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On paper, this seems right up my alley. I remember smelling it in the Tel Aviv Palais des Thés last summer, too, and I liked it a lot. I know Palais get a lot of flak in terms of quality and pricing, but there’s something about their flavoured teas that really does it for me. They go down so smoothly, and they have this fresh, clean lightness to them that makes me think of the nights we spent watching the sea during that holiday we needed so badly.

Obviously, that’s my mnemonic illusion and no one else’s, but if my brain wants to play games with me and said games make me enjoy a tea others don’t – so be it. But don’t get any ideas, brain. I’m watching you.

There’s a very light kiwi here, and, I think, a bit of peach. Then there’s also the unmistakeable PdT vanilla, which has been growing on me ever so slowly. It’s not exuberant Lupicia vanilla, of course, but a very nice, subtle, warm vanilla.

I enjoy this tea very much, I want to buy it (Hey T. – heard you moved to Oslo, you know, where there IS A PdT STORE. Also I love you. Thanks. Kbye.) and keep it in my cupboard.

Thanks for sharing, KittyLovesTea!

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]

I’m so caffeinated now the selection process for this one went something like…

oh, peach

green peach

green peach, huh?

are there even green peaches?

or is it because the tea is green?

green peach

what a pretty fruit

all green

but peach like

yeah

…and then imagine that really pinball-staccato and jittery.

I have a peach obsession. If it says peach, I’m gonna peach. So I peached. I am absolutely not disappointed. There are some too-good-to-be-true natural peaches out there, such as Lupicia’s Momo, but then there are also slightly less natural (it sounds better than ‘more artificial’) peach versions, such as this one, that are really enjoyable. (Keep in mind, though, that I’m someone who will shamelessly hog a bag of Haribo peach candies. Hi, E100, hi, E120, Hi Artificial Flavouring! Is anyone else coming? Oooh, Sugar.)

Brewed, this one has that slight metallic hint to it that I’m so used to finding in teas from A.C. Perchs now that I almost exclusively associate it with their greens and whites. It’s also somewhat flat – not flat as in stale, but just not overly intricate, flavour wise.

I’d really like to cold-brew this one, so I think this gets to stay here in Villa Borghese with me.

Thanks for sharing, KittyLovesTea! I am now one step closer to trying all the peach teas in the world.

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]

So I continue to venture outside my tea comfort zone with this one. On the sample bag, as you EU-swappers will note, it says, ‘not a black tea’, but as cteresa points out in the forum thread, it is actually black, but should be treated as a green. Now, I’m someone who tends to slap her greens and call them names (deep down they like it), that is, brew them at 100C with a 1.5-minute steep – because I mostly drink Lupicia greens, and, before someone jumps down my throat concerning this very touchy subject – this is what Lupicia themselves recommend.

Either way, I went for some form of compromise – 90C at 2 minutes. The O Dor themselves recommend 85C for 3:45-4:30 (very specific, I like your OCD, Théodor mon chéri) but I didn’t feel like anything too strong.

In the bag, this had a somewhat minty tang to it, which was surprising. I assume this is just how the freshness of this leaf comes off to me scent wise, seeing as there’s not the slightest hint of anything minty in the brewed cup.

This is one of those blacks that work for me, especially lightly brewed as in this case. I definitely wouldn’t turn down a cup, but it’s not a tea I will crave or think about in the future.

Thanks to cteresa for adding this one to the box!

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]

Today is quite the daunting tasting note day – first I take on Tribute, and now this?

In this case, however, we can just go ahead and blame my complete lack of interest in plain blacks. There is exactly one such previous review by me on all of Steepster, namely this one: http://steepster.com/annchen/posts/185089

So I suppose I could have just left this in the box, but the same thing always happens – time passes, and I forget my resolve to just avoid unflavoured blacks altogether, and there I am again, with a cup of something that seemed intriguing.

The Queen is special, though – she’s all over my dash and I really had to see what all the fuss was about. Unlike the Nine Dragon Golden Needle tea previously reviewed, I didn’t enjoy the scent of the dry tea at all. The base tea simply isn’t for me. One day I need to talk to Dinosara or Sil or whoever else it is who’s so unfathomably knowledgeable about which leaf is which and why and how, because I’m completely lost beyond, ‘Oh, I tend to enjoy Mariage Frères black base tea, and, uh, also Lupicia’s green base tea, which people keep telling me is something commonly referred to as a ‘sencha’, whatever that means.’

