This is another super generous sample I received from Sil! Thank you so much!
I’m even more excited about this blend because of how much I fell in love with Noël à Venise from Dammann…that has had me craving a vanilla lemon tea. This one doesn’t have a black base, but it’s French and smells heavenly, so I am happy to use it as a substitute in the meantime. (BTW, Sil, I totally sent that shopping link to my boyfriends’ parents so I’m thinking that I will be getting some Christmas tea thanks to you! You really are my Steepster Santa!)
I don’t actually get much scent from the dry leaf, though I think it’s because it’s so delicate that a lot of the fruitier teas it was shipped with have overtaken it. None of that has carried over to the steeped tea, though, which I am drinking sans additives and after steeping at the below parameters.
Whereas Noël à Venise was more lemony, this tea stresses the vanilla first and foremost. That’s a good thing here, as the white tea is very light and needs some heaviness if it’s going to boast of being a winter tea. The vanilla manifests as a heavy sweet cream note with a slight lemon tang on the swallow. This is not a cold dark blizzard kind of tea. It is the liquid equivalent of waking up to a sunny cold morning and seeing the ground blanketed with snow.
I am not a white tea drinker normally but it does work here. This is my first Fauchon tea and I am impressed. Too bad my bank account isn’t going to be with all those foreign transaction fees in my future, haha.
I don’t like white teas most of the time but this one is pretty good. Glad you’re having fun with them :)