Marie-Antoinette

This sad sap is finally writing a tasting note on this despite having it numerous times already, and after so long too. Tsk tsk. The rose in this is intense! Did rose essential oil get into my tea? The base is astringent in mouthfeel but in regards to flavour, that astringency is mostly covered up by the rose. Apple notes are soft and meek. I wouldn’t buy it again but will enjoy the tea while it’s here. I confess that my mom wanted it for the fancy pink tin, so for that reason alone, it was worth the price.

I liked this one a lot more than I expected to. The light base, which I think might have been a Ceylon, was very pleasant, and the rose was at just the right level—not too strong, like it is in so many blends. There were undertones of apple, with a hint of sourness, to round things out. This is one I’ll consider stocking up on once my stash is under control (if that day ever comes).

This one is quite incredible.
I’m usually not a fan of flavored black tea, other than the classic Earl Gray, but this one changed my mind.
It tastes natural- not like the awful fake taste of so many American made flavored teas. It’s a perfect blend that will even satisfy an ardent, typically british style black tea drinker like me.
I tried this at a tea salon in Orange, CA and asked them to brew it stronger, since I typically like a bold English tea. They got it right, and it became the yummy caramel color with my milk, which means it’s brewed to an adequate strength for my taste.
I promptly got home and ordered this tea, I liked it so much. I do brew it stronger than it probably was designed for, which means I go through a tin pretty quickly. I’m just about to order my second tea! I can see this being a regular rotation in my cupboard, and when I’m having a hard afternoon this one brings me some cheer. I mean, how cool is it that you’re drinking fruit grown in the actual garden of Versailles? Instant travel in a cup. Yes, please.

Smells: Apples, sweet plums, pear, with a hint of a fruit orchard
Tastes: stronger taste of apples, a bit of pear with a finish of floral bitterness

I bought this from someone’s stash sale (VariaTEA I think?). I’ve been sitting on it for a while now. The first time I tried to make some, it came out inexplicably bitter, and I was sort of afraid to try it again. So I tried it today with the same parameters and it came out with only a tiny bit of bitterness. Go figure. Anyway, the leaves are rather small and dark, and there are rose petals mixed in with them. It smells very strong and perfumey, with a sweet fruit element. I added some sugar to help tone done that little bit of bitterness.

This tea isn’t bad, considering I’m not the biggest fan of rose. The rose is definitely the most present flavor here, unfortunately. There’s some apple there too, and it’s a kind of tart green apple flavor. And there’s a bit of black tea taste, but it’s overall very submissive and mellow in the background. I thought this would be more similar to Fauchon’s apple tea, but this is more of a rose tea with a bit of apple, while that one is all apple.

Not going to rate this since I don’t like rose, but I would definitely recommend it for people who do. Into the rehoming box it goes.

Not sure about this one. It smells fruity, but to me, the aroma is more peachy than apple! I suspect this would be an excellent cold brew; however, I just had enough for one cup. It had a hint of bitterness, but that was easily cut by a little sugar.

Sipdown (164/170)!

Getting close to finishing off the backlog. Now I just have the teas from yesterday and today; and I didn’t do a whole ton of tea drinking yesterday anyway so that should be fast enough to catch up on. May have to log today’s teas tomorrow though; I’m pretty damn exhausted right now.

This is a long time ago sample sent from the delightful Rosehips that I sadly just recently got to. I made it up as a cold brew, and actually did set aside enough leaf for a hot cup but I ended up giving that portion of the leaf to Tyrell (the guy I’m dating) to give to Lucas. Lucas is one of his two friends who worked/works at DAVIDsTEA – in tasting notes he has been referred to as “Hot DT Guy” but given that I now know and am dating someone who knows him pretty personally I think we’re gonna transition to referring to him by his actual name. Also, he no longer works for DT so the previous moniker isn’t super accurate anyway.

But yeah; it’s sorta a longish story why I sent teas to Lucas/his girlfriend (who does work at DT) Gwyn – and I was gonna share it in my tasting notes for teas from today/my date when I picked out selective info to share with you all; but might as well share it here right? Sure. Yeah.

