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Yay, trying my first Harney’s tea! I picked up 15 sachets of this from a local tea shop yesterday, hehe I cleaned them out of one of their large bags so the guy just gave me my tea in the giant bag! So I get the entire smell of Paris as it’s infused into the bag pretty much haha.

This smells sooo tasty dry. To me, it is a lemon square, with the light lemony bergamot and vanilla. But upon closer sniff, there is a lovely fruity sweetness in there, I am not sure what type of fruit, it seems to be a berry blend with plums maybe? That could also be currants, although the currants I have had I have not liked lol too bitter. But the vanilla and lemon are definitely predominant!

I am steeping this for 3 minutes, 30 s as I don’t want it to get too strong for the first cup. Haha, of course the sachet entirely fell in the tea, had to fish out the string with a fork lol. The steeped smell is VERY Earl Grey, but with the fruitiness there. It is for some reason reminding me of this little pie place I went a few times when I was younger on the way to visiting my grandma’s. This pie and tea house was in a train station, so it was nice and old fashioned and rather classy looking, it seemed to take you back to a different era of wearing nice dresses every day and beautiful hats and sipping tea. That is what the smell of this is reminding me of: refined elegance, afternoon tea time, juicy plums and classic EG. Oh, and now the vanilla is coming out more too as it finished steeping. I am feeling good about this tea! ETA about the smell – it is soooo good. I have been smelling and smelling it and mmmmmm. It’s reminding me of sugar glazed fruit in a vanilla cake of some sort, or a pudding. Yummy.

As for taste, this is pretty delicious. A very strong Earl Grey flavor at the start, but fading into a creamy vanilla fruity aftertaste. I maybe get a fleeting taste of the caramel mid-sip, but that could just be the vanilla first showing itself. This is like a decadent dessert that you have with Earl Grey after a meal. The flavors of those two things combined. It might be a tad stronger than I like, so I might try steeping a little shorter even next time, but it is very good nonetheless. I’m not sure if this really reminds me of Paris, it is reminding me more of having tea with my English great aunt haha. But I must say, this is a pretty good tea, and my second Earl Grey blend in my stash!

Overall, I am quite impressed with this tea. It has a beautiful combination of flavors, the smell is TO DIE FOR, and it’s in a sachet and it’s THIS GOOD. I can only imagine what this is like loose. I will probably have to re-order this in the future, or go back to the local shop and pick up some more. I do feel the caffeine from this and it is pretty sweet, so this may not be an every day tea, but when I feel like treating myself, this will be a good choice.