Nina's Paris

This is a good tea, but the balance is critical. I think I steeped it just a hair too long this morning, but its still enjoyable.
Its an interesting combo, the green apple and the rose. I like it.
The storm yesterday has gone as quicky as it came, and now its going to be very warm all day.
Well, onwards.

The weather is not fair. Its going to be 93 degrees today. This is absurd. So, so absurd. Its May! It shoud not be nearly so warm.
I am not good in very hot weather. Its just so uncomfortable, I dont sleep well, and my usual delight in a cup of tea is tempered by the discomfort of drinking it.
Nope. Go away hot weather. I am not ready for you.
I thought a “lighter” tea, with its green apple note, would be the best thing for this morning. And it is working pretty well. But I do wish it was cooler, so I could be cozy with my cuppa, instead of being rather miserable.

I had a dream about going to work and working with difficult clients. Not cool, subconcious. I want to do awesome things while I’m dreaming, like flying, or going on adventures, or, as happened the night before, setting up a moon colony (we were trying to figure out how to get gardeners and chocolate makers to come up and set up shop). I dont wanna work in my sleep!
Oh well, on to the tea.
I really like that this is a green apple tea, and not a red apple tea. I like green apple the best. Light steeping is key.
I like it, but I dont love it. Still, I’m not about to dump it out anywhere.

Its an interesting balance, this tea. Its a delicate dance between the apple and the rose, and a light steep is really whats needed for the most harmonious blending.
A light tea, and it acted as my morning writers fuel. Sip sip.

What an interesting combination in this tea. Rose and apple. Huh.
A light steep is key here. Its mildly and pleasantly perfumy with a two to three minute steep, but it gets to be a little much if you go much longer than that. Good to know.
Its a very refreshing cup. I think this will probably be very good in the summertime, when refreshing is the watch word.

All the tasting notes of this say that its a delicate tea, so I’ve been somewhat nevously avoiding it, because I do not have the gentlest steeping hand.
Hmm. The apple taste is a somewhat more sour apple taste, which I actually like. I’m a fan of crisp apples.
The rose is the factor thats a little puzzling to me. Its a nice rose, but at least in this steeping, I’m not seeing an immediet relation between the two flavors.
Further experimentation is needed!

I’m so glad I bought this tea on Sunday! It’s decadent, sweet, and roasty. It makes me feel warm and cosy all over! My co-worker, who I am sharing it with, feels the same way. It’s our moment of calm in a very busy week of switching over to a new scheduling/billing system at the hospital where we work.

I have to say that I’m really liking the teas I’ve had from Nina’s. They are probably some of the best blends I’ve had that come from a company that markets themselves as traditional tea blenders. Not only is each tea great on its own, but each tea is very different from the other blends. For example, Kusmi and Le Palais Des Thes are both companies that market themselves as traditional “fancy” tea blenders. The teas from each company all seem to taste the same to me. The bases are of all the kusmi teas seem similar and the flavors don’t seem very different. Palais des Thes has this kind of awful flowery green base for most of their teas. Nina’s blends are different from one another.

The description here mentions a ceylon base but on my sachet it is written keemun…I wonder so what is the tea base used here.

This is definitively a tea for passion fruit lovers, the aromas are so present.
My daughter tasted it and said it taste like Oasis (Frenchies around know what I am talking about, for others this is a soft drink made of water and fruits – the most famous is made of passion fruits aromas)
For me, no Oasis (I HATE this beverage and I was even hating it when I was a kid)
This flavour is natural here.
For my daughter tasting like oasis is a compliment, it means it’s fruity. This tea really is, so I can agree with her on this point.

As each time with Nina’s I am impressed by the quality of the flavouring, how delicate and how refined it is. This brand never let us down regarding quality.
It’s an Overwhelming passion fruit flavour but the we still can taste the tea base.

This is a very lovely tea but not for me as I am not a passion fruit lover. I cannot complain a passion fruit tea tastes passion fruit , my note here reflects the quality of the tea.

Thanks to Laurent and Mélanie from Nina’s for the sample.

The dry tea smells like delicious, sweet, strawberries. Somewhat artificial but more in a candy-like sense.

The brewed tea smells like sweet strawberry jam. There is almost a bit of a spice or peppery smell, like what I associate with the green strawberry leaves.

The tea tastes like creamy strawberry jam. It is sweet enough on its own without adding anything, but not too sweet. There is a creamy and thick feeling to the liquor. The creaminess is due to the vanilla but the vanilla taste is not too strong. I would say the black tea is of medium boldness. But it is smooth, it does not overshadow the strawberry but blends very well with it.

Not too flavourful immediately after brewing, but better after it starts to cool a bit.