So while we were at my place, I somehow ended up getting in a fight with Lucas over our apparently drastically varying tea tastes though text message via Tyrell. Lucas was making some pretty wild claims and I sorta (ok, pretty much flat out) called him an idiot who didn’t know good tea. But in an endearing way? He pretty much said that he had never had a DAVIDsTEA blend he disliked; and I know he worked for the company but I call MAJOR BULLSHIT on that. Even his girlfriend, Gwyn, admitted to me today that she didn’t like the newest Chocolate Macaroon tea because it was too sweet. Like come on; don’t bullshit a tea drinker. It’s one thing to push things/promote DT blends to the inexperienced shoppers who come in the store and don’t know better – but I clearly know better.

But then, he said that he LOVES hibiscus; so I went on this spiel that result in me feeding my kinda sorta boyfriend straight hibiscus to prove to him his friend is an idiot (Tyrell thought it was nasty so point accomplished) and on top of that I put together a small sampler of really nice teas for Tyrell to bring to Lucas/Gwyn to show them fancy, super awesome quality shit. That included my hot cup’s worth of this, some Yunnan Sourching, Butiki, Mandala, Dammann Freres, and a few flavoured matchas from Red Leaf.

Take that Lucas!

But yeah; back to the point of this tea and my cold brew and what I thought of it. Honestly, in smell it reminded me a ton of Des Roses et Des Bonbons from Camellia Sinensis – but that’s obviously from the rose. I really wanted gentle rose water and apples from the taste; but let me tell you the rose in this was not subtle.

This was definitely too floral for my liking and I really, really wanted more apple – no, scratch that – any apple flavour from this but it just wasn’t happening.

So, maybe this was a bad one to pick to prove my point to Lucas (at the point I’m not even sure what that point was?) but regardless much thanks again to Rosehips for the kind sample. I was happy to get to try this even if I didn’t totally love it.

Apple and rose? Who knew? This unique combination is featured in Nina’s Paris Marie Antoinette. There must be some backstory here of which I am ignorant. Did Marie Antoinette love crisp apples? Was that her final meal request before having her head lopped off?

To be honest, I was not initially sure which fruit was implicated here. I often have a tough time discerning the precise identity of fruits in tea blends—in this case, I even guessed apricot at one point!

Marie Antoinette smelled fruity, but was also lightly redolent of rose. I began drinking the amber liquor au naturel, but as it cooled, I decided to throw in some cream and see how it tasted then.

The result is pretty nice—I definitely prefer the adulterated brew—but this is not something that I’ll make a concerted effort to stock. It’s fine, but I already have several fruity black teas, and I’m focusing more these days on unflavored teas. I’m also not that thrilled with the apple + rose combination.

That said, I do believe that this blend is a must-try for apple lovers!

(Blazing New Rating #2)

I enjoyed this very much – I didn’t get a whole lot of rose flavor, but tasted predominately apple. It was somewhat astringent for my taste though – I prefer smoother flavors. That said, if I had more of this, I would see what magic cold steeping would bring, as I find teas that are too astringent for me hot are phenomenal cold.

You know what? I don’t eat enough apples. I’m too lazy to eat them, bite into them and munch them. I usually just settle for an easy banana (LOL) or grapes – they are so much more convenient. It’s kinda scary to admit that I have been usually passing up on apples because I feel there’s too much jaw work involved eating them.

All these fascinating reflections were initiated by the first sips of this tea. It’s an apple tea alright. It’s pretty good at being what it is, too. I like the ceylon base here, it is not shy, it is not weak, it is not hiding. It works perfectly with apple flavoring, which is just exquisite in its lack of artificial nastiness. All the apple notes I had in teas before were either practically non-existent or super fakey-fake. This one almost tastes like there’s a splash of cider in there. And it smells heavenly. I also detect some flower notes, from the rose petals I’m sure, although they are fainter.

Whenever I consider ordering from Nina’s Paris again, I will definitely re-order this one :) Thank you Laurent from Nina’s Paris for letting me try a sample of this tea :)