Seriously – that is all the game I’ve got.

No, the dry tea doesn’t do it for me, and neither does the brewed liquid, neither nose-, nor taste-wise. This is one of those that make me feel like I’m licking a seat belt in our old Mercedes – I know I’ve gone there before, with the hot plastic and the scorching summer sun and the scent of all that heat and how the belt half-burned my exposed skin as my mother buckled me in.

I don’t want to drink our old Mercedes.

Also I’m quite the convinced anti-monarchist, so this Queen business will really have to be conducted elsewhere. (Unless we’re talking about some delicious dudes in drag, because if so, bring them on.)

More for the rest of you.

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]

Okay, so you remember that Thé d’amandine (Comptoir des thés et des épices) review that prompted Ysaurella, our resident fairy godmother of The O Dor tea samples to offer some up in the first place? Well, I do.

I’ve been so curious about this one – I mean, a comment such as, “Tribute by Theodor is cleary THE galette des rois tea” makes it impossible to resist, after all. And yes, this is one of those cases where – if I’d had this one first – I would have been head over heels, placing an order within the week. But now I have two very positive experiences with other almondy teas, one of them a staple in my cupboard (Pleine Lune) and the other one (Thé d’amandine) a tea I’ve vowed to re-review more generously, seeing as I was so fed up with French greens when I tried it.

This is a black tea, though, and as such more closely comparable to Pleine Lune. Quite unfairly, seeing as the MF tea is one that makes me want to put a leash on and kneel before my master. Tribute strikes me as less complex in taste, with a mouthfeel that comes off as a little watery to me, compared to the creamy smoothness of PL.

In the case of Thé d’amandine, it had the added bonus of being a green tea, and as such lighter and more accessible. It also brought some element of surprise to the table, through the addition of that distant, near-spectral cherry presence.

Tribute, however, doesn’t leave much of an impression on me.

I’m very torn here – on the one hand I feel like it’s close to sacrilege to rate this less than the seemingly obligatory 80+, but on the other, I’m really grateful for knowing exactly what I’m looking for. That knowledge, however, would be impossible if not for all this tea sampling – thank you so much, Ysaurella! I’ve had such a good time with these samples, and you really are the sweetest for helping me explore my feelings for the ravishing Monsieur Théodor.

[Sample from Ysaurella, spring 2014.]

I remember reading cteresa’s note for this four months back and laughing so hard at the following, “…have no idea why they call it samourai, I can´t think of anything less samurai like than this tea.”

Now I’m sitting here with the remaining half of her hard-earned sample – there’s no way I can top the sheer hilarity of her review, though, so I’m not even going to try.

Scent wise, this is very lotion-from-l’Occitane, in other words, absolutely not for me. Smelling this for more than five minutes would give me a headache – it’s too medicinal. Brewed, it’s not so bad at all, much less lotiony, with hints of citrus, and with the tea base (which is quite nice) coming through distinctly. There’s a jubilant, grassy, vegetable note in there, too – I’m guessing it’s the MF bergamot – I’ve never tried theirs before.

In the cup, this just blooms. It’s very floral, and I like floral. I wouldn’t go as far as to call this a complex tea, but the tea base adheres to MF’s usual high standard (although it tastes surprisingly green to me) and I’m not having any problems finishing the cup. I also wouldn’t turn down a second cup, but I wouldn’t buy it – it simply isn’t something I crave as a staple. Maybe it’s because I’m just not samurai material.

Thanks, cteresa, for letting me try the least samurai-like tea in the world.

[Spin-off sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]
[Sample polished off in Rome, February 2014.]

In addition to Butiki’s Three Friends, this is the chocolate-orange tea I most often see on my dash, so I wanted to try it out.

The scent of the dry tea has a tang that balances precariously between candied orange peel and artificial orange – it can’t quite make up its mind. Brewed, it gains a dimension of chalkiness – I’d say this is a recurring problem with chocolate-flavoured anything, but in this case it’s a little too present to be agreeable.

