Nina's Paris

Thank you so much to Nina’s Paris for sending another envelope of samples! This one seems to have a different base than the Nina’s Paris teas I’ve tried before. It is intriguing but less strong than the other blends. This black tea base better showcases the flavors anyway. And I like the flavor! There is supposed to be a few fruits here, but what I taste is mainly peach and it’s a nice peach. (I’ve had some terrible flavored peach teas before and I think I’m remembering them in every tasting note for a peach tea. Not nice!) But this one is nice. I think I’ve equally liked all of the Nina’s teas I’ve tried so far!

So this tea is ok, but not as mind-blowingly awesome as other Nina’s Paris teas that I have enjoyed. I’m just not so keen on the grapefruit in this. I imagine it would be quite nice if it was iced though. It just screams summer to me! (220)

Another sample from Nina’s Paris! Thank you for letting me try your teas out. I’m looking forward to your online store. :D

This was a pleasant evening cup. The citrus really brightened up, and I am enjoying the lingering aftertaste too. It seems as though this tea is a little weak for my tastes, but I’m certain that if I’d steeped it for 3 minutes instead of 2, that would have been better.

I’m remember this for my pretty-much eventual Nina’s Paris order. ;)

I second Stephanie’s tasting note on this. If you like rooibos this would definitely be tasty. But seeing as I am not fond of rooibos at all, its just not my cup of tea. The smell was very fruity but I got nothing but rooibos from the taste. This is sadly, my last tea from my swap with Stephanie …Thank you for this swap and I hope to be swapping with you again :D. Enjoy your teas!

Thank you for the free sample!

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I heard they were giving away free rooibos samples, but this is amazing. It’s so fruity and creamy – I could tell immediately what flavour it was without reading the description.

I only used half of the sample to make this cup – I’ll have to ice the other half as I suspect it would be even better chilled!

Would I stock this? Yes

It’s been a while, Steepster. I had one of those colds that never goes away and drinking tea had been mostly useless. But I am back now. I think. Unless that evil evil cold comes back.

I think this may be my favorite of the Nina’s Tea samples I have tried. Chocolate orange is one of my favorite combinations and this one was very good. I have had one other chocolate orange blend before (Three Friends from Butiki) and I am still trying to figure out which one I liked more.

The orange flavor of this tea was very nice. It was not at all artificial and worked well with the chocolate. It smelled and tasted like orange zest…and that’s really the only part of the orange that I like. The chocolate really didn’t show up until the end of the sip. It was a nice cocoa flavor. I really didn’t get very much cream flavor at all but I really didn’t miss it. The base was also pretty tasty. It had a nice kick of astringency that cut the sweetness nicely.

I tried not to compare Hepburn to Three Friends and failed. I preferred the orange flavor of this one and the chocolate in Three Friends. I also think the marshmallow showed up more in Three Friends than the cream did here. I do think I preferred the base of Three Friends more. It was smoother and had a chocolaty taste on its own.

Thanks to Laurent for the sample.

I waited to make this sample until I had a friend for tea. She does a few reviews on here, and I thought it would be good to get more opinions on these samples.

This is really fruity smelling! I do taste the rooibos but I think I taste it even when other people don’t. I have only had red rooibos but I find it very distinctive. My friend absolutely loved the aroma of the dry mix!

We tried it hot and it was quite nice – smooth and fruity with a nice strawberry flavor that stood up to the rooibos flavor well. The grapefruit is lingering on the back of the sip and I think that is my favorite thing about this tea. That lasting fruitiness is great on a horribly hot and sticky day like today.

As I did last time, I saved the last eight ounces to chill and sweeten so I could try it iced. I think that rooibos lovers would be very pleased with this blend for an iced summer treat. In my clear glass, it looks like regular iced tea in both clarity and color and I think someone could fool me that it is a flavored black tea if I thought the rooibos was cherry flavor. I think this is my favorite of the Nina’s rooibos blends I have tried so far.

Thank you, Laurent and Sophie and Nina’s Tea! I quite enjoyed this sample!

This is a very smooth, up-quality morning tea with more sharps in its flavor scale than flats. Nice coppery color and taste. Kicks you awake with stylish pointy-toed girl shoes instead of ten-pound army boots.

If you haven’t had a chance to try any of the offerings from the nice folks at Nina’s, you need to. All winners so far!

What a lovely tea ! I am a sucker for apple teas and for peach, apricot and vanilla teas so…i picked this one

I especially adore apricots but actually I refuse to buy any…I am living in Paris it just means we don’t have apricots around and I cannot buy directly to the producer…We are producing a lot of Apricot in the south of France but if I want to buy 1 kg (2.2 pounds) I have to pay 7 € ! 3 years ago during the season apricots were around 3 € which was correct. And I won’t speak about cherries (9 € a kg !) I hope in your respective countries you can buy seasonal fruits without contracting a credit :) !

