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Hallieod drank Prince Igor by Mariage Frères

73 tasting notes

Another of the samples Ysaurella sent me – thank you again! Cara and I had this the other afternoon, but I had no chance to make a note then, so finished off the last of it in a small cup just for me. I think if this one had tasted as good as it smelled, I’d have been in trouble. I sniffed and pondered and sniffed some more, and finally came up with strawberries and cream with vanilla sugar. And some undefined but gentle floral note. Now, I haven’t eaten strawberries and cream for ages (although soya cream is a really good substitute these days), and have no idea if cream actually smells, but this is still what my sniffing was telling me. The cup itself didn’t have quite the same richness and depth of flavour, and again, my imperfect tasting gave me very slightly underripe strawberries, vanilla and again, that elusive light floral taste. (Is it the sunflowers? They sure look pretty, but even tasting one gave no clue as to whether or no they taste sweet. Yes, I do regularly taste the leaves after infusion!) Very nice, and the black & green tea base is very good – though I wouldn’t have got green myself, I don’t think. Perhaps if I hadn’t had Ysaurella’s careful preparation notes to hand I might have got the green in the bad way?

I’ve tried the Pleine Lune as well, but going to brew it up again for tasting note for that, but so far, I’m extremely happy that the Pouchkine has been the hit of the teas Ysaurella sent for me. This way, I know which Mariage Frères teas I want to get when I get to the London shop, but am not so smitten I have to pay MF shipping rates to Ireland Right. Now.

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Ysaurella
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Glad you liked this one too, the unrecognized MF blend ! it suffers from Marco Polo’s reputation :)
But Prince Igor is really a complex tea with citrus, vanilla and strawberries, I prefer it to Marco Polo.

Hallieod
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I don’t think I’ve ever actually had Marco Polo, though of course, as you say, it is so famous. Fun to be part of the appreciative minority on Prince Igor. :)

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Ysaurella
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Hallieod
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I don’t think I’ve ever actually had Marco Polo, though of course, as you say, it is so famous. Fun to be part of the appreciative minority on Prince Igor. :)

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I’ve been drinking tea pretty much all my life, allowing for the fact that there probably was no tea in my baby-bottles. I gave it up twice, once when a then-boyfriend sneered at me for being addicted (okay, I was, but I was also stubborn enough to bear a week of the blinding headaches and overwhelming exhaustion that followed cold-turkey withdrawal), and once on my first pregnancy. Neither experience gave me any reason to believe a life without tea is a good life.

Having spent most of my younger days in Ireland, where tea is everywhere, and mostly it’s decent, I whined my way across the States in the 80s and first half of the 90s. Now back in Dublin, and the tea situation is a bit mixed, but there’s the internet to provide what nearby shops don’t!

I started drinking green and white teas as well as my staple black a good few years ago now, but have recently decided I need to LEARN something more about tea than the little I know.

My likes:
- strong black tea blends; some flavoured blacks, such as Earl Grey and a small (but growing) number of other fruit and flower-flavoured ones; and chai. (For some daft reason, I feel like a tea fraud drinking sweet chai at home, though I’ll happily drink it out.)

- Chinese greens (may update this when I’ve learned enough to be more specific); some flavoured greens, especially if they’re made by the fabulous Yumchaa; Genmaicha; getting to like Sencha, as long as it’s not too bitter.

- White tea, pretty much as long as it’s good quality, I like it. Some flavoured ones are nice, though it’s easy to overpower the more delicate taste of white.

- Rooibos, which I know, I know, isn’t properly ‘tea’. (As above for Yumchaa flavoured rooibos – some of my favourites.)

Dislikes:
- Any black tea made by someone who doesn’t know you need BOILING WATER. (See above about the Whining Years.)

- Hibiscus in fruit-flavoured teas. Looks so pretty! Tastes so awful!

I’m working on trying to like Hojicha, which isn’t going too well yet. Jane Pettigrew describes it as “biscuity”, but unless she’s eaten a lot of cigarette-flavoured biscuits in her time, I don’t get it.

- Aniseed in spiced teas. (Just discovered this one for the dislike list today, in an otherwise-tasty chai. Don’t like the tongue-numbing effect.)

Indecisive, despite being opinionated – okay, very opinionated – so may just add notes rather than rating.