Prince Igor

Prince Igor is a Borodine’s Opera and a fantastic tea.
As it is a mixed black and green tea, don’t steep it too much (5 minutes are enough)
you’ll taste a fantastic and sweet taste of vanilla, agrums, red fruits and light sunflowers.

Personnaly I drink this tea in the morning but it may be a better afternoon tea as it is very perfumed and soft.

I’ve always been surprised this tea wasn’t very well known in the Mariage & Frères fabulous card.

I’d love to get your american views about it !

This was a sample Ysaurella so kindly sent me, thanks so much! The joys of receiving great tea in the mail, made my week!

At my first thought when i sipped this was “oh my, Marco Polo and Thé à L´Opéra had a child together! And this is it!”. The red fruits and vanilla, the strong strawberry (?) note, the mixed green and black teas. And I just can not shake that impression from my head.

This is a very lovely tea – a blend of green and black, with vanilla and strawberry and a few things more indeed to make it more mysterious. It is IMO an afternoon tea, and I can see why they named it after an opera, it is such a perfect tea for an evening occasion. Lovely.

Another of the samples Ysaurella sent me – thank you again! Cara and I had this the other afternoon, but I had no chance to make a note then, so finished off the last of it in a small cup just for me. I think if this one had tasted as good as it smelled, I’d have been in trouble. I sniffed and pondered and sniffed some more, and finally came up with strawberries and cream with vanilla sugar. And some undefined but gentle floral note. Now, I haven’t eaten strawberries and cream for ages (although soya cream is a really good substitute these days), and have no idea if cream actually smells, but this is still what my sniffing was telling me. The cup itself didn’t have quite the same richness and depth of flavour, and again, my imperfect tasting gave me very slightly underripe strawberries, vanilla and again, that elusive light floral taste. (Is it the sunflowers? They sure look pretty, but even tasting one gave no clue as to whether or no they taste sweet. Yes, I do regularly taste the leaves after infusion!) Very nice, and the black & green tea base is very good – though I wouldn’t have got green myself, I don’t think. Perhaps if I hadn’t had Ysaurella’s careful preparation notes to hand I might have got the green in the bad way?

I’ve tried the Pleine Lune as well, but going to brew it up again for tasting note for that, but so far, I’m extremely happy that the Pouchkine has been the hit of the teas Ysaurella sent for me. This way, I know which Mariage Frères teas I want to get when I get to the London shop, but am not so smitten I have to pay MF shipping rates to Ireland Right. Now.

Steeped according to package directions.

I wanted something fruity this morning and it was between this one and another that was more of a red fruit blend. I went with the citrus/tropical ingredients instead.

I bought this before the moratorium on green/black blends, which I believe I’ve since broken in any case. But it seemed to steep just fine with the time and temp listed — no bitterness to the green and enough flavor to the black.

Despite the lack of vanilla in the ingredients, there’s a creamy, vanilla-like smell to both the dry leaves and the steeped tea. The next strongest smell is the fruit, and it’s less a citrus than a stone fruit smell. The peach and apricot seem to predominate, but there’s definitely citrus in there somewhere. More of an orange than anything else I can identify, and in addition to making the rest of the mix smell more interesting, it gives a freshness and tang to the finish and aftertaste.

I’m not sure I can pick out the mango, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there somewhere. No one single flavor jumps out of this mix, which is pretty much characteristic of most French tea blends I’ve enjoyed. It’s truly a blend, where all the ingredients work together to create something that isn’t just a sum of its parts.

This may be why they’re so great with perfumes, too.

I received a sample of this in the wonderful swap package Ysaurella sent me. Thank you so much for including this one.

Honestly, I didn’t look it up – I had no idea what what Prince Igor was or should be. Sometime I like not looking and then seeing if I “get it right”. Even after looking I’m not sure what “right” is.
“A rich blend of green Japan tea and black Ceylon tea, flavoured with rare citrus and other fruits.” That’s what the description is – kind of vague. I’m not getting any citrus at all. I’m agreeing with the other reviewers. For me this is red fruits, vanilla, and maybe a hint of floral. One of the other reviewer said it reminded them of Marco Polo – I can see that but I think what it really reminds me of is Fruits d’Alsace by Harney & Son’s. This is more “French”. I think French teas are more scented than flavored. It’s like you get a whiff of a scent and that translates into taste rather than being hit over the head with flavoring like the US teas are. Does that make sense to anyone other than me?
I really liked this (I know Fruits d’Alsace isn’t getting much love on my dash board tonight but I like it). It’s fruity and vanilla and not too floral for my tastes, it’s subtle and gentle, nice and comforting.
Thanks Ysaurella for introducing me to this one. It just makes me love the French style even more. :))