When it comes to the flavour, though, it’s surprisingly good at first – I would definitely eat this if it were a cakey or steamed pudding-y dessert. The chalkiness comes back in the aftertaste, however – not quite with a vengeance, but it’s undeniably there, accompanied by the half-candied, half-artificial orange.

For the second time today, hence, I conclude that chocolate teas aren’t really for me.

Thanks for sharing, KittyLovesTea!

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]

This will be an uncharacteristically short tasting note, because this is so nondescript. It both looks and smells good in the bag – nice big leaf with petals, vaguely sweetfruity scent.

In the cup, though, it just sort of… sits. Sure, there’s a vague fruitness about it, and a subtle vanilla I think Angrboda might possibly like, but then there’s also a slight burnt note I don’t like at all. I think it’s the tea base. The aftertaste is the best part of the sip, but no, this is not really for me. I don’t like fruity blacks much in the first place, but I will keep sampling, because there has to be one I enjoy.

Just not this one.

Thanks for sharing, KittyLovesTea!

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]

The rooibos version of this is one of my favourite reds, so I had to try the black. It has very little to do with the familiar one in my cupboard, though.

Scent wise, the dry tea has a thick, buttery richness to it that I recognized so well but couldn’t quite place. And then it struck me. Rice porridge. In Sweden we make a difference between rice porridge (runnier) and rice pudding (baked in the oven, more of a cake-like texture) and the former is mainly served as a traditional Christmas dish, warm, with milk, and with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top.

It can be a bit of a hassle to make the actual porridge, as it easily burns (the rice is cooked in milk) – my mom has a sneaky trick, though; she takes it off the heat after it comes to a boil, and then wraps the whole thing in blankets to keep it warm until it’s time for Christmas dessert. It usually rests for five or six hours, which allows the rice to slowly cook and swell. Unwrapped, the porridge has the perfect texture and temperature, and it’s seriously the best trick ever.

And this is exactly what it smells like, on Christmas Eve, when that lid is removed.

I’m pretty sure the rice porridge effect is what’s supposed to pass for marrons glacés, but I haven’t had those since I was very small, so the rice layer is simply much further up in my memory stack.

The tea base is very pleasant, classic Mariage Frères, and I know this is one that would have appealed to me immensely if there hadn’t been such an outlandish scent/flavour parallel. As it is, I don’t really know how to feel about the whole thing. Every other sip is, ‘I like it..’, and every other, ‘…but it’s weird.’

Thanks for adding this and messing with my head, cteresa!

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]

Oh, okay, wow. So I’m having quite the The O Dor sample party today, courtesy of Ysaurella, cteresa and the EU swap box. Before yesterday, I was a The O Dor virgin, but things are getting pretty depraved pretty fast over here.

All these preconceived notions of what I’m going to like are so often completely turned on their heads when I try out a brand new company. I thought Lupicia’s blacks would be insufferable (but it turns out they’re just as amazing as their greens and oolongs) and I thought Butiki’s flavoured teas would be right up my alley (turns out I prefer the plain ones) and I thought I’d like Damman Frères far more than Comptoir des Thés et des Epices (a million times no).

And here I was, convinced this tea would be just average, and that Celebration would have to be the most desirable in the entire The O Dor kingdom.

As it turns out, I realized chocolate teas don’t really do it for me, even if there’s hazelnut and vanilla involved… and that this tea is gorgeous. Seriously, the last time I had a tea experience like this was with Lupicia’s Cookie. (And you all know how I feel about Cookie.)

I did a double take smelling the sample, because it was so rich and lovely. I always talk about the wild card, that inexplicable something, and there it was, in the dry tea already. And this teal is solid and reliable, because that something stays there all the way, both scent wise and flavour wise. There’s a perfect, creamy intermingling of coconut and pistachio, with an aftertaste that is all smooth vanilla with this slight floral hint that literally makes me smile.

My mnemonic analogy (there always seems to be one hard-wired into some part of my brain, after all) emanates from memories of love, suitably. When you’ve been in love, and you’ve loved, and you think you’ve got it all figured out, and then you meet that goddamn person who just turns everything upside down and shows you what all those stupid songs and books and movies were really about.

Je T’aime – the evolution of love, in a tea cup.

(You will be my special coconut and pistachio tea forever.)

[Sample from the second round of the EU Travelling Box, spring 2014.]