Mousson sur Hanoï

sipdown on this one because i’m going to give the last little bit of this over to a friend who will appreciate it more. I was a bit of a bonehead and didn’t register this morning that it was a green tea oopsy so i brewed it in too hot a water. Therefore, also not going to rate it but what i tasted behind the crap job i did with this seemed to be pretty tasty. I do enjoy lychee as a tea flavour from time to time heh thanks dinosara!

I think I enjoy this tea primarily because of the novelty of the Vietnamese green tea. I mean, the flavors are pretty nice too, but nothing that really captivates me. There is lychee, there is banana flower (so, like banana but not quite), and there is a pleasant green tea base. I should probably try cold steeping this one because it would probably come across really well. For a flavored green tea it is quite tasty, and that is saying something for me because flavored greens and I are not really that friendly anymore. But I do enjoy this one and it’s somewhat unusual flavor profiles.

The base tea here looked really interesting – I didn’t recognize the leaf; apparently, it’s Vietnamese green tea.

In the bag, I get bamboo and rose more than anything – in fact, I find this very rosey throughout, even in the cup. This is a bit of a mystery, seeing as there is no trace of rose in the ingredient list. It might just be one of those taste overlaps – I’m pretty sure what I’m smelling and tasting is DF’s lychee. Thing is, both Butiki and Lupicia make beautiful lychee teas that I love, and that’s the taste profile I want – not this perfume-like, floral variety.

In no way is it a bad tea, but like many of DF’s other products, this seems so staged and contrived. It’s a colonial dream! Indochine! The Hanoi monsoons! If marketing must be based on this kind of historicized, romanticized dreamscape nonsense, can’t it at least be a less tainted fantasy?

I enjoy the base tea, but it’s more sensitive than DF’s usual sencha – there’s the slightest hint of bitterness in spite of the fact that I stayed well within the steeping parameters.

Overall, a nice tea, and thoroughly Dammann Frères-esque.

[From my epic Instant-Thé order to Rome, October 2013.]

I’d say “I’m back!” but really I’ve been here all this time, and forcing myself not to buy extra teas while I use up what’s already in my cupboard… Alas! I went to Aachen for a day and immediately found its tea shops, where I bought some cute-sounding fruit and rooibos teas, then some friends moved away and left me their Dutch-branded flavoured teas, and then I brought some more from home when moving back to this flat… Safe to say, the collection is growing, but I’m in denial about how quickly I can use it all up!

This tea really grabbed my attention when I bought it in the summer because of the ingredients list. Tea from Vietnam? I’d never tried that, and the ingredients are things I’d never seen added in a tea (other than the lychee). This is the second brew I’m having, because the first time I misjudged amount (due to the large, twisted leaves), water temperature (because they’re quite dark in colour, almost blacker than your regular green tea if you’re not looking closely enough – mea culpa. . .), and time to brew (I was doing something else). All the steps you need to ruin a perfectly good first cup.

First thing I notice after its deep marigold-orange colour is its incredibly mellow scent, which the flavour follows through on. So many lychee-scented teas are intensely flavoured to the point of being over-floral where the tea base becomes an annoyance… or perhaps I’ve had so many lychee-and-rose cocktails that I’ve forgotten what the original flavour is like! Nonetheless the lychee in this tea is the least aggressive lychee flavour I’ve ever come across.

However there’s another floral element here, light and more of a bouquet than a syrupy-sweet flavour… I think this must be the banana blossoms and bamboo flowers. None of these hang pungently in the mouth, either; more of a brief, delicate taste that washes away quite quickly with the follow-through of the tea base which I have to say is really pleasant! Slightly roasted like sencha without the boldness, but a nice savoury aftertaste to follow the gentle hit of astringency at the end of a sip.

Since the website says it has a taste of “nature after the rain”… Well, I’d give it that it has barely any dryness at all. Overall I’m really enjoying it; such a lightly-flavoured tea is new to me!

Sipdown! 288/365!

Unfortunately, I don’t recall much about this tea except that it was somewhat floral and fairly palatable? Pretty bad description, I know. Apologies to Sil, from whom I obtained this sample!

I really like this tea. I’m having a bit of trouble describing it, though, because it’s quite unlike any other tea I have (and I have plenty). The taste is really lovely, and I kind of keep sniffing at it. It really does smell very similar to a rose tea, but somehow not quite as floral, not quite as sweet. I think it’s the combination of Vietnamese tea and lychee.

Now, I have no idea what Vietnamese tea is supposed to taste like, because this is the only one I’ve tried, but I do get the feeling that it gives quite a bit of character to the blend. It really doesn’t taste like anything else I can think of and it’s not just the banana flower. On that note, I have no idea what banana flower is supposed to taste like, and I don’t really taste anything bananaish but I definitely taste more than just lychee.

There is a ‘dryness’ to the flavour that reminds me of one of those grapefruit & spices blends, like The des Deux Chinois or The des Riads, but it’s not quite that. Not surprisingly, since there is no citrus and no spice in this one. But it’s a very pleasant dryness in my opinion, and one I definitely feel in the mood for at times and then I go straight for this tea. Other times I go straight for this tea just because it’s so cool and unusual.

Try it, it’s an experience.