Nina's Paris

Thank you Nina’s Paris for this free sample. I really enjoyed this tea. Dry it smelled delicious. I think it was the strawberry I was picking up. Brewed up, I could taste rooibos, strawberry & vanilla notes. I didn’t really pick up the grapefruit but maybe because it was brewed with boiling water. I wonder if the grapefruit would come through if it was brewed cold. There was only enough for one cup so I guess I won’t find out.

The dry tea scent reminds me of sweet tarts, tart and sugary with that tone that separates them from rockets. Brewed on the other hand this smells like my grapefruit puerh that I got from big-active ( a polish company). It has dry tangy scent from dried orange rind, something that’s a little bit earthy and gamey and a spicy sharp citrus tone underneath. The base tea smells fruity, with malt and biscuit. The fact that I can usually discern the base tea underneath the flavouring is one thing I’ve always appreciated about Nina’s teas.

After a three minute brew, there is a nice balance between the base and the flavouring and the tea is a deep orangey red.

I taste dried grapefruit rind over top a warmer sweeter fruitier tone that ranges towards the red grapefruit flavour mixed with a plum note from the base. A biscuit note from the base binds the fruit note to the malt lying underneath. Despite the citrus tones the tea remains smooth and mellow when steeped around 92°C, with only a mild astringent note. Altogether a pleasant tea that was warmer and richer than I was expecting. Thanks ’Laurent and Nina’s for the sample!

I received a sample of this from Nina’s. Thank you!

This is a light tea that has hints of citrus and floral. The description says pineapple, but I did not get any pineapple. This is seems to be a mood tea for me. The first cup I had didn’t work for me, but I am enjoying a breakfast of fruit this morning and it seems to go nicely with this. Thanks for allowing me to try this one.

Thanks to Nina’s for this awesome sample!

This little sample was pretty amazing. Caramel, vanilla, all blended well with a very nice base. This one will go on the wish list. I drank, err I mean gulped the last of this down today and will definitely miss it. Thank you!

Received this in a swap from Stephanie. Thanks!! :D

I’ve been wanting to try this one for a while. A very good coconut green tea. The dry leaf smells great, a nice balance between the flavors, a light aroma. The liquor is medium-bodied, flavorful, and a little creamy. Unfortunately, the pineapple is somewhat overwhelmed by the coconut.

Sipdown (164/170)!

Getting close to finishing off the backlog. Now I just have the teas from yesterday and today; and I didn’t do a whole ton of tea drinking yesterday anyway so that should be fast enough to catch up on. May have to log today’s teas tomorrow though; I’m pretty damn exhausted right now.

This is a long time ago sample sent from the delightful Rosehips that I sadly just recently got to. I made it up as a cold brew, and actually did set aside enough leaf for a hot cup but I ended up giving that portion of the leaf to Tyrell (the guy I’m dating) to give to Lucas. Lucas is one of his two friends who worked/works at DAVIDsTEA – in tasting notes he has been referred to as “Hot DT Guy” but given that I now know and am dating someone who knows him pretty personally I think we’re gonna transition to referring to him by his actual name. Also, he no longer works for DT so the previous moniker isn’t super accurate anyway.

But yeah; it’s sorta a longish story why I sent teas to Lucas/his girlfriend (who does work at DT) Gwyn – and I was gonna share it in my tasting notes for teas from today/my date when I picked out selective info to share with you all; but might as well share it here right? Sure. Yeah.

So while we were at my place, I somehow ended up getting in a fight with Lucas over our apparently drastically varying tea tastes though text message via Tyrell. Lucas was making some pretty wild claims and I sorta (ok, pretty much flat out) called him an idiot who didn’t know good tea. But in an endearing way? He pretty much said that he had never had a DAVIDsTEA blend he disliked; and I know he worked for the company but I call MAJOR BULLSHIT on that. Even his girlfriend, Gwyn, admitted to me today that she didn’t like the newest Chocolate Macaroon tea because it was too sweet. Like come on; don’t bullshit a tea drinker. It’s one thing to push things/promote DT blends to the inexperienced shoppers who come in the store and don’t know better – but I clearly know better.

But then, he said that he LOVES hibiscus; so I went on this spiel that result in me feeding my kinda sorta boyfriend straight hibiscus to prove to him his friend is an idiot (Tyrell thought it was nasty so point accomplished) and on top of that I put together a small sampler of really nice teas for Tyrell to bring to Lucas/Gwyn to show them fancy, super awesome quality shit. That included my hot cup’s worth of this, some Yunnan Sourching, Butiki, Mandala, Dammann Freres, and a few flavoured matchas from Red Leaf.

Take that Lucas!

But yeah; back to the point of this tea and my cold brew and what I thought of it. Honestly, in smell it reminded me a ton of Des Roses et Des Bonbons from Camellia Sinensis – but that’s obviously from the rose. I really wanted gentle rose water and apples from the taste; but let me tell you the rose in this was not subtle.