The tea…of course I love this one.
I brewed it at 100°c and left it for 6 minutes.
Again same tea base as with the other Nina’s Paris flavoured blacks I tried until now.
The aromas are incredible and I got first peach and vanilla then apricot, apple is really behind.
This is my favourite of the Nina’s samples I tried until now.So delicate, so smooth and YUMMY.
Thank you Laurent and Mélanie from Nina’s Paris for the sample.

Thank you for this free sample (among others) from Sophie and Laurent at Nina’s Paris USA.

Taurus is my zodiac sign so this must be the tea for me then. Even though rooibos is not my favorite, I have found that overall I don’t mind Nina’s Paris’ rooibos blends. They tend to be quite smooth and don’t have too much of a medicinal taste like some rooibos teas have.

The smell of the dry tea is very tart strawberry. The brewed tea smells more sweet, ripe strawberry with a slightly creamy scent. The brewed tea tasted like strawberries and cream! Just like it is supposed to. The strawberry does have a tartness to it, that I found became a bit astringent towards the end of the cup (and after it had cooled quite a bit). The creamy taste blends well with the strawberry. Initially I thought it tasted like strawberry, then a bit later it was kind of like cherry, but then back to strawberry again after a bit more cooling. You can taste the rooibos tea in the background, but it is not too strong, and I think it does a good job of making the tea smooth.

Unlike others I found the scent of this one to be only mildly to moderately smoky perhaps this is the result of transit or maybe I have had some very Smoky teas of this variety before. There is hint of pine, and a slightly sweet scent.

I brewed this one gongfu style.

50s orangey brown maple colour broth with a
scent of smoke, grain, and plum with a hint of honey.

As I said before this is not as strongly smokey as some lapsang souchongs I’ve had. The tea has a slightly heavier bodied tea underneath it. It is warming, with a hint of warm bread and honey followed by sweet ripe plum dipped in honey with a hint of cocoa. The after taste consists of a cooling sensation in the back of the mouth accompanied by a developing honey sweetness at the front, as well as a heavier hint of malt mixed with a mild smoked honey flavour. A lingering peppery sensation develops later on and mixes with the taste of honey. The tea still leaves me with a general feeling of warmth.

60s more bready/grainy less sweet on first sip but still sweet in the aftertaste.

There is a fruity honey aftertaste with a mild smoke and peppery cooling sensation.

70s slightly thinner, nice mix of sweet honey, bread and smoke, tastes like artisinal multigtain bread cooked in a wood oven.

90s smooth balance between smoke grain and sweetness, less sweet, smoke a little more dominant over other flavours. Honey still comes out in aftertaste.

110s smoke, grain, faint sourness honey.
130s honeyed water with hint of smoke and bread

250s same as last steep

Altogether quite a nice tea and a nice choice for those who like there Lapsang Souchongs to be sweet and honeyed. Thanks Laurent and Sophie for the Sample!

This was the last of my loose-leaf samples that I had to log. And just as I was brewing this cup, the mail arrived with new samples, ha! I don’t think I will ever be caught up. But I look forward to trying the new samples when I get home from the beach on Friday.

I saved this sample for last because I was pretty excited about it. I don’t love rooibos, but all of the other teas that I’ve tried from Nina’s have been so well balanced that I figured this one would be worth a try. The dry leaves smell of fresh strawberries with a hint of rooibos. The tea in my cup has a rooibos and jammy strawberry aroma. The flavor is bursting with fresh strawberries and cream. There is really only a little rooibos noticeable in the aftertaste. This is really a great tea and I am loving this fresh strawberry flavor. Perfect for summer, and I bet it would be wonderful iced! Thank you, Sophie and Laurent from Nina’s Paris for this sample!

-Dry blend has red rooibos with pieces of dried strawberries.
-Dry leaves smell like fresh strawberries with a hint of rooibos. Tea liquor aroma is of rooibos and jammy strawberry.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium reddish orange color.
-Fresh strawberry flavor and finish. Light berry and cream aftertaste with a hint of rooibos.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Very good tea. Fresh and juicy strawberry flavor with a heavy cream note. Only a small rooibos flavor noticeable in the aftertaste.

It is my second sample kindly sent by Laurent and Mélanie from Nina’s.

I am an Earl Grey lover, I have at least 8 Earl Grey or Earl Grey variations teas in my cupboard. So I was really happy to have another one to discover.

I didn’t respect the brewing advices of Nina’s because for the first sample I found the tea base light for my palate so I decided to steep 5 minutes.
And I think I have been right.

The bergamot is subtle and delicate and it was really light on the dry leaf scent.It smelled subtle but delicious.

The liquor is beautiful, an amber coulour, translucent, very lovely but I was a little worried because generally when I can see clearly the bottom of my mug it often means the tea base is light and often too light.

This Earl Grey has a very nicely balanced citrusy bergamot, this is really well done.Flavour is really a perfection :natural, not over- perfumy,it’s just as if a very fresh bergamot had been squeezed and added to the tea.

I suspect the keemun used as base is the same as the one used in Thé de Vendôme. I can taste it better here vs the previous sample but it is still a little too light for my taste. I would have prefered a medium-bodied tea but this is really a question with my own tastes.

