Montagne Bleue

Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Black Tea, Cornflower Petals, Flavor
Flavors
Fruity, Grassy, Hay, Strawberry, Bread, Candy, Honey, Lavender, Sweet, Astringent, Blueberry, Rhubarb, Flowers, Tea
Sold in
Loose Leaf, Sachet
Caffeine
High
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Kaiten_Kenbu
Average preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec 2 g 9 oz / 259 ml

From Our Community

2 Images

6 Want it Want it

13 Own it Own it

15 Tasting Notes View all

  • “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...” Read full tasting note
    78
  • “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...” Read full tasting note
  • “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,...” Read full tasting note
    72
  • “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...” Read full tasting note
    75

From Palais des Thés

Exclusive to Palais des Thés, Montagne Bleue is a gourmet, fruity blend. Its notes invoke honey, lavender, cornflower, strawberries and rhubarb, and complement one another alongside the intensity of black tea.

An ideal tea for an afternoon tea break, it has a very round texture which brings out its gourmet flavours.

It also tastes great as an iced tea!

About Palais des Thés View company

Company description not available.

15 Tasting Notes

78
1353 tasting notes

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.

ssajami

Last time I was in the Palais des Thes shop, I inquired about the black base and was told that most of their flavored/blended teas are Keemun. However, they did not say ALL the teas, and so I’m not sure about this particular one. I think I agree with you that it probably Ceylon.

Angrboda

I’ve taken to assuming it is unless told otherwise.

Good job on pointing this shop out to me, though. I think I’ll try out some more of their things the next time I buy tea.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

1040 tasting notes

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.

Hallieod

No, no apologising! I’m actually kind of relieved – imagine the pressure if it had been all hits, all the way – would never have been able to send another swap your way in case it didn’t match up. :P And seriously, I’m happy getting to try something as a swap even if I really dislike it, because y’know, we just have to try ALL THE TEAS, right? And can’t order them all, because that would be just ridiculous… (Okay, I slid off the ‘serious’ note there, but I did mean it!)

Dexter

LOL I agree, it’s just as important to find out what you don’t like as it is to know what you do like. Other people often choose things for you that you would not choose for yourself. It’s tons of fun to try those “odd” choice even if they are a miss. :))

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

72
82 tasting notes

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.

Flavors: Fruity, Grassy, Hay, Strawberry

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 4 min, 0 sec 2 g 8 OZ / 236 ML
ashmanra

The Fresh Market had a single one of these advents by the cash register in a sale barrel but there was no price on it so I skipped it. If I go back I might hunt around to see if there are any more at a shockingly low price.

blueeyedsurprise

I paid $24 with free shipping from Bloomingdale’s when they had a coupon code, so I figured $1 per cup was reasonable enough. The full price of $38 plus shipping seemed a bit cheeky.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

75
292 tasting notes

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 :)

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 6 OZ / 177 ML

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

70
3986 tasting notes

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… ;)

Flavors: Bread, Candy, Honey, Lavender, Strawberry, Sweet

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 4 min, 0 sec 8 OZ / 236 ML
Courtney

Rhubarb really is the best.

Cameron B.

I know! I wish it were more of a thing here in the States.

Courtney

It really should be! I feel like I know quite a few people here that grow it in the summer. My mom always did!

Cameron B.

It’s a bit more common in the South, in pies and preserves and such. But the UK seems to have it everywhere, and I’m so jealous!

Courtney

That’s fair! Maybe we have it quite a bit in NS because so much of our culture is based from Ireland, Scotland, and the UK!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

80
249 tasting notes

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.

Flavors: Astringent, Blueberry

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

88
303 tasting notes

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.

Flavors: Flowers, Rhubarb, Tea

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 250 ML

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

90
15575 tasting notes

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…

VariaTEA

Yay! I am glad you liked it so much. I thought it was very pleasant but wasn’t in love so I thought you might like to try.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

68
6444 tasting notes

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.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

87
333 tasting notes

When I was in high school, I used to buy bags of tiny Italian hard candies in different fruit flavors—from Trader Joe’s, I think. Google tells me they’re called Puntini. Anyway, I haven’t seen or even thought about them in ages, but this tea tastes exactly the way I remember one of the berry flavors—probably blackberry, and the best one in my opinion—tasting.

The honey is quite prominent as well, and there’s a generic sort of floral undertone to it all that, as an unabashed floral lover, I’m enjoying quite a bit. I don’t get distinct lavender, which is just as well since that can easily veer into soap territory. The tea base (Ceylon, maybe?) comes through nicely despite the strong flavoring. There is a bit of astringency, which is fine by me.

I like this much more than I expected to, given my (admittedly few) past experiences with Palais des Thes—their teas have struck me as passable but lacklustre, with a bad case of the jumbled (or perhaps muddled would be a better descriptor?) flavor thing I just can’t get into with so many French teas. I’m sure the nostalgia blast isn’t hurting, but even aside from that this is a really lovely blend for those who like florals and don’t mind a bit of astringency. I bet it would also be great iced. Thanks for the sample, Dustin—I’m adding this one to my shopping list!

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Dustin

I had totally forgotten about those candies! I used to get them at TJ’s too. They were so small that I’d often eat four at a time and they would get stuck in my teeth as I ate them!
Glad you enjoyed the tea. Now I’m going to have to think of those candies next time I have a cup of this!

greenteafairy

Yes, they always got stuck in my teeth too! I’d forgotten about that part. I’m kind of tempted to order some now, actually. And thanks so much for the sample—I’d kind of written PdT off my shopping list, but this has inspired me to give them another chance.

Dustin

Palais is a hit or miss company for me. I looked at the descriptions of their teas, wrote down what sounded interesting, then went to their shop and sniffed them before buying. There were several that sounded good but didn’t pass the sniff test and I think if I had bought on description alone, I’d have been disappointed.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.