An excellent tea, with subtle fruit notes, but not sweetish. I like it very much.

I love the rich fragrance that steams up from a pot of marco Polo. I can never decide what it tastes like, except delicious.

A very pleasant cup, bright russet color, with a not-too-strong vanilla flavor. My favorite choice for when I don’t want caffeine.

My favorite tea from Mariage Frères!

An excellent tea, though not my favorite from this company.