This Earl Grey is really refreshing and perfectly blended. I would consider it as a Summer Earl Grey.
I imagine it can make a very nice iced-tea as well.

mmm this is a sipdown as well, though i never logged it in my cupboard since i knew i’d be drinking it today. Another sample sent my way by Laurent of Nina’s tea. I really am looking forward to placing an order with them when they have their website up and running…though if that takes much longer i may just get it through amazon.

I don’t drink a lot of smokey teas but i have found a few that i enjoy a lot and then there are others i’ll use mostly for cooking with. This is a blend that i would do both with. It’s a very smooth smokey tea that has a fantastic smell to it! I added a bit of maple syrup to this and man it is one fantastic cup of tea with the added sweetner. If you like smokey teas, this is well worth trying!

I’m tired of this tea. So it’s going in to my swap box.

It’s not that it’s a bad tea, but i never find myself wanting to drink it, and it’s got too much of that woodsy sort of rooibos taste to it that i don’t like. If this had just a little more strawberry flavour it would be perfect. Without it though, it’s not for me.

I added a teaspoon of David’s tea vanilla rooibos to this one since i know that the rooibos in this one isn’t my favourite. With the added vanilla, this is a lovely strawberry vanilla tea. :) Without it, it’s a little woodsy for my taste, though still a pleasant cup!

I had a cup of this in celebration of Nina’s awards at the tea competition. They now have an online store, even if shipping is still a little wonky heh their customer service is great as always though :) and i’m happy to say, more japon is on it’s way to me now! wooo hoo!

i think i’m too hot. started to write this note and now i’m not feeling well so into the cold shower i go. long story short, pulled this one out since i need to start working on Jan-march teas lol if i’m going to keep up with my goals. while theres a little more rooibos taste here than i want, it still a tasty treat

(240 ‘cause apparently i did toss this one in my cupboard) Another sample from Laurent and one of the ones i’ve been most looking forward too. I love me a good strawberry cream tea (thank you nicole for the additional walter bishop you sent!!!!!!!!!!)

this tea smells divine! holy strawberries batman!this…this is reaaaaallly good. It’s not at all like walter bishop or the other strawberry rooibos blends i’ve had. it’s different. and equally delicious. it’s like a juicy strawberry burst open in my mouth. slightly artificial but not in the strawberry starburst kind of way…just a more like strawberry flavour than fresh strawberries picked from the garden.

this one is really good….i can see this being tasty cold brewed AND with sweetner/milk in it. really nice!

Second steep, longer, 4 minutes, less water, 95°c and not boiling and the base comes better out.
It’s still light for my personal taste but it may be the purpose of this tea to be especially light (light on tannins too)and refreshing.
I need to continue exploring my samples of Nina’s tea to have a better panorama on their creations.

Anyway : smooth and mellow tea (awww Keemuns I love you), light bodied with wonderfuls natural aromas of orange and grapefruit (most on the grapefruit side to my opinion) : definitively a pleasant tea for an evening in summer.

Thank you so much Laurent and Mélanie for having sent me some samples from Nina’s Paris.

Thé de Vendôme is my first sample : I have chosen it randomly among the other samples…;) … Do you know how I choice randomly ? I pick one randomly and randomly say…oh no, not this one tonight…and then another always randomly…until I randomly choice this one. This is my typical touch for hazard …
So I went for this one because it has grapefruit in the ingredient list and it is mentioned to be a keemun and I love keemuns.
Grapefruit seems to be a difficult fruit to respect in a tea.I had very few and was curious.

The sample is a delicate and beautiful tea bag made of a luxious muslin.
I like to sniff the dry leaf so you should imagine me sniffing the leaf through the muslin…definitively the less sexiest ceremony for a tea BUT that’s the way I am.
The dry leaf so was absolutely divine, for sure it is orange and grapefruit and a natural scent.

I strictly respected the timing advices of Nina’s : 2 minutes (even if I found it really short) and used boiling water as no temperature recommendation is provided.

I retain my note at the moment because even if I can say the aromas are just fantastic and incredibly refined, sophisticated and so natural, the tea base is really weak, present but weak.

I will retry soon with a longer steep (4 minutes at least) to see if the base is coming out better for my taste.

I walked into the den a little bit ago and the scent of pine smoke caught me before I entered the room. So I gladly used yesterday’s leaf to have this one again. 2nd cup a day later is just as deeply flavorful as the first. Our elegant Nina has a wild side. Who knew? Love it.

I’ll be posting a full review on my blog in the next week but I can’t wait to talk about this one. It totally surprised me. Here is a snippet:

This cup is perhaps the heaviest smoked Lapsang Souchong I have tasted but it is not ashes. This is fully developed sweet pine smoke. It actually tastes like pine to me. It is sweet without the bacon or pork BBQ notes. While it is heavy it has layers of taste as you sip.

Count me a fan!

How did they do it? How do you get this much flavor from such tiny tiny pieces of leaf? This starts lightly sweet, then passes through green and leafy, on through fruity and wine, down into toasty before ending in a nice touch of bite. It is very smooth – even the bite at the end is not harsh. Just a very nice cup.