This was definitely too floral for my liking and I really, really wanted more apple – no, scratch that – any apple flavour from this but it just wasn’t happening.

So, maybe this was a bad one to pick to prove my point to Lucas (at the point I’m not even sure what that point was?) but regardless much thanks again to Rosehips for the kind sample. I was happy to get to try this even if I didn’t totally love it.

I almost wouldn’t have believed this was an oolong, it was so full bodied. It was like a lighter black tea, and looked like a black tea in the dry leaves actually. It was delicious, which did not surprise me in the least given my love for peach tea. I took a few sips when it was still hot, but I prefer it cool I think because it gets even peachier.

People: don’t give up on this till you try it iced.

It was just nice as a hot cup, with the berry flavor predominant and tasting natural, but it seemed a little flat overall.

For the 2nd steep I inadvertently let it cool and by that time it was in the 80’s outside so I decided to pop in some cubes and it was delicious. The flavors seemed to blend much better – though maybe this was due to its being a 2nd infusion – and it was smooooth and refreshing, tasted like happiness feels, if that makes sense. Kaylee caught the same wave on this one. Thanks for the sample, Christine!

Nina’s does fruit flavors well and properly! This one is so finely tuned it is difficult to tell where the apple stops and the apricot starts—-it’s just a soft, sweet compendium of flavors, with soft vanilla that makes its presence known, but doesn’t interfere. Just pretty close to perfect.

Saturday Sipdown #1!

In anticipation of my incoming RiverTea order (10 teas!) I plan to finish off 8 teas in my cupboard this weekend. Wish me luck!

I overleafed this a tad, I think, but it’s not too bad. Very jasminy, though the lotus flavour shifts from being sweet/creamy to a bit more floral/musky. I’m not sure if I’d consider restocking this, but it was interesting to try. Thanks for the sample, Laurent!

I finally got around to trying this, about 2 months after I received it.

I can taste the jasmine, but there’s also a sweeter, sort of creamy base underneath it which I assume is the lotus – it reminds me of some of the Butiki blends I’ve had where lotus stamens were an ingredient.

I’m not quite sure if I’d want to restock this after trying a sample, but it is distinctive.

From the Teeny Tiny TTB.

The dry leaf – medium brown, twisty – smells smokey. I didn’t read this tea’s description until after I finished my cup, so I thought I was tasting some lemon/lime flavoring as well as peach the whole time. Very nice flavoring – strong yet light. It lingers long in the mouth after each sip. I let the liquor cool towards the end. This one tastes good both as hot and cold.

Yum! Toasted rice and caramelly goodness.

Thanks so much for the sample, VariaTEA. :)

(Sipdown! But IDK how much tea I have because I haven’t finished adding what I bought on the weekend. Actually, I haven’t started. :) )

Thanks for the sample VariaTEA!

Whoops! This is a black-green blend, and I didn’t actually realize it. Good thing I like caffeine, right? Especially considering the amount of tea I’ve had over the last few hours. (I escaped work early.)

This is yummy! I love genmaicha, but generally don’t care for the green tea versions as they’re too green. The toastiness mixed with the different tea flavours and the caramel are just. Yum.

Would get again. (Although a green tea only version would be nice because it would be less caffeinated for evening. For some reason, toasted tea = comforting after dinner drink for me!)

Sipdown (178/184)!

Another Nina’s Paris sample from VariaTEA. I made it this morning in my giant Adeline poppy mug and that used up the whole sample. It was good timing really because I woke up with a killer headache and the mint was very soothing and nice and made me feel better. Like, I probably would have reached for this because of the mint even if it hadn’t been in my morning line up already.

Admittedly, I wasn’t really excited about this blend because it was a green one until I stupidly realized, weeks after getting it, that it was pretty much just a fancy Moroccan Mint. Ok, I can get behind that! I love MM.

And yeah, that’s pretty much what this one was: fancy Moroccan Mint. It was tasty and pleasant and soothing with a really smooth spearmint flavour, but not something I’d stock over other MM blends especially when it is so hard for me to get a hold of. The name is really cool though, I’ll give it that!

I received three samples from the friendly folks at Nina’s Paris, and Etoile du Nord was the one which was beckoning me most. Violets and rhubarb? How exotic! Plus the base tea is Keemun rather than the usual middling Congou suspect.

The sachet was generously stoked, and the leaves were large with beautiful cornflowers interspersed (I presume for appearance—not sure that they add any flavor). The liquor was amber and tasted good enough to drink au naturel. I could really tell the difference in quality of the base tea. My impression is that many scented black teas are heavily scented precisely in order to cover the mediocrity of the tea. In this case, both the flavors and the tea tasted good, so I drank Etoile du Nord without cream.

