Paul & Virginie

since i’m trying to drink up some of my older teas (feb 2013!), i thought a cup of this one was in order. This tea has for sure grown on me as i’ve had it. Now it’s a delicious blend of fruit and caramel and i really do like drinking it. The only downside is that life is stupidly busy today heh

Sipdown!! (164)

Thank you OMGsrsly for sharing this with me!! It will be missed now that it is gone but I don’t think I loved it enough to pay the shipping to get more. However, if I saw this in a store or someone were to offer me a cup of this vanilla, caramel, berry goodness, I would definitely not turn it down.

I’ve been under the weather, but well enough to still crave cookies! I wasn’t up to baking, so I purchased some of those little schoolboy biscuits.

http://www.lubiscuitsna.com/

Mmmm! I thought this tea would be perfect for them, because it’s so delicious with chocolate. Berries and caramel and good tea, perfectly blended. I feel like I had the most wonderful, transporting treat. I could be sitting in a little tea house in Europe in a dress and pearls, and not sick on my sofa in my pajamas!

I think it would be a good idea to stick a few of these packages of biscuits in my cupboard for surprise guests. They would feel welcome and treated well at a minute’s notice!

Oh! Before I forget – my latest flickr set

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackiemania/sets/72157624294962481/

has a bunch of things I’ve been talking about lately like my trip to get shortbread and PG tips, my tea themed cloth napkins, the tea cup cloth that my swap partner on Ravelry made for me, the print of Thomas Sampson that Doulton so kindly sent me (and Doulton – there is a picture of my cat Marty in there!!) etc etc etc if you would like to take a look :)

Another generous sample from Sil gives me an excuse to hang out and get tea drunk.

The dry leaf smells like candy. Almost like strawberry cotton candy, but juicier. I swear!

It’s a little on the astringent side, but I’m sure milk would tone that down, although I want to try this out without any additives. The strawberry is coming through as the strongest note here. That candy note is probably from the caramel, but it doesn’t scream caramel.

Thanks for the experience, Sil! My first DF tea. Aww.

Sipdown, 134. It’s always a sad day when a Dammann tea gets sipped down.

I overleafed this but it still turned out amazing, as I have often found with Dammann. They are hard to mess up! This one is lovely with it’s red fruits and caramel. An eventual reorder, perhaps!

Thanks Sil, for completely overloading my cupboard with flavoured tea goodness.

Just. OMG. There are a LOT of teas here laying on my desk.

I grabbed this one first as it reminded me of eating caramels as a kid. I’m sick, I need the comfort.

The tea, as far as I can tell, delivers on its promise. I’m going to add some sugar to it to help me taste it better, but so far, so good!

I am having this cold and it’s yummy.
If I had to tell you about this with few words (and I am gonna) : IRISH CREAM.
There I said it. Now I’ll go home and continue the NEVER ending project.

When Cteresa and I were planning our small swap, she suggested that I try some of this one. I had never heard about it before so I went and looked it up.

Then I made this face: O.O

And then I’m afraid I resorted to pitiful begging to pretty please with a cherry on top have a sample. Or something like that. Okay, maybe not quite that much, but I definitely wanted to try it.

I mean, caramel, vanilla and red berries? That’s like, three of my favourite things to flavour tea with! It reminds me rather of the St Petersburg blend from Kusmi, only without the bergamot. And you know what, I can totally live without bergamot. Easy. And I’m actually quite fond of St P. So what I’m expecting here is something similar but better. St P got 86 points from me on Steepster. Let’s see if we can’t beat that.

Oh my word, the aroma of this one! It smells like cherries and creamy-sweet vanilla and sugar-y sweet caramel. It’s quite heavy on the caramel too. This is liquid sweets in a cup. The berries here are cherry, strawberry and raspberry, but I can only really find the cherry in the aroma. That herry flavoured number from Fru P that I’ve got is really coming in handy here, because the cherry aroma in that one is exactly the same as in this one. Perhaps there’s a wee bit of strawberry underneath, but I can’t really be certain.

Okay, so the aroma is definitely leaving St P behind in a cloud of smoke. So far so good.

The first sip gives me juicy fruit a-plenty. It reminds me at first of a 4 Red Fruits blend, but extra sweet. Although this is only three red fruits. But who’s counting.

The vanilla and caramel are both quite subtle at this point, but the vanilla comes out more as I sip and lends a creamy note. I’m now reminded more of some kind of red berry ice cream dessert. All we need now is the caramel, but I expect it’ll show up if the cup is allowed to cool off a wee bit more. This seems to often be the nature of caramel flavoured teas. They need to be allowed to develop a little more before the flavour really comes out to play. (And no, as I’ve mentioned before, your various tricks of adding sweeteners of various sort do not work for me. It makes nothing “pop” for me. Adding stuff just breaks the tea for me.)

It’s true for this as well. A little patience before sipping further and the caramel is there in the aftertaste.

Oh yeah, this is better than St P all right! I must shop at DF som time.

In case anyone out there doesn’t know already, Sil and Terri are the best. I just got the BBB box in the mail and it is filled to the brim with not only an amazing amount of awesome teas, Terri put in her Christmas CD so I can actually hear the Harp Lady in action! Sil, in typical Sil mode, put in an insane amount of tea. Her generosity is seriously enormous. Loving my tea ladies today!

To the tea!!! So I’m not a fruity tea gal, but lately my tastes have been changing. Not sure why. Maybe it was spending so much time in the dark roasty corners of laoshan and fujian teas that the pendulum has now swung the opposite way. I’m actually really enjoying this! Not gonna lie, I put a tiny dash of whipped cream on it and it’s super good. Like a berries & cream dessert. Thanks Sil!

I’m nearing the end of my Dammann Freres teas from Doulton – I truly appreciate that you put these together for me. They all have been nothing short of divine! Thank you!

I really like this tea. It is a perfect balance of flavors – the tea and the fruit and the sweet all come together so well. The black tea tastes slightly earthy and has a nice astrigency and just a hint of bitterness – but it’s a good bitterness! The fruit is sweet and juicy, but it is a bit lighter than most fruit flavored black teas that I’ve encountered… it’s more like a touch of the fruit. The caramel and vanilla are seamless and there is a nice, burnt sugar note to the caramel that is not too sweet because of that bitter note I mentioned.

It’s really so very good!