Thé Vert Violette Framboise (Green Violet Raspberry Tea)

The sweetly tart raspberry delivers both in smell and taste but I’m just not a fan of this type of green base, which for me is a big bucket of generic meh. If it wasn’t for that I’d be a bigger fan of this one!

I was excited about the raspberry component but not really that enthused about the violet or green base. Still, MissB was kind enough to share so I figured it was at least worth a try. However, I find myself drinking the cup trying to ignore the strong florals of the violet instead of enjoying the sweet raspberry or the tea as a whole. In the end, as fun as it is to try, this tea just isn’t for me. Still, I would like to thank MissB for sending some my way!

Sipdown (125)!

Thank you MissB for the sample!

This is another tea from her travels abroad, and it’s perfect for spring; it’s light, fruity and floral which is all of the things that’ve been hitting the spot this last week with my daily cold brews. I’m sad to report that I made a bit of a mistake measuring it out though; by which I mean I sneezed as I was pouring, and half the sample fell on the floor. NOOO! So, my cold brew was very small compared to the typical 25 oz. I usually make.

Dry, this smells amazingly fresh with super intense and realistic raspberry notes; definitely reminded me of picking raspberries from my Grandma’s garden as a child. We’d get stuck with the thorns from the seemingly endless raspberry patch, but it was all worth it to lick that sweet, sticky red juice from our grubby fingertips after collecting an icecream pail worth of berries for the night’s dessert. I don’t smell the violet in the blend; but this is already earning ‘nostalgia’ points. The liquor is a really pretty almost lime-y green, but with a bit more of a yellow tinge to it. It smells very fresh, and very fruity.

The taste is spot on; I taste the raspberry first and foremost and it’s everything I’m remembering from those vacations at Grandma’s. The green base cuts through it a little bit and it a touch grassy with a little bit of the chlorophyll/fresh cut lawn taste. Both flavours compliment one another quite well though; it makes the whole ‘garden’ imagery I’ve got going on significantly stronger. And at last the violet in the blend is making an impression! While it IS present throughout the entire sip way down underneath the raspberry and base, it comes through the strongest near the end of the sip after the initial sweetness of the raspberry has started to subside. I don’t think it’s necessarily distinctly violet; but it is nice and very natural. Floral things seem to get chemical tasting quickly, even when they aren’t artificial but this stays away from that. Finally, I think there are some extra notes in here that are a little softer and sweeter; my initial impression was something like sugar cane but by the end of the cup I was definitely leaning more towards honey.

So all in all, I was very impressed by this tea! I just wish that I’d been able to steep up more of it because it was fresh, and juicy with that sweet sensation of nostalgia and all the elements necessary to invoke the imagery of a Spring time garden!

Almost a sipdown here, and I happened to come across some other teas in the cupboard that I managed to get rid of. Teaspoons here and there that just haven’t ever been drunk.

Anyways, I still love this, and still wish it were a black tea. Violet and raspberry. Yum. So good.

2 short steeps at 175, combined into a bigger mug.

floral tea incoming… another from missB that i was NOT excited about hahaha. while i am a fan of raspeberry, i’m not such a fan of the floral side of teas. BUT! you never know until you try, since i’ve had a few cups of things i wouldn’t normally drink be wonderful. This tea though, doesn’t fall in to that category for me. It’s a little too floral for me and not nearly raspberry enough for me to overcome the other side of the tea. Sorry MissB, this isn’t for me…but hopefully one of the others will love it! :) it IS, in typical french tea fashion, smooth and really nicely blended.

I know this tea is blended somewhere else in France, just can’t figure out where – so it stands with where I bought it. The aroma is lovely – like walking through violets jn the spring, on your way to pick ripe raspberries. It’s light, it’s floral, it’s sweet, almost like a floral honey (yet much lighter and delicate). Not a first love here; I could see this doing well at a little girls’ tea party, and it reminds me of the Queens’ chocolates (the rose cream in particular) that I had in London. It’s a good tea, just not my personal favorite.