I cannot say that I would ever have guessed the identity of the rhubarb in this pleasantly fruity blend, but I would definitely consider buying a full tin in the future.

(Blazing New Review #20)

Another one from VariaTEA! Thanks! I love Nina’s Paris tea. :D (243)

So I don’t know enough about mangoes, but I’m totally getting apricot from this. Sweet apricot. I am really enjoying this. It’s also creamy too. Yum.

Sipdown (165/171)!

I think I need to go back to looking up teas before I just decide to steep them because I definitely did some weird stuff with the sample of this I got from VariaTEA.

Drinking it at work today I kept thinking to myself over and over “This is the weirdest Jasmine Black I’ve ever had!”. Umm, I just looked over the information now as I’m logging it: it’s not black tea! Yup, this is a Jasmin Green. Totally explains why it tasted so off, though!

So yeah, when I prepared this I definitely steeped it like I would have a black tea. Funnily enough, it wasn’t even the slightest bit bitter or astringent. Really, it was sweet! Floral, of course, and kinda juicy and sweet?

Yeah there’s no need to seek it out or anything, but it was a nice, memorable experience! Thanks VariaTEA for yet another Nina’s Paris sample!

EDIT: Oh hey, this was tasting note 1400!

This is a sample from Stephanie – thank you.
1tsp 8 oz. 205F 3min
Very dark rich tea. It has smoke but different fr Lapsang Souchong. Cup is pleasant, some pine notes coming thru. I divided cup in half. The other half had some tiny amount of Maple syrup (thank you Terri and Sil for suggestion of adding it to smoky teas). I prefer the sweetened cup, ms round out all the flavors. It’s pretty good. I can see myself drinking it from time to time. I didn’t have enough Keemun tea experience to rate this tea. On a scale of enjoyment it’s 8/10
Thank you Stephanie for this tea and learning curve. I got some Keemun samples fr Upton some time ago. Should start my journey.

This is a very old sample, I think from Fuzzy_Peachkin. Japon was getting a lot of attention on here pretty recently, so I (belatedly) dug my stash out of my sample box last weekend. The aroma of the dry leaf was very strong on the caramel, and, once steeped, so was the flavor. There was also quite a bit of sweetness. It was neither as roasty not as seaweedy as I would’ve liked—I do wonder if it might have worked better for me with a pure green base, but anyway. I can see why people are so enthused about this tea, but I think I’m just too much of a genmaicha purist (and not enough of a dessert tea connoisseur) to get into it. It is a very smooth and pleasant tea, though, and I can see how it would be a nice option for those who find straight genmaicha too intense or vegetal. I’m kind of relieved not to have been crazy about this one, to be honest, since my shopping list is ridiculously long as it is.

Definitely tastes like caramel, even in the aftertaste.
It doesn’t have the strongest smell, but then again, my sniffer isn’t always the sharpest due to allergies.
Not sure I’d buy this again, but I have enjoyed it as a free sample! (:

Drinking this iced today and it’s so yummy. I tend to love vanilla teas and caramel teas, so this is perfect for me – very smooth but rich. I had this hot during the winter, and enjoyed it, but I wasn’t sure how it would be iced but it’s great.

Nom, Nom… Yum. I got this as one of the free samples recently from Nina’s. It’s always so nice when tea companies are willing to send out samples to potential customers. It often makes me think they may be good at customer service which is always a bonus to us customers :)

This one being a mix of green and black teas I went with a lower temperature for the green tea on this one. It steeps up almost like a black tea, a nice light amber color w/a sweet strawberry fruity fragrance. The flavor is much like the fragrance, sweet strawberry yumminess with a touch of vanilla to pull it all together. The strawberry is very present, but not over done, just wonderful. I enjoy the mix of black and green teas with this blend… It makes so that neither the black nor green take center stage but let the other flavors play on the forefront.

I have some strawberry cream on it’s way from Zen, anxious to compare the two, although this will be hard to beat.

Apple and rose? Who knew? This unique combination is featured in Nina’s Paris Marie Antoinette. There must be some backstory here of which I am ignorant. Did Marie Antoinette love crisp apples? Was that her final meal request before having her head lopped off?

To be honest, I was not initially sure which fruit was implicated here. I often have a tough time discerning the precise identity of fruits in tea blends—in this case, I even guessed apricot at one point!

Marie Antoinette smelled fruity, but was also lightly redolent of rose. I began drinking the amber liquor au naturel, but as it cooled, I decided to throw in some cream and see how it tasted then.

The result is pretty nice—I definitely prefer the adulterated brew—but this is not something that I’ll make a concerted effort to stock. It’s fine, but I already have several fruity black teas, and I’m focusing more these days on unflavored teas. I’m also not that thrilled with the apple + rose combination.

That said, I do believe that this blend is a must-try for apple lovers!

(Blazing New Rating #2)