Edit: This is super creamy strawberry after it has cooled to room temp. I think better than when it was hot. Looking forward to trying cold brewed/iced.

I steeped this for a long while without watching the clock… maybe a bit over 10 minutes? Anyway it came out wonderfully juicy with a dead-on natural strawberry flavor. Many thanks to Laurent and Sophie at Nina’s Paris for the sample, and I get to call this a sipdown!

Thank you to Sophie and Laurent from Nina’s Paris for the sample!

This is a nice, juicy strawberry tea. Tart and sweet. Somehow I’m still not picking up on the creaminess though. Maybe I brewed it wrong? I used 1 rounded tsp for 8 oz, boiling water, for 5 minutes. I have enough left for another cup so I can play around with it again.

Interesting. This definitely tastes like a nice fresh strawberry. There seems to be a whiff of hibiscus in this too, which I’m not enjoying as much. I’m also not getting the cream aspect. I do like this as a strawberry tea, but I wish I was getting more creaminess out of it. I still have some leaf left – suggestions are welcome!

Thanks to Laurent at Nina’s Paris for the sample.

I can’t stop drinking this one. I have almost finished off the whole pouch in a week.

Made this as a cold brew today. Brewed for about 9 hours. I would have liked to have left it longer but I forgot to put it in the fridge last night. Ah well…tea woes.

I would say this is akin to drinking a cold glass of water with a lemon slice in it. Except it is what I would imagine a cold glass of water with a passionfruit slice in it would taste like. Very light flavour but also very refreshing. I think there would have been more flavour if I would have let it sit longer. But right now it is hitting the spot!

I have been drinking this one lots through yesterday and today.

OK so I have to write a new tasting note as my other one is not going to make much sense anymore. Well really I think the other note is accurate but maybe just not the right wording.

So I contacted Laurent from Nina’s Paris and there were mistakes on Steepster and on my package of tea I had at home. The real ingredients are black tea, corn flowers, sunflowers and passionfruit flavour. It is now corrected on steepster.

Yesterday I thought there was a sweet citrus, grapefruit and orange flavour without the tartness. This citrus taste is still there but now I recognize it as passionfruit. I can still taste the flower petals. They dampen the fruity taste a bit. And also add a bit of pastry type flavour. I still find the black tea base to be mild.

So I am not changing much, rating is still the same, just using the right words this time…passionfruit instead of grapefruit :P

I have way to many open teas in my house. I have been trying to drink the open ones before I open the new ones. But I need variety. So I decided to give this one a try, it sounds (and smells) delicious.

The dry and brewed tea smell like sweet candied citrus. Like sweet grapefruit. The tea also tastes delicious. There is citrus tastes of both grapefruit and orange. It is sweet and not tart or sour. The marigold really blends well with the citrus and also dampens it a bit so it is not tart or overly sweet, and it tastes very smooth. I can taste the smooth black tea base but it is not overpowering. It is not very strong so seems like a good afternoon blend, but I am sure it would be good any time of the day.

Very good blend. But I think all Nina’s Paris blends are great. I haven’t had a bad one yet. Someone made a comment in a post or in a tasting not talking about how good teas from Paris are. I agree.

Edit: So having this again today because it is sooooo good. I started thinking today, this is not so much grapefruit/orange. So I looked on the package and the package says Ma Passion with ingredients of apricot, peach and vanilla. Now I don’t think that is right because I am definitely not tasting that. So I looked it up on the Nina’s Paris site and it says it is flavoured to be passionfruit but I cant find any ingredients. It definitely tastes like passionfruit today. I wonder if that was the citrus I was tasting yesterday that I confused for sweet grapefruit. It could have been power of suggestion that I thought grapefruit as that is what the steepster description says. Whatever the ingredients, it is delicious.

Many thanks to Laurent at Nina’s Paris for the sample. I admit that I was a bit apprehensive about this tea – it’s a black tea (which makes my stomach hurt) AND a berry tea (which I rarely enjoy). Still, it’s Nina’s and I wanted the sipdown, so I decided to give it a shot.

I had the teabag version, which comes in a pyramid bag. Even before brewing, this tea smells utterly fantastic. Although it’s a blend of berry flavors, it doesn’t smell generic or artificial. The brewed tea is a nice deep red berry color. The taste is hard for me to describe… the berry flavors blend together very well, but are also distinctly identifiable. This is really quite wonderful. I can’t make out much about the underlying tea base. I’m not very good with black teas anyway, since I drink them so rarely. I can say that I’m not picking up any astringency and that there is just a slight touch of dryness.

This tea goes quite well with a berry-based dessert (in my case, a raspberry Milano cookie). I’m a little sad to say that this is a sipdown.

