Nina's Paris

Sipdown (178/182)!

Oh man, this tea really shocked me.

I cold brewed it for about eight hours and I brought it to work with me today. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to like it because A) it’s green and B) I’ve had another Pineapple/Coconut tea from Nina’s Paris and it really disappointed me so I expected this to be like that but with a different base – a base that I happen to really not like. So, it didn’t sound promising at all.

I was really taken aback when I tried it though: you could tell it was a green blend because the vegetal quality came through fairly strong but it really worked with the fresh tangy, and just overwhelmingly sweet and juicy quality of the pineapple. I don’t know if it’s even possible with pineapple – but it felt like “fresh squeezed” pineapple juice. How do you even go about squeezing a pineapple? Huh!?

And then, the coconut was very tropical in the same way that I found DT’s Coconut Grove was – and that of course suited the pineapple (hello, “Pina Colada” – the two are a natural pairing) but I was surprised how well it suited the green tea too. And thankfully, it was not disgustingly buttery in taste/mouthfeel like Nina’s blend Cancer was.

I felt like this tea pulled me out of my miserable work day and set me on some fun, tropical beach with a cup of this in my hand in a fancy martini glass type thing with a fun paper umbrella and brightly striped bendy straw! I’m so sad that this one is gone now!

Thanks a million VariaTEA for the sample! I was so happy to be proven wrong about that I thought this would be like; and it was a great reminded too of why I really loving doing swaps: sometimes you find that really special gem of tea that you wouldn’t want to try otherwise.

I’d definitely order this.

When I swapped wtih Courtney I asked her if I could have some samples of her blends from Nina’s because it has become a popular brand on Steepster and I’ve never had any of theirs before. Courtney shared this one and a couple of others with me. I figured with a name like this, I should share it with Husband.

This one has raspberry, red currant and vanilla, and it both smells and tastes very similar to your standard 4 Red Fruits blend. Well, I suppose it is half a one, isn’t it? I’m not really picking the vanilla up as such, but I get the impression that it’s there. I get that a fair bit in blends where the vanilla is in there with something else. I don’t taste vanilla, but I can taste what the vanilla does, smoothing things out and sweetening. That’s what I’m getting here as well.

This tastes like something that could be a dessert I would rather like to eat, but this is really all I can say about it, because the cup seems to have disappeared rather quickly.

I can report also that Husband thought it was nice as well.

Grapefruit without tartness! Enough rose to shave off the sharpness without adding perfume flavor. Nicely done, Nina’s!

I was contacted by Dorian Roque Community Manager and Business Developer at Nina’s Paris USA and was sent two shipments of samples one from Dorian and another from Laurent Caravel who runs the online stores for the US Market.

Nina’s Teas USA description of their Earl Grey: Bergamot from Sicily. The smoothness of Keemun together with the freshness of bergamot. An ancient recipe that was handed down by a high dignitary of China to Earl Charles Grey. A classic that definitely shouldn’t be missed.

“Nina’s began in 1672 when Pierre Diaz created ‘La Distillerie Frères’. It was the first company to distill lavender essential oils in France and became renowned for their art of creating fragrances.” Today they follow the traditions handed down from Diaz to create flavored teas. “Nina’s company name is in homage to Mrs. Nina Diaz, a strong and passionate woman who loved roses.”

Although they have nearly 350 years in the European market, Nina’s Paris Tea is still relatively new on the American market. Currently you can visit Nina’s Paris Tea Store, 4582 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami Design District. The online options are Amazon and Nina’s Etsy store. You should also check out their Facebook page for specials and the latest news from Paris.

Ninas Paris Tea Earl Grey is black tea scented with bergamot oil that is extracted from a pear-shaped Mediterranean citrus. The tea brews up a deep amber cup with a light citrus flavor and fragrance. The tea leaves in traditional Earl Grey are black teas of Chinese or Indian origin. Nina’s uses the Chinese Keemun (Qimen red tea harvested in Spring 2013) a black Chinese tea with a soft wine/fruit flavor. The choice of using Keemun creates a softer cup of Earl Grey than is expected, but to true tea lovers it isn’t a surprise as Keemun is used as the base for many English Breakfast tea blends. The natural Sicilian Bergamot perks up the deeper notes of the Keemun but not with the powerful punch that bergamot has the reputation. I would actually call this tea, soft.

