80
drank Mandalay by Mariage Frères
362 tasting notes

Spring, after taking its own sweet long time to arrive, decided to pretend to leave after all. It´s cold and windy, very disappointing. But it´s making me turn to my tea corner and drink and sampling those samples I was saving, as a treat and a way to cheer up.

Mandalay was another sample so kindly sent by Ysaurella. I had been so intrigued by her references to it. And this is just not what I was expecting. I was expecting a chai, and while this is spicy, it´s a totally different type of tea.

I had today just tried a perfume (mother´s day is coming. everybody wants you to try perfume, you can not walk on the street past perfume shops without being offered a sniff). It was a woody spicy ladies´ perfume, with a cedar base and flowers, patchouli maybe. And in my mind this tea is irresistibly linked to that perfume – a sort of “dry” floral with woody overtones. In the perfume it was cedar, here it is the spices, cinnamon (which I guess is woody as well) and others (cloves? cardamom?) and then a bit of rose indeed, but the mix of roses and cinnamon tastes melded somehow into something woody rather than separate. A very interesting taste.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C
Ysaurella

it seems you liked it so I’m happy :)
yes you’re right this is a woody taste and it comes from cinnamon.I didn’t have the impression to describe a chaï in my note, did I ? I am not very good at chaï as I didn’t had many so I may have described it without knowing :)
I really love this tea because this is an absolute incredible meeting of spices and rose…and I’m a sucker for rose teas and spices teas !

cteresa

I think there is something from the cinnamon plus rose which calls to mind at once woodsy perfume to me – even that cedar based perfume I tried myself.

I think it was not at all your fault I expected a chai, I think it must have been from overbrowsing the MF site or something. Tea with spices =/= chai or not always! Chai can be so abrangent, but this, to my mind, most definetely is not.But woodsy indeed…

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Ysaurella

it seems you liked it so I’m happy :)
yes you’re right this is a woody taste and it comes from cinnamon.I didn’t have the impression to describe a chaï in my note, did I ? I am not very good at chaï as I didn’t had many so I may have described it without knowing :)
I really love this tea because this is an absolute incredible meeting of spices and rose…and I’m a sucker for rose teas and spices teas !

cteresa

I think there is something from the cinnamon plus rose which calls to mind at once woodsy perfume to me – even that cedar based perfume I tried myself.

I think it was not at all your fault I expected a chai, I think it must have been from overbrowsing the MF site or something. Tea with spices =/= chai or not always! Chai can be so abrangent, but this, to my mind, most definetely is not.But woodsy indeed…

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Inconstant tea drinker – I mostly drink tea when not too hot. I hang around steepster much more frequently in (northern hemisphere) cold season. Experimenting with cold steeping, for summer.

- Teas -

I like all sorts of tea, flavoured and unflavoured, though I am picky.

I am one of those people who actually loves Lapsang Souchong. I am not crazy about Earl Grey, in general. I don´t quite get Darjeeling teas, but I am exploring.

I like rooibos, though not all bases. I loathe hibiscus. I do not like fennel/liquorice/anise in blends or teas with chicory. I am picky about what I consider true cinnamon.

As you can probably tell from my cupboard, the brands I find more interesting right now are Mariage Fréres and Thé-o-Dor.

I am always willing to try anything new. I am now particularly interested in single origins.

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Portugal

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