Thé Vert Marco Polo

I’m up early, which is always absolutely horrible for me, so I decided I deserved a cup of this. It’s such a very good tea. So much flavour – this is what I love about Mariage Frères’ greens – they’re present throughout the entire sip. None of that Dammann nonsense where you have to sit and inhale in a staccato-like manner at the end of each sip to possibly get an inkling of an aftertaste.

No – this tea is right there, all along, just like a good friend.

I can’t get over the intensely fruity scent of the dry leaf. It just screams FRUIT (red berries, specifically). Fruits which are bordering on overripeness.

It’s kind of daunting in its fruity aggressiveness!

I just love the scent once brewed, though. It’s delicious, like a warm strawberry compote topped with cream and dusted with powdered sugar. There is a mild fresh floral and green stem component too. Like a bouquet of dewy, long-stemmed roses.

And the flavor is just as beautiful. The green tea taste reminds me of Sauvignon Blanc— brisk and grassy, clean and fresh. All overlaid with this hazy perfume of sweet berries and flowers. I can’t help but think of springtime.

So, I have almost completed the round robin of all the Marco Polos – and I am determined to finish! As I said on the Thé Blanc of the same name, the Marco Polo Flavour is simply beautiful.
I was in fact drinking this yesterday, I suddenly rediscovered all my Mariage Frères teas that had been hiding in their beautiful Boites du Thé!
It may seem unncessary to have a green and a white version of this tea, but honestly, it tastes so different, and the brewing is so different.
How would I brew?
Well, 2 desert spoonfuls of leaves in a 6 cup pot, simply because I like to re-steep, and if you don’t have enough of the flowers in there the later brews taste like straight green tea otherwise.
Brew this one, easily for close to 3mins, this makes sure the flowers have come out into the tea properly.
And I ‘d say 85 degrees, so not as cool as the white tea, but not boiling either because I prefer a calmer slower brew with slightly less hot water – and I found the re-brews benefitted from this too.
What about taste?
It’s fresh, light, cool and sort of like drinking a forest – that sort of dewey taste you get when you breathe in your garden early in the morning!
And the successive re-brews are just beautiful too, definitely worth 3 (I might have done 4 last night actually!). And I always notice how lovely a colour this is when it brews in the pot, no murkiness to be found her, just a lush grass green.
Anything else?
Absolutely worth it, comes in a “Boites du Thé” for 100g, which is the most efficient way to purchase this if you want a tin, because it costs less than buying the tea and a boites separately, and the Mariage tea boites are excellent quality, with beautiful images and a proper label instead of my illegible writing!

I prefer this to the Marco Polo black tea.

My housemate brought home a 30-muslin sachet box of this from her employer’s tea drawer. Best before 12/2012; it’s 01/2020.

It’s clearly a victim of neglect. Very light red fruit-cream aroma and taste. No discernible green tea flavor. Very drying.

Going to drop the box in the work tea cupboard. Somebody else might appreciate it or throw it out secretly.

Sipdown no. 60 of 2018 (no. 416 total).

Still not in love, unfortunately — but then I’m not in love with most flavored greens. I do like them for a change of pace, and I could love a really excellent jasmine for sure. This one is something I’d drink again if offered. And I could see a scenario in which I’d order it again for the aforesaid change of pace.

But it’s not a must-buy for me.

A powerful fragrance fills the air the moment you open the tin, and it gets even more potent once the hot water comes into contact with the leaves. Makes for a very strong first brew—my second steep tasted significantly better once the fragrance learned to “behave” properly and reassess its relationship with the green tea base, which is quite good.

Do not do any more than three re-steeps (I did four at first, experimentally). The scent turns naughty after being re-steeped that many times and becomes reminiscent of fragrant Crayola markers drawing all over wet clay.

I would recommend that you “rinse” the leaves in brewing-temp water for maybe 5-10 seconds to tame the fragrance before brewing. It will mellow out your first cup and allow the scent to dance artfully on your palate instead of trampling all over it.

Overall a very, very good scented tea. Enjoyable—will definitely wow guests as the blend is truly out of this world in terms of uniqueness. Though without rinsing the leaves it might be, for some guests, like a trip down a department store fragrance section located smack dab in the middle of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

If Mariage Freres found a way to tame the fragrance during processing and blending, and bring out the green tea base as more than just a supporting actor in this production, I will consider breaching the 90 mark.

Supplementary first-impression review here:
https://jonguzman.com/blog/2017/1/10/th-vert-marco-polo-455

Cata con MGW.

I agree with many of the reviews that this tea is a bit too “fruit forward.” This said, I’m a college professor who cannot get through 75 minute lectures without a cup of tea in my hand and this one is often just exactly what I need to get me through my 8:00 am classes. Anything less subtle might not be enough – and even though it is a little too fruity, it is, after all from Mariage Freres.

I don’t know what kind of crack flavoring is in this. It smells very strong but when brewed tastes very strawberry shortcakey to me. I almost exclusively use this to make butter tea (tea blended with coconut oil or butter, some sweetener and salt) making it taste more biscuity and delicious. Also I’ve had this tea forever—many years in fact, and I don’t think the flavor has decreased (which kind of scares me).