Joyeux Noël

Yum! This tea tastes JUST like roasted chestnuts. There is a light bitter nuttiness that is followed by a rich, creamy sweetness…

This is so good! A great tea for those of us who aren’t very good at roasting our own chestnuts!

Oho. Ohoho. OhohohoHO. YES.

As noted in my last tasting note about this tea, I’d decided i was going to try it with a little milk the next time I brewed myself a cup.

I didn’t end up using milk.

What I did use, instead, was a little cream. Normal heavy cream, nothing special…of which I had only a tiny amount left due to having mixed up a batch of cream scones for breakfast this morning.

Oho. OHOHOHOHO.

That little bit of cream + the 1/2 teaspoon of sugar + this tea steeped for 3 minutes? MAGIC. This has now shot to the top of my list of the most perfect winter drinks EVER. The chestnut flavour is now exceedingly smooth, warm, invigorating, and comforting. It’s like the softest baby alpaca scarf for your throat. You just want to keep petting it and petting it, and it’s so light and delicious and yet so warm and satisfying.

In conclusion, my hat’s truly off to whomever it was on Lupicia’s site who expounded upon the virtues of this particular tea when taken with milk. IMHO, it’s now indispensable…much like my preferred method with Earl Grey. Positively delightful, and if this is a harbinger of how 2010 is going to shake out, I am ALL FOR IT. Roll on 2010 and Joyeux Noël! I’m only sorry I don’t have a lot more of the latter!

Nope. Sorry. I tried, but this is just not for me. I will reserve rating it, as it is so intensly not my thing.
Oh well.

When i opened my tin and smelled this tea for the first time i didnt think it smelled very good at all. but oh my is it tasty. I only brewed mine for a very short amount of time because it went very dark surprisingly quickly. I even re-used the leaves, which i never usually do with black tea and it was still amazing.

I cant really explain the tastes of this tea. It really has an amazing aftertaste though.

next time i might brew it abit stronger and try it with a little milk…

It is an interesting tea because of the chestnut flavour. Too bitter on its own even if I brew for 2.5 mins. With some sugar, it is sweet and slightly bitter. Great aroma.

This black tea is all about chestnuts. I’d say it’s a single note black tea, but the chestnut changes from nutty and mellow to a sharp (but not unpleasant) astringent aftertaste. If you do not like rich nutty flavours in your cuppa, this would be a hard pass. However, if you’re a chestnut fan, you have hit the jackpot. I cannot recall another tea with such a strong and distinct chestnut note. Make of that what you will.

Though it’s perfectly satisfactory and certainly as advertised, I’d have preferred another note to counterbalance the tea- perhaps a cacao or rum. This one is rather one-dimensional but the quality of the tea and flavouring make it a pleasant sip.

Interesting note: most Americans are not familiar with the taste of chestnut, as a deadly fungus from foreign timber started killing US chestnut trees in 1904 and eliminated virtually every native chestnut tree by 1950. As a result, is not at all common to see chestnuts in the US, though you can buy roasted ones in NYC as a sort of nostalgic treat.

Went down a rabbit hole this morning and was on Teatiff blog by skysamurai and saw that Hillside tea (a mn tea sto4e) sources there tea in part from tealet. I have not been to wholesale websites often before but this one waa great because it listed all the tea farms the distribute for and have short videos from them. It is very interesting all yhe different presentation styles for the farm. If you are familiar with the Kyoto Obubu tea farms in Wazuka, Japan and I would reccommend checking their video out. It’s unexpectedly funny. :)

Preparation: Western
Tasting note: Definitely brisk and malty and rich. I think the black tea has some natural fruity notes as I don’t see any fruit ingredients or flavors in the tea. I do get the nutty chestnut taste and coating-slightly drying mouthfeel. There is also a faint bit of creaminess. Overall really good. I have about a cup or so left from my sample to figure out if i would restock this one. Thanks, Cameron for the swap!!

This blend is another from my swap with Cameron. While I have loved everything else I’ve tried from Lupicia it’s not for me. I typically like nutty and roasty flavors but this blend reminded me of burnt cookies and while that may be someone else’s thing it’s not necessarily mine.

Oh, dear. I was hoping for something along the lines of my beloved Chaud Les Marrons, but this is not it. Hard to believe this is from Lupicia – I’ve never had a bad tea from them…until now. I was worried from the get-go since the dry leaf had a strong tangy smell, acrid, very unpleasant. Once steeped, this odd scent mellowed quite a bit, which was a little bit of relief. First I tried it with nothing added: burnt sugar. Like, not nice, but when you bake something sweet for too long or at too high a heat and it turns bitter. I added milk to even things out and it did help, but I was not getting ANY chestnut flavor. Maybe I overleafed, or it needs less time for the steep. I’ll try again with less leaf and a shorter steep time. But dang! this is not going to be easy to get through. I miss my Chaud Les Marrons.

Sipdown! (3 | 455)

Aww, a somewhat sad sipdown.

This is a delightful caramelized roasted chestnut black tea. There’s a creamy nuttiness paired with toasty notes and deep dark caramelized sugar. Such lovely depth of flavor, like in a high-quality praliné chocolate. The somewhat strong base makes a good foundation for the rich flavors, without being too bitter as long as the steep is kept fairly short.

As good as it is plain, this tea is just tremendous with milk, or as a milk tea. Such wonderful chestnut flavor! I’ll definitely be picking up some more of this one if it appears on the US website this holiday season. Not holding my breath, though…