The tea is good and can take a long brew time and still not get bitter. I brewed one teaspoon of leaves in 6 ounces of water 190-200 degrees Fahrenheit. Nina’s recommends 212 degrees (boiling point). The cup yielded was deep caramel colored, and even at the 3rd brewing still yielded a deep color. On the first sip I was impressed with the clear note of bergamot that lingered on my palate. I actually felt a bit of cooling on the roof of my mouth that I normally associate with a mint tea, but none of the mint flavor. It is my impression that the light fruity flavor of the Keemun is why this blend has a more muted bergamot flavor. I enjoyed 4 separately brewed cups. Each one brewed true to color but the bergamot did soften with each cup. By the 4th cup the bergamot was not present.

All-in-all I would highly recommend this tea. However, if you are looking for a bergamot that stands up and announces itself, then this tea will not fit the bill. Nina’s Paris, Earl Grey is an excellent cup of softer bergamot that is flavorful and good at all temperatures, even as we do down South, on ice.

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This is another sample that VariaTEA surprised me with. Thank you so much – surprise tea in the mail is a wonderful thing. :))

I didn’t like this one so much. I’m not even quite sure why. It was more fruity than mango. The black tea was pushing too much against the fruit. Sorry, this one wasn’t really for me.

This is one of the first Nina’s teas I ever tried and it still holds up. The dry leaf smells absolutely amazing – like juicy berries in a dessert. Slightly sweet, slightly tart. I really don’t think you can smell it and not brew it right then and there. Fair warning!

Full review and photos at: https://tealover.net/2015/06/ninas-paris-grand-amour/

Huh. So apparently I reviewed this before and really liked it. Good thing since I just ordered a tin of it! It is really a lovely berry tea and I am drinking it really fast so I can get more of the flavor into my face.

This tea goes well with Percoset.

I have pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve or something in my back, off to the side. I had surgery in February (not back related) and saved my last Percoset in case I had a bad post-op day, but never did. Today I am really glad I have it! So instead of working, I am in my big overstuffed chair on a heating pad enjoying this tea. Working from home has its benefits.

So, the tea. This was a free sample from Nina’s. Thank you! I am really enjoying it. I am not the best at identifying flavors, and I would have thought this was stone fruit flavored, but I am reading here that it is red berries. Ok, I can see that. I think the caramel hints threw me off. It’s lovely though, and I got a great resteep out of the leaves, and I am rarely satisfied with the results of resteeping black teas. So that is a bonus. Definitely a great tea.

This is a nice peach tea. I made this one hot today, as we are having a bit of a heat wave here and I thought it was a good day for a peach tea. I do want to cold brew the rest of my sample from VariaTEA as I think it will excel that way and be ever so much juicier.

I have to say that it is a good peach tea, but not my fave. It almost seems a little too artificially peach. Almost. I think peach is one of those flavours that is hard to get right. What I do like is that this is a nice dark oolong, so almost a black tea, but lighter. And the roasted nature is still full of body.

I don’t think I’d buy this on my own, though, as I feel the peach isn’t right to me, so I will keep looking for the right peach tea. I am happy to have tried it though, and we’ll see how the rest turns out with a cold steep.

Sipdown (193/197)!

This is one of the many samples I received in the mail today from who other than VariaTEA – leave it to her to not only shower me with tea in general but with Nina’s Paris samples.

I wasn’t really sure how I’d react to this one: I’m not exactly the biggest fan of mangoes or mango flavoured things. However, the dry leaf of this smelled incredibly juicy and rich in a very appetizing way so I figured I’d give it a shot. It definitely has a flavour very true to a mango and it’s pretty solidly good, especially considering I don’t like mango a whole lot to begin with. Oddly, I thought it tasted better the more it cooled down though: maybe that’s because there was a faintly floral quality to the hot cup in the end sip that I found less present cold.

VariaTEA sent me two sachets but given my mango aversion I think I’m going to share the tea wealth and send the last one to 221Tea. While I thought this cup was surprisingly good for my own personal tastes I think the one cup was enough to satisfy my curiosity.

PS. I really like this one’s name.

Tea from VariaTEA!
Also a sipdown which is pretty great :)

Dude. All these rooibos teas are starting to taste very similar to each other. Like this one and a whole lot of other rooibos teas, all I can taste is the rooibos and the other flavouring just gets lost. This is one of the ones where the apricot/peach/cream gets overshadowed by the woodsy rooibos.
It’s just… rooibos.

Thank you, Rachel, for the tea! Especially all the rooibos! But my tastebuds are just generalizing all these rooibos teas as a regular rooibos. It’s all good though :)

My first genmaicha…I don’t know how I feel about it yet, so I’m not going to rate it just yet. I love the caramel and vanilla notes in this tea! I am not sure, however, if I care for the ricey aftertaste…

I am going to try again in a few days, and see how I feel about it then…

Thank you to cavocorax for the sample!

