Vive le Thé!

Unsurprisingly, this reminds me of another ginger-lemon green tea – the one by Kusmi. Maybe I’m just more used to that one, but this packs less punch and seems flatter and less complex in terms of taste. The dry tea is beautiful to look at, though, and smells very good – two areas in which Kusmi fail to deliver. This is a very fair ginger-lemon tea, and I have a feeling it’ll grow on me.

I usually stick to 1.5 minutes steeping time for greens, but I went with the 3-minute suggestion on the bag for this one, and there was no hint of bitterness.

Flavour wise, not significantly weaker re-steeped.

[Sample from Le Palais des Thés in Tel Aviv, June 2013.]

V is for…Vive le Thé!

This is the only non-vanilla “V” tea I have. I am not complaining about that but made this one a priority to throw into the mix today.

I also wrote my exam this morning. The day started with the exam but before that I recall my first of many alarms waking me and me turning it off and being confused as to why I was being woken by my phone. Thank goodness for my million alarms because my sleepy brain completely forgot that I had an exam at that first alarm. However, I figured it out and despite only the one day of studying, I actually think the exam went pretty well. Either that or I was so underprepared I didn’t even know what I was missing. Hoping is the former. I think its the former.

As for the tea, its alright. It says it has “delicate” flavoring and in this case I feel that delicate is a little code for bland. It’s supposed to be citrus and ginger and I guess I taste both but its very light flavoring. That said, I am glad I don’t get a lot of base tea either which means no grass, vegetal, bitterness, nothing. Just some citrus and ginger – very, very light citrus and ginger.

This tin was gifted to me and my wife by a friend. Even though we have a Palais des Thés shop 10 minutes away from our home, I must admit that I don’t recall ever tasting any of their teas. And so, yesterday afternoon, my wife and I sat down for an afternoon tea tasting and opened this green tea.

What a nice surprise when we opened the tin! The leaves are beautifully long and unbroken. They’re mixed with bits of fruit and curled up in the nicest way – not saying that other teas are ugly but these leaves look so regular? Their smell made us think of candy and cake, it’s very sweet which is probably due to the citrus and ginger bits. The marine side of the tea is quite nicely combined with the citrus and ginger, there’s no one aroma overshadowing the others, it’s a pretty elegant mix. Both the citrus and ginger seem authentic; nothing to do with other teas I’ve tasted in the past (cough Terre d’oc cough).

Brewed this for 3 minutes. It has a cloudy aspect, in a good way – the cup in which I drank it was grey, it looked like water I had fished out of a lost pond deep inside a thousand-year-old forest. Like a moss infusion. But in a good way! It scratches a very specific itch.
The brew itself smells like a citrus cake with a ginger spin. My wife thought it was the opposite – a ginger cake with a hint of citrus. We agreed on the cake element though, this tea is incredibly creamy, almost butter-y, both in smell and taste. The marine element of the green tea is still very present though. Overall a blend that works well.

The first sip was incredibly sweet, in a nice way, because of the blend quality. It’s not too sweet and it didn’t bother either of us. My wife noted how the orange in the citrus brings that sweetness to the tea. It definitely brings some balance to it, as well.

In my opinion, this blend is a great one for both people who aren’t huge fans of the marine side of green tea and need some aroma with it, and for people who, on the contrary, love green tea for what it is and are looking for a well-blended, good quality and interesting citrus-and-ginger spin on it. A previous review of this tea mentions the Kusmi green tea one, which I will try to taste before I run out of the Palais des Thés one, as a comparison.

I would suggest drinking this tea on its own, without any biscuits or sweets, because of the blend’s own sweetness. If you usually like your tea sweetened I would advise trying it without any sugar first.

Rating it at 76 according to my own scale – rating may be edited as I keep tasting more green teas.

This tea was not bad, but I felt it had very little flavour. I did not taste the ginger or lemon.

Palais des Thés Advent Calendar – Day 1

Yay, more advent teas! I’m happy to have this calendar from Palais des Thés this year, as I’ve considered ordering samplers from them multiple times and this really is the ultimate sampler pack. So hopefully it will include most of their best-selling classic teas!

This one is a green base with citrus and ginger. I’m not the biggest ginger lover, but I don’t mind it as long as it’s not overpowering. I’m always charmed by these muslin tea bags that French companies seem to use often. Much cuter than the plastic pyramid kind!

This blend is quite mild, perfect for relaxing in the evening with my knitting. The base is smooth and a bit grassy with dried leafy notes. There is a nice touch of citrus, and it’s light and sweet as opposed to zingy. The ginger is equally mild, and blends nicely with the citrus flavors. Apparently the citrus is a combination of lemon, orange, and grapefruit. I’m not sure I’d be able to pick out all of those, but I do definitely get the lemon and a bit of sweet orange.

This isn’t a tea that I would feel the need to purchase, mostly because when it comes to relaxing green blends, I would prefer mint in place of the ginger. But it is a good combination, even if it’s not my preference.

I´m very cautious about ginger in tea (and gin, and beer…), as it easily dominates everything else. During my last visit to a Palais des Thés shop, I got a refill of this tea as a present, and although I immediately felt some worry when seeing the blend was mainly green tea and ginger, I think I quite like it : the ginger is present in a subtle way (in aroma´s you get almost more orange peel than ginger) and the potentially grassy taste of the green tea is well complemented by this ginger-orange peel addition. Nice work, Palais des Thés!

Had this twice now, not getting anything out of it other than a bit of spicy grass. It’s very, very subtle. Which is odd considering there was a huge chunk of what looked like dried orange peel in this steeping.

Summer continues on here in Boulder, CO. So another batch of this flavored green blend over ice…