I’ve bee sitting on this sample for a little while because I wanted to be able to do it justice and finally my sense of taste is returning to normal after a summer of weird allergies and minor illnesses. ..

This nice reddish orange tea smells of bright strawberry ( a bit like cooked strawberry mixed with fresh ripe berries ), cream, and a touch of heaviness from the rooibos. However it does not smell woody or medicinal like rooibos sometimes can. It tastes of cream with strawberries mixed with compote and a hint of fresh banana which I think is a result of the rooibos. It’s Very good. The second steep tastes of vanilla scented cream with strawberries with a slight rooibos tang. The aftertaste is of fresh strawberries. I still prefer Gemini over this one, but this is very good.

My very last sample from Laurent of Nina’s paris.

This rooibos smells great and citrus like when dry, i also notice a few fairly large pieces of orange in the mix.

For my first cup i use boiling water and a 3min steep like usual and the color from this brew is like a dark copper ore. It smells great to. Taste wise i’m clearly making out the citrus. Its almost like a earl grey tea, but with rooibos and orange instead of black tea and bergamot. Actually thats all there is to say a good steady rooibos with a earl grey like twist. Note its not really earl grey but its very similar.

For me one off the best samples i received!

edit: apart from the orange flavors i did spot the quince, and its a nice little touch off difference. It makes it feel more warmer and richer in taste… never had quince in a tea before so had a hard time figuring it out, but it was a lot more prominent when cooler

Thank you to Lala and also to Laurent and Sophie for these samples. Unfortunately, this is just too smoky for me. This is certainly a good tea though. No rating because that just wouldn’t be fair to the tea.

This week, I have decided that I only going to drink samples! I still have so many samples, and there is more on the way, so I better start sipping them down!
Thankyou to Sophie and Laurent for this free sample!

This is a lovely refreshing citrusy tea. I find that this tea is mosstly just citrus rather than individual citrus fruits, but it is very good.

I have some chilling in the fridge to see how that tastes as well.

Going to try this caramel flavored rooibos from Laurent of Nina’s Tea this evening. Once again i’m happy that i get the chance to try these rooibos samples. Got one more to try after this one and thats Lion. But first things first this is poisson or in english Pisces…

On my first cup i’m doing a 3min brew like usual. The dry leaf are the same like the other rooibos samples but this has some square pieces of what i’m guessing is the caramel. Those pieces are rather big so i’m expecting a strong caramel flavor.

Once the tea is cooled enough i’m onto tasting it. The color looks wonderful and it smells a little bit like toffee candy’s. When drinking and tasting i can clearly make out the caramel and its a bit creamy. Less then i expected tough. This one is a bit weaker in taste then the other rooibos samples i had. But thats possibly a mistake on my end by filling my tea infuser a bit higher then usual… sample size was the same then all others but i was to hasty measuring out the amount off water.

I’m starting to like rooibos more and more thanks to these samples, only rooibos i had before that was a unflavored one.

going to give this no rating (if thats possible i’m trowing the rating bar down to zero) because of the mistake on my side.

Have to say i did enjoy this even tough its a bit weaker then usual!

Once again a sample from Laurent from nina’s tea thanks again!

Opening my small sample ziplock bag i’m greeted by a strong fruity smell, couldn’t place it instantly but seems that it is strawberry!

Straberry’s are one off my favorite fruits ever, i eat kilo’s every week in summertime. So i’m very exited to try a tea that has strawberry flavor!

The rooibos pieces are looking straw like and nicely chopped, not to small not to big. I’m taking the whole sample for brewing.

The color of the brew is the typical rooibos color and smells strongly to strawberry. The smell reminds me a bit off strawberry yogurt. In my first few sips i’m 100% sure this strawberry flavor is very good. Its creamy, not overwhelming in taste… This drink is different then most flavored tea’s. I’m not sure if i would drink it daily, but its nice for every now and then if u want something new!

I would like to thank Laurent and Sophie from Nina’s Paris for providing me with this sample. My full review can be found on my blog:

http://www.notstarvingyet.com/index/2013/9/10/tuesday-tea-taurus-ninas-paris.html

This tea is very smoothly flavored with just a hint of cream. The rooibos comes through strongly and it isn’t until the tea starts to cool that I can taste the strawberry. Even then, the strawberry remains more of a background note and I wish it were the star. I loved the sweet, yet tart flavor it gave the blend. Strawberry is a really hard flavor to nail, it always winds up tasting artificial to me, and I’m happy to say that this is a great example of a strawberry and cream tea.

I wish I had a larger sample to try, I can see this making an excellent iced tea when sweetened with a little simple syrup to bring out the strawberry flavor a little more.