Alexandra David-Néel

Out of the four teas from Mariage Frères gifted to me this was one of two chosen because the giver “thought the name was cool.” I am absolutely speechless before her rationale. What makes “Alexandra David-Néel” sound more appealing than teas with names like “Eros,” “Mandalay,” or “Pleine Lune”? I will never know. I’m happy to try a new tea and learn about an interesting historical figure, either way!

In summer the aroma reminded me of winter spices and mandarins but now that it is damp and wet the impression changes to dry desert and floral fruits. This tea does transport me places I’d rather be.

When I first opened my tin and caught a whiff of the aroma I thought “new chai! I need to add milk.” So, without even take a sip, I went straight for the milk and was dismayed at my spicy and fruity milk creation. This tea is actually tasty without the milk; the fruity, mellow, floral notes do not need it or do well with it anyways.

The flavours are complex. The first spices to hit me are the cloves and ginger. After I had my wisdom teeth removed I received a “clove” cleaner so it’s usually the first spice I detect. I will never forget you, cloves.

The ginger is a nice balance of sweetness and zing and leads me to noticing the next jumpy spice, cinnamon, which blends so well with the others I can barely single it out. The cardamom is spicy sweet and I think it may contribute to the last surprising bit of floral sweetness- reminiscent of something potentially citrusy and creamy. While this last note adds another dimension to the tea it tones the spice affect down a notch, and that’s ok.

Aftertaste is peppery and sweet. There’s a pleasant tang from the spices and a black leaf astringent streak but no bitterness that I can pick up! Floral endnote and cinnamon are more pronounced in second steep.

Your sleepiest guy reporting for duty.

The color of this tea is so deep, dark, and rich that, paired with the warm spices and a touch of astringency, it exudes red wine and makes pinning down the flavors just a little more difficult. All of that and the fact that I am, in fact, bad at it, but I also find it interesting how divided the reviews on this tea are when it comes to the profile. What we can all agree on seems to be that it is very dark.

The fruitiness is most pronounced in the aroma of the dry leaves and has me dancing between strawberry and apple, but clove infused with the sweetness of cinnamon emerges as the prevailing flavor of the steep. That will have to satisfy us, as the exact ingredients appear to be a guarded secret and picking through the leaves isn’t the most forthcoming occupation to this end. The weather is a little warm still to fully appreciate this one but I am sure it will have its time.

First – my little envelope icon always says I have messages even when I don’t. It has been this way for over a year. I have literally gone through every single page of old messages at least twice to see if a reply posted way back and I missed it, but there is nothing new. Does anyone else have this issue?

Now, the tea! This was a surprise envelope from White Antlers! Thank you, thank you!

I made a cup one night and a big pot for breakfast yesterday to share with Ashman. (By the way, only his friends call him that. I usually call him sweetie. And that’s what he usually calls me. I would wonder what I had done if he called me by my name, probably! Ha ha!)

I am not a big chai drinker and would have made this as a latte except I saw a review that said it didn’t make a good latte. Drinking it, I could see why. This is actually pretty mild and smooth when drinking it by the cup. The spices are interesting and it doesn’t give me the stomach burn. I think milk and sugar would have detracted on this one.

When Ashman and I drank I had made a HUGE pot. Drinking cup after cup, the spices build until you start getting a little heat on the roof of your mouth. I thought it was clove at first, but now I think it was black pepper. I didn’t think he would like it, but he said that while it is not in his top ten, he didn’t mind it and would drink it again, but would not seek it out.

We googled Alexandra David-Néel and he read it as we drank the last of the tea. What a fascinating woman and a fascinating life! I had never heard of her until I received this tea, and we both really enjoy learning something new, so that was awesome!

I have to agree with Ashman. I liked it, especially when I had just a single cup and the spices stay tame. I normally dislike pepper in tea but this one wasn’t bad! It just isn’t one I would drink such copious amounts of at a time.

Thank you, White Antlers! For the tea and the history lesson!

In the tin, the dry tea smells like gingerbread, down to a pastry-like quality. Yum.

The ginger is also prominent in the steeped tea’s aroma, as is the cinnamon and clove. Cardamom? It’s there, though for me, it’s around the edges. I was sort of hoping there’d be a citrus element. I wanted to see what a French blend with the Constant Comment flavor profile would be like. But no citrus that I can ascertain. The liquor is dark brown, almost coffee colored though it’s translucent rather than opaque.

Which reminds me, I dislike the fact Mariage Freres doesn’t list its blend ingredients. I am not sure why they don’t list them, but I thought it was an FDA requirement? I know they’re French, but I’d think if you’re selling into the US market, you’re still required to abide by those requirements. I don’t specialize in that sort of law, though, so I could be wrong.

If the reason they don’t list them is a sort of trade-secrety worry that others will copy their blends, I think that’s a little misguided. Knowing the ingredients doesn’t mean I can blend something myself that will taste like something I can buy. That takes skill that I simply don’t have. Even master blenders blending the same flavor profile have variations — none of them are exactly the same unless they’re the same tea with different branding.

Anyway /rant over.

This is a nice spice tea. It’s smooth, which is a relief. Some spice teas can be harsh. It’s pretty evenly blended so that no one flavor takes over. I don’t taste much pepper, which is surprising given that it’s listed first in the parenthetical of “including but not limited to” flavors. But it could be that my spoons didn’t pick up much this time. It does have a spicy aftertaste that gives a little burn to the tongue and that could be informed by the pepper. But that could also be the ginger. The pepper is strongest in the aftertaste.

I can understand why CrowKettle thought chai — there’s definitely an overlap in the flavors. But there’s something undefined about this that makes me not think chai, but more a mulled cider without the apple (thinking about what it might be like to put some apple in this?), a wintery, holiday-like flavor profile.

I find it amusing that I seem to want to add fruit to this — orange or apple — as though it’s missing something. But I really don’t think that. It’s very well blended and stands on its own.

Not sure where to rate it because it is a fine example of this flavor profile but I tend to drink this flavor profile sparingly. And I honestly don’t remember which teas in my tea notes are the most direct comparisons to this one (and am not feeling the need to research that point). So I feel a bit as though I’m stabbing in the dark with the rating.