Montagne Bleue

Gosh, Steepsterites! It feels like it’s been ages, eons and decades since I last inflicted my presence upon your unfortunate and super-humanly patient souls! There’s just been so much recently, you know? We were away over the weekend so I’m really in need of a bit of a breather. A 9yo birthday. Four children and fourteen adults in one lounge for a whole afternoon. Gosh! O.o (Nothing wrong with my family at all, mind. It’s just such a lot of people)

So I thought it was definitely time to sit down and get a proper post together and relax a bit before making my shopping list and getting some groceries in. This is one I got from Ssajami, and I was quite excited about it from the moment I took it out of the box. The description of it on the pouch sounds right up my alley!

The aroma has a quite strong note to it, which I think is a mixture of the honey and the flowers, although depending on what sort of flowers honey is made of it can have very different smells as well. I can’t really find the fruit very well in the aroma. Perhaps a tang of rhubarb, but primarily it’s honey. Thick and rich and viscous.

The flowers give it a rather strong floral flavour as well, which disappointed me a bit. I was looking for something rather more fruity and this is borderline verging on slight bitterness instead. I’m not sure what sort of black tea is at the base here, but I suspect that like most other flavoured teas where this is isn’t specified, it’s probably a Ceylon. I should have liked to have had it on a Chinese base instead, to put that astringency-going-on-bitterness out of the picture. Oh well.

That particular disappointment aside, it’s a quite nice tea. Once I know what to expect from it, I find the floralness less of a problem, and I have no problem locating fruity flavours underneath. Mainly straw- and blueberry, not so much rhubarb. I suspect the rhubarb here, being in itself rather astringent, is hiding in that nearly-bitter astringency of the black tea.

I did however make it with boiling water although Le Palais des Thes recommend slightly below boiling because I only discovered that when it was too late, and it did possibly get a bit of an extra long steep because I was too lazy to change the timer. I still have enough leaf to try again and we’ll see then if that makes a huge difference. I expect it will definitely eliminate some of that astringency there.

As it is, however, I’m quite pleased with what I got out of it this time too.

I received a sample of this from Hallieod. Thank you so much!!! I’ve LOVED everything Hallieod sent me, she did an amazing job sending me teas that totally suited my tastes. I’ve been avoiding this one. Didn’t want to break that streak. I was afraid of the lavender. Black tea with strawberry and rhubarb should be right up my alley. I don’t do so well with the florals.
She’s been right with everything else, so I hot brewed some of this last night. I’ll admit it – I took one sip and my initial reaction was, nope I don’t like this one. I left it on the counter to cool, and then popped it into the fridge. Shrug, sometimes they are better as iced tea.
So, now I’m home from work – opened the fridge, and tried the tea. It is MUCH better cold.
I’m not getting a lot of fruit – just a hint way in the back. I’m getting the black tea and I’m getting some floral notes (not sure it’s lavender, but it’s floral). What I am also getting is some….tart, bitter, astringent…something unpleasant. That might be my steeping error. I did steep below boiling as indicated for about 4 min (instructions said 4-5). Not sure. This isn’t incredibly horrible, but it’s not for me. Sorry Halliod, you’ve still done an amazing job with your choices 6/7 with two I haven’t tried yet.

A friend came over for breakfast this morning and brought me a tin of Palais des Thes Grand Jasmine Chun Feng and a couple of samples, including this one.

The packet that the sachet came in smells like those strawberry hard candies that have a soft center. I love that smell!

The steeped tea is mostly a decent black tea with strawberry flavor but you can tell there is more going on. There is a flavor that tones down the strawberry, keeping it from being a tart strawberry. That could be the honey. I didn’t lavender.

I had trouble with some Palais teas in the past because they were finicky, so right off the bat I made this with slightly cooler water (200F) and kept the steep shorter than their recommendation. First steep 3 1/2 minutes and second was 3 minutes. The two steeps were combined in one pot and enjoyed first with lunch which included fresh garden tomatoes drizzled with balsamic vinegar, so I may not have had the clearest palate for tasting the tea.

The last cup was paired with a couple of Lindt Stracciatella truffles. Strawberry is still the dominant flavor, florals are not coming through, and the strawberry is at a really nice level. I would absolutely buy this to have on hand for a nice little strawberry black tea.

