Paris London

Another from my swap with Cameron B! I’m always so excited to try Mariages Freres teas, they’re probably my favorite tea blender. I have plans to visit Paris next year and am excited to bring a basically empty suitcase and come back with it FULL OF TEA.

The dry leaf is lovely – twisty blacks and curled whites, lavender and rose petals. It smells strongly of lavender, which I’m beginning to embrace right now. Brewed up the liquor is paler than I expected, more like a well-steeped green than a black tea. This may be a function of how long I let it steep, as I don’t generally pass the three minute mark on black teas unless it’s a chai.

I’m drinking this on and off and liking it more as it cools. One of my favorite MF teas is their The des Impressionistes, which is a lavender cream green tea, so I can’t help but compare it to that one. Impressionistes definitely wins because the vanilla element gives the lavender a depth which I feel is lacking here. Still, this is tasty! Smooth and faintly floral. The rose doesn’t stand out, which I appreciate because a Fauchon experience made me leery of intense rose flavors.

The white really mellows the black base, so I didn’t get any astringency or anything. I’d be interested to try this heavily leafed and iced. Not one I’d buy probably, but I’m very happy to drink it and to have a little bit left for a few more cups!

Make no mistake, this is an intensely floral tea, with gratuitous amounts of lavender and a rather large amount of rose petals (so the flavor is “dry rose petals”, not “rose essential oil”). If you dislike lavender, stay away as far as you can.

I don’t really like lavender myself, but the tea became very interesting once I realized that I should use lower water temperature. Lately I’ve been using 80-85C for spring Darjeeling teas – which only works when the tea is very high quality, I think – and when you do that to Paris-London, you get a rather interesting mixture of floral notes in the cup. Some of them come from the Darjeeling, others are products of lavender mixing with Darjeeling notes, etc. Very intriguing and captivating if you’re into detailed tasting. So while I’m probably not going to brew this again, I’d recommend Paris-London to anyone interested in fine mechanics of tea blending, and, of course, to lavender enthusiasts.

(Also, it’s incredibly soothing for a tea, very much a beverage for the evening.)

This tea was one of Ellyn’s gifts for me in the Pass the Stash 2.0 TTB. I’ve kind of been putting off trying it because, well, it looks like potpourri basically, and I am not a floral tea gal. But it’s Mariage Freres, so I have to try it at least. Dry leaf has large white tea leaves along with small black ones, rose petals, and a ton of lavender. Dry scent is sweet and floral with a spicy note. I followed the directions in the tea’s description here on Steepster and did a 5 minute steep.

Smells very… lavender. I can catch a little bit of rose, which does nothing to improve my opinion. There’s also a citrusy quality which I assume is coming from the lavender. First taste and… noop. This is basically lavender tea. I get a little bit of white tea flavor in the aftertaste, but otherwise all I can taste is lavender. Interestingly enough, it has a certain limey quality to it, but that’s not enough to make it drinkable for me. Not going to rate due to bias, and this one is going into the rehoming box.

At first, I was a little apprehensive to try this tea blend.

Black tea, and white tea? With rose, and lavender? To me, it sounded like it would be too floral, too citrusy and have little balance. (I was so glad I was wrong.)

Mariage Freres balance their teas very well – the strong base of the black tea was softened by the subtler white tea base. The floral, citrus lavender flavour wasn’t overpowering and the rose was very sweet and fragrant. I didn’t necessarily taste the white flowers but I felt like they added an overall smoothness to the blend and helped this tea to have a beautiful finish.

My only recommendation would be not to drink this tea in the morning with breakfast. It is an afternoon tea and should probably be kept that way – unless your breakfast is tea cake and madeleines, which I would not be opposed to. The friend I tried this tea with really didn’t like it, so it all comes down to personal taste, but I love this tea and I’m very happy with it.