I decided to make this one again today. I steeped this up not right at boiling, but also not as cool as the first temperature drop on the scale, for the recommended 3 minutes. The chocolate and orange are both there, and the base is not over- or underwhelming. The orange takes a bit of a back seat to the chocolate, but it’s still noticeable. The chocolate is more of a milk chocolate.

With the exception of Japon, I want to love these French teas as much as everyone else seems to, but sometimes the flavourings seem not enough for my liking.

I’m glad I let this one sit a few weeks before trying it again. I’m not a huge fan of the overwhelming scents when I first open my freshly arrived Nina’s teas. Maybe this means there is also hope for The des Anges.

My Nina’s order and LB arrived today, woot!

I was really excited about this one, but after Three Friends it’s just not what I was really looking for. That’s not to say it isn’t a good tea, but I was really hoping the orange and cream would be more noticeable. The black tea base is fine and all, but the orange and cream are extremely subtle. There is a slight chocolate aspect here too.

Sunday sipdown #3!

I admit that I kind of botched the steep on this, since I originally didn’t boil enough water and had to immediately add some more to the kettle. But I just wasn’t feeling this tea – the green tea became astringent, the caramel didn’t really come forward, and I didn’t taste the rice that much.

I think that if I want a caramel/popped-grains tea, I’ll stick with Movie Night from Davids. And if I want a caramel black tea, Je T’aime from Nina’s was far nicer. So sad, considering the raves this tea gets elsewhere.

I’ve heard so much about this tea that I really had high expectations. However, this brewed up really weak, and I’m not getting the interplay of caramel, rice, and vanilla that others are experiencing. Because it was a green/black blend, I lowered the steeping temperature to avoid the green becoming astringent. But even after 3 minutes of steeping, it wasn’t very strong.

I’m going to pack up half of what I have left remaining to give to Jude. I don’t know what it is, but I can never get Nina’s teas to turn out just right. Really frustrating! Reserving a rating for now.

Another sipdown!

I finished off the last of this sample from Laurent, and it smells so heavenly that I think I really need some vanilla/caramel/toffee black tea in my cupboard.

I didn’t have it with sweeetener, though. I’m sure it would have tasted better with it, as the vanilla and caramel really came in through the scent rather than the taste.

Backlog from this morning.

I don’t have a lot of caramel teas, but it is one flavour I’m considering expanding in my cupboard. However, I’m not sure if this is the right caramel tea for me. It smells divine when brewed, but the taste is not as strong as I expected it to be. Luckily, it wasn’t very astringent. I have maybe about 2 tsp of this left. Into the sipdown pile it goes.

After my pot of jasmine Bi Luo Chun this morning, I was all green-tea’d out. Which is a really unusual thing for me! Flavoured black tea to the rescue.

I love the smells and flavour combinations of Nina’s teas, but I’m having a really hard time finding the right steeping parameters. I think this one was pretty close, but I either underleafed it or understeeped it a bit, as it tastes a bit weak. I think I am getting closer, though, and this smells lovely – all that caramel.

I had three teas set out as sip down candidates today. I accomplished his one. It’s very nice, I enjoyed it a lot.

However, due to receiving five new teas today, my number is going up instead of down.

It’s a game isn’t it, collect ALL THE TEAS and then try to drink them all down.

I received this as a sample from Laurent at Nina’s. Thank you! From the smell of it, I thought that it was going to be like so many other vanilla/caramel black teas. But, it tastes distinctive. There is almost a burnt sugar flavor to it, like creme brûlée. I am enjoying it quite a lot. This is filling that spot in the day where I still want something strong, but flavored/dessert-y is ok as well.

400th tasting note and I drank this hours ago but I never wrote down how I felt about the tea because I was skyping with one of my friends ahhh!

But I saved #400 just for this, because VariaTEA loves this tea so much!
From what I remember, this was darn good tea :)
I could taste each of the teas separately, and each tea brought out each flavour. I read the ingredients and was quite surprised that this blend had several distinct flavours, but dang it was good :)

Hopefully next time I have this tea, I’ll actually jot down what I actually felt about this tea instead of leaving to write it nearly 4 hours later! But definitely a great tea for tasting note #400 :)

Easter Weekend Sipdown 6/8!

Many thanks to Laurent for including this as a sample with my Nina’s order. This came in a plastic sealed packet with a single teabag inside, which is just perfect for my sipdown purposes.

When I first opened the bag, the strongest smell was of the grapefruit – phew! A minute or so later, it softened so that I could smell the orange as well.

However, when brewed, the base seemed the strongest taste, with the citrus fruits becoming noticeable only at the end of the sip or in the aftertaste. I still haven’t quite figured out the magical steeping parameters for Nina’s Paris teas yet, but I hope I will soon.

I was wrong. I got in one more sip down today.