My first Palais des Thés and I am not terribly impressed. It’s got a strong strawberry note with a grassy/hay finish (cornflower?) and a bit of sweetness over a perfectly serviceable black blend, but I do not get any of the promised honey, lavender, or rhubarb flavours.

I got this from the 2023 advent calendar that was on sale (hooray for procrastinating) as a way to try Palais des Thés. The calendar packaging is lovely, but I’ll be opening at random since I waited so long. The teabag is an attractive muslin cotton cloth, on the small side but seem potent enough for a decent cuppa. I don’t particularly like this tea enough to attempt a second steep.

As with other French teas, the description is way over the top: “An exquisite black tea with induldgent notes of strawberry and flowers.”

So far, it’s been a quite average tea experience, but I’m keeping an open mind for the other 23 offerings.

Backlogging – Advent by Palais des Thés Advent – Day 4

A mild smell dry, pleasant black tea when brewed with some non-tart and non-artificial strawberries. My unsophisticated mouth isn’t gathering up flowers at the same time, but they may be buried under their somewhere.

Nice and different, but nothing that stands out for me as memorable.

I did use this with my Christmas gingerbread onesie I finally get to pull out of the cupboard :)

Palais des Thés Advent Calendar – Day 17 (from November backlog)

Ooh, hooray! This is one that I really wanted to try from Palais des Thés. I love rhubarb and this is a strawberry and rhubarb black tea, with some other flavors as well. It definitely smells mostly strawberry in the sachet, though.

Well, sadly I don’t think I get rhubarb at all. It mostly tastes of sweet strawberry hard candies, with a bit of honey and lavender thrown in. I’m not a huge fan of lavender, but thankfully here it’s quite mild. The base tea is adding a nice bready flavor that I enjoy, and is overall quite light in body. I think I would prefer this without the lavender honestly, but it might be quite boring then.

Unfortunately, this did not live up to my rhubarb dreams. Oh well, there’s always B&B’s Rhubarb + Custard… ;)

As with most of the Palais des Thes teas I’ve tried, this one is mildly flavored, fairly light, and generally likeable. I don’t get any bitterness from this, but I also don’t get any real floral notes. (For me, that is a good thing, as I’m just not into floral teas.) I mostly taste blueberry and smooth tea that does have an astringent note in the finish. It’s nothing spectacular, and yet I really like it. It would be a lovely tea with some shortbread.

And so I´ve returned to UK (for a few weeks now, but it is almost 2 years ago I was last here), and to the teas I still had here. I´ll surely finish this pouch of Montagne Bleue, as little is left in the pouch. As the zip was faulty, I had closed it with a clamp, and maybe that´s why the aroma´s still come through wonderfully. Once steeped the rhubarb is way harder to find, although the tea is still enjoyable. I might buy some more next time in France or Belgium in one of the Palais des Thés stores.

Sipdown (182/188)!

New tea from a new company, so thank you VariaTEA and by extension Dustin!

I wasn’t sure what was in this when I steeped it up; I just knew it was an easy sipdown so I took advantage of that. Dry I did get a very floral feel from it though; which I guess would have been the lavender.

Hmm, this is really weird but in an agreeably good way. I don’t usually like lavender in, well, anything; the “exception” is DT’s blend Jessie’s Tea (but that’s because of the coconut). However, paired with the strong strawberry flavour here, and with the black base I think this is jarringly tasty. I’m also really impressed just how present all the listed ingredients are because, like I said, dry I only smelled something generically floral.

And I have to point out that this is another blueberry tea that I really enjoy; that seems to, as of late, be a surprisingly reoccurring thing what with my aversion to almost all things blueberry flavoured in general…

I don’t even know where or how I’d go about getting a hold of more of this; but I’d maybe like to do so; it’s really, really good! I don’t think the one cup is going to be enough to keep me happy…

Thank you Dustin for the opportunity to try this tea. When I looked at it, I half anticipated an EG but what I am getting is a hint of rhubarb followed by honey coated lavender. It is nice enough but I am just not loving it. It is still fun to try something new though.