Noël à Pékin

I’m currently reading Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan and I came across a tea competition scene that caused me so much tea anxiety. Here’s a snippet from it.

“As I waited for the water to boil, I glanced around again – only now realizing those who chose pu’er all used clay teapots, some tossing out the first steep. Struck by sudden doubt, I discarded my first choice, deciding to stick with what I knew best – my mother’s favourite Longjing, the Dragon-Well tea….

I poured the tea into a porcelain cup, a murky brown soup. My gut twisted as I lifted the lid to inspect the dregs. Careless. I cursed myself. In my haste, I had placed the Longjing into the same pot as the pu’er."

I died a little inside while reading that, and then realized I was drinking this tea – a blend of black and green jasmine. Ugh (I like this tea).

I don’t normally think much of black green tea blends. That said, this blend is the bomb: true passion fruit followed by jasmine, all underpinned by a solid base. The green tea somehow lightens the black and fruit flavours without thinning them.

This was my first time trying a passionfruit tea (well technically Miss Dammann was) Passionfruit seems like a tricky flavor to translate into a tea but I was super impressed with this one.
This tea is SO good. The passionfruit in this one is what I was missing from “Miss Dammann”. I don’t have a lot of experience with passionfruit but I really like the Ellenos yogurt that has a passionfruit curd and some seeds. (been a while since I’ve had it so on the grocery list it goes!) So I would say it’s a pretty spot-on passionfruit flavor. The jasmine and the passion fruit are balanced nicely with each other. As my tea cooled I noticed that the jasmine started to take the spotlight. So the main flavor notes of this one do change once it cools.
I definitely need to buy a bag of this to enjoy at some point, so it goes on the wishlist.
Thank You Derk for sending this sample my way!

Dammann Frères Advent Day 7 (8-February 2021)

This one is really good! I’m mostly getting passionfruit here with a hint of mango and almost a grapefruit flavour? I’m finding it super enjoyable and actually happy that the bergamot doesn’t seem to be coming through.

Advent 7.

Gosh, Dammann Frères.

The aroma is tropical and oriental at the same time. Very fruity with pineapple, passion fruit and mango. It’s weird because my brain can pick out those 3 scents but it’s also screaming GRAPE! at me. I know Roswell Strange has mentioned jasmine tasting like grape on her palate. Here, though, I smell the jasmine distinctly and lightly, as if on a breeze, separate from the grape. I’m also tasting tangerine. The bergamot as well, lower, and when combined with the jasmine… well I don’t know what’s happening to me right now. Thick, crisp base of black and green teas. I’ve never had blended leaf. It carries the tastes briefly across my palate and up to my sinuses where it continues to stimulate my happy receptors. Flavored teas are usually so underwhelming to me. Leave it to the perfumed French to play games with my heart. It’s romantic, enchanting, exotic.

I think about a person wearing a shawl, standing inside a dark-wooded room, a bowl of bergamots on the long table behind. A window open, ambient temperature, the angle of the setting sun says May. Trails of jasmine unruly about the window, a breeze tickles the weighty curtains, the shawl, the strands of hair framing forlorn face. The breeze allows a rippling peek into another world… Then bam it’s like waaaaake-up mfer!! It’s time to feast on some tropical fruits!! The set falls away and suddenly it’s the Atlantic tropics surrounding and everybody’s bursting into song and dance. But you, know, that’s just my brain trying to make sense of things here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkDt1w8w2SI

<3

Advent day 7! Wow, this tea smells incredible. Really strong passion fruit notes in the dry leaf. Brewed, the jasmine is much more prevalent. The passion fruit is much more mild flavor-wise, with mild citrus and jasmine at the forefront. I really loved this cup, it’s actually one of my favorites so far in the DF advent.

This smelled amazing out of the package. Really, really good.

I was a bit worried about (1) the black/green combination and (2) the jasmine but I am actually really liking this one, especially when paired with my super intense gingerbread chocolate (like throat-burning ginger intense).

This tea provides a nice fruity compliment while still holding its own against the strong chocolate pairing. I do get some jasmine but the dominant note is more mango/passionfruit. People talk about this tea having citrus/blood orange and I really don’t get that as much as tropical fruits.

I don’t know if this is something I would go to a site to specifically buy, but I would add a bit to the cart if I needed to reach free shipping. It is quite nice.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

To those that don’t celebrate it, I hope you had a wonderful day regardless. I spent the day with my brother, parents, grandparents and boyfriend. We ate lots of good food, watched some Christmas TV, drank a healthy amount of alcoholic beverages, and generally had a really lovely day. I didn’t drink much tea, in fact this is all I drank all day, and I didn’t manage to get my cupboard to 350 as I got more tea for Christmas from my parents, which maybe I should have seen coming. I drank this mainly for the name, but it turned out to be a nice stomach settler after eating far too much Christmas dinner. I didn’t get really any of the fruit flavours, just a hint of something a bit juicy at the end of the sip. It was mainly just a jasmine tea, but that’s alright with me. I was too busy with everything else to pay that much attention.

Thank you Anna for including this in the EU TTB many moons ago. Sipdown 146/397.

Advent calendar – day 11
Such a delicious tea! I forgot to look this one up so I brewed it a bit higher than I would have if I had realized it was a black/green blend, but it was very forgiving and turned out just fine. I will try at a lower temperature next time just to be sure but thankfully, it is fabulous as is.

This one is so bright it seems. The jasmine tea is really lovely with the passion fruit and pineapple. I also get some mango but that might be the combination of the first 3 that makes it feel exotic and sunny. Very tropical. It’s a wonderful pause amongst all the dessert teas I love so much in the winter. It would be a great tea to drink in the middle of the cherry blossom season, or in the summer, or basically anytime!

I love Lupicia’s fruity oolongs like the peach momo oolong supergrade and the mango one, but this is different. It’s more flowery than those, more blended and layered. Just delicious! Definitely on my “must buy” list.

Day 11 of the Dammann Freres Tea Advent Calendar

Dang it, more green tea and bergamot.

Oh well. I don’t hate it. I finished the cup. The little packet said black tea, not black and jasmine green tea, so I brewed this with boiling water. I thought it was fine that way. I do get a bit of something fruity. Maybe citrus. Hard to know with my stupid nose (I’m feeling a bit grumpy about not being able to smell. I shouldn’t. It’s nothing new. But for some reason I am crabby about it) As the tea cooled I got a little something at the end of the sip that might have been pineapple.

So I wouldn’t order this one but I liked it enough to drink the whole cup.