Thé des Muses

Sipdown!! (198)

Last night I realized there were a couple teas in my cupboard that should not have been there so I am no longer in the 200s (although that might change when I get home depending on whether my Della Terra order arrived).

Also, I maybe should not have made a cup of a new tea given I woke up with a cold and I am not entirely sure if my tasting is off or not. I know I cannot smell at all so hopefully that doesn’t throw off the taste. I find it funny that I wake up with a cold the day before I return to Montreal and the freezing cold but oh well.

Okay so I can’t taste anything :( I think I am picking up lemon but I really don’t know. I guess I wasted the sample of this tea. Damn.

Made this one as a cold brew. Brewed for about 12 hours. It tastes very similar to the hot brewed tea. The green tea base is very light, slightly buttery and nutty. There is a stronger citrous and strawberry flavours. There are undertones of a light rose flavour.

Smells heavily of citrus.
So mid sip I’m getting a metallic taste and I’m not sure why. The end is the lemon & grapefruit. I can detect the rose in it but the strawberry is completely lost.
It didn’t “wow” me, but it’s not bad. Anxious to try the other samples I got from Nina’s for comparison.

This tea is all citrus and roses which is just lovely. The first thing I taste is grapefruit, followed by a high, bright lemon note. The rose comes in right at the end of the sip, but it’s soft… delicate rather than like perfume. The strawberry is noticeable in the smell but not in the sip which was a tiny bit disappointing, but I also liked smelling berry while tasting citrus and rose. It all worked together to make a very, very nice tea.

Thank you Blodeuyn for for this tasty sample!

Morning cup thanks to the wonderful Lala! I got mostly strawberry from this with a hint of citrus, but no distinctive grapefruit or rose. It didn’t go bitter at all.

Someday I’ll get off my butt and make a Nina’s order… when my stash dwindles. Always saying that!

Yum, a grapefruit tea! I found this tea delicate in flavor but had plenty going on. Sips in strawberry (tops and all) with a hint of rose. The green tea base melds perfectly with the straberry flavor. The tea finishes with a tangy white grapefruit flavor. I wish I had more to try iced as I think it’ll be even better!

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/ninas-paris-tea-review/

It’s Sunday Tea and Books time, people! Here we go.

The Tea

I got this as a sample from Laurent back at the end of February/ beginning of March, and have been holding onto it then – it’s been almost 6 months, and tonight was the first time I tried it.

I was expecting a blast of citrus and flowers, but the flavour in this is very subdued. I’m getting a little bit of citrus, and I can sense that it’s grapefruit, but it’s not knocking my socks off here.

I brewed this at 87C for about 2-3 minutes, using 2 tsp for 16 oz of liquid. I’ve found that those parameters have worked out pretty well for my other green tea from Nina’s, Demain, but the leaf between the two looks quite different. The leaf in The Des Muses is much longer and spindlier, looking more like a sencha.

The Book

Well, this is probably a bit of a cheat, but what can I say? If this tea is called “The Des Muses”, then I’m definitely going to compare it to one of the Greek Muses, the nine women seen as the embodiment of culture and artistic achievement in Ancient Greece. So which one will it be?

Well, since it appears that I’m not too fond of this tea, I’m going to go with Erato, the muse of lyric/love poetry. I’ve got a bit of a grudge against Erato, so why not?

Let me explain.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the Greek myths. I read about the stories of Perseus and Theseus and Atalanta, and I was old enough to watch the “Hercules” and “Xena” shows when they were on TV, but young enough to watch them and take them at face value – I had no inkling of their camp value at the time.

As a result, I became a trove of trivia about figures in Greek mythology.

Now, fast-forward to an event about 4.5 years ago. At that point, I was part of a trivia league that met in pubs across the city every week on Monday nights. The scoring worked like this: each round of trivia questions had a theme, and during a round, every person on both teams had the chance to answer a single question. If the person who was asked the question answered it correctly, their team scored 2 points. If they couldn’t answer it correctly but their teammates could, the team scored 1 point. However, if nobody on one team could answer the question, the opposing team had the chance to get a “steal” and earn 1 point for themselves if they could answer the question correctly instead.

(Does this make any sense? I hope it does.)

Anyways, this one night, the round of trivia in question was about….the muses! And it appeared that among all of the people on BOTH teams, I was the only one who knew the names of the muses. So I continually saved my team by earning 1 point when each individual lost the chance to earn 2, and kept stealing points from the other team when they couldn’t answer their questions.

However, I didn’t remember the names of ALL 9 muses – I could only remember 8: Calliope, Urania, Polyhymnia, Terpischore, Melpomene, Thalia, Clio, and Euterpe. I was struggling and struggling to remember the name of the 9th muse.

And guess what happened? The ONE muse I couldn’t name was the answer of the ONE question that was posed to me specifically, thus the ONE opportunity I had to score 2 points for my team instead of a succession of 1-pointers.

That one muse I couldn’t name? You guessed it: fuckin’ Erato.

So I couldn’t answer that particular question, and NO ONE ELSE could either. Thus, that question earned a big round goose egg for all involved.

You know what the kicker was?

I gave the correct answer to every other trivia question that was posed specifically to me that night. Out of 10 rounds, I got 9 2-point questions right – my highest result ever in that particular trivia league – and the only one I got wrong was that damned question about Erato.

(Can you tell I still haven’t gotten over it yet? Fuck you, Erato. Seriously.)

This was a free sample from Nina’s Paris. I brewed it at work so I don’t know if I got the temperature exact. The base seemed to be a basic green: astringent with only light buttery notes. It picked up the citrus flavouring but not any strawberry. There seemed to be a slight bitter edge to it but that might have been me getting the temperature off. Overall, it was a decent cup but nothing stood out.

This is a free sample from “Nina’s”. Thank you!

When we had this one on Wednesday, my youngest came in apologetically and said she was distracted when she made the three teas and poured boiling water over these leaves. I told her to pull the leaves early, but she said it had been a minute or so already before she realized it. She pulled the leaves and when we served it, I poured only a little into our cups in case it had become bitter.

Wow! It was not only fine, it was delicious. The green tea base was buttery and mildly grassy, the citrus flavor was the top note for me, and there was a fruity undertone.

I tried this cold (unsweetened) after tea time and find it very refreshing. This will be a great summertime tea!