Coïncidence Black

So I had a little giggle over this tea… partially because the owner/master blender at The O Dor, originally worked at Mariages Freres. I find the description of this tea on their website to be a bit cheeky:
“It reminds you something? You think you know it? Nothing of the kind …Your jealousy is out of bound…How to say? This one is much better, deeper, more balanced and somehow far more subtle. You speak ill of it because you know much too well… It is only a coincidence if you pretend loving a similar one. Anyway, this one is mine and I don’t like sharing.”

Now, I can only speculate, BUT I sense he’s talking about Marco Polo, Mariages most famous flavoured black tea. Very very cheeky Parisian, that master blender.

I brewed this at 95C for 6 mins, as I feel I need a little more robustness in my black teas. The instructions call for 85 for 3-5 mins, as it seems with most of the The O Dor flavoured black blends.

At first sniff: This tea smells very fruity with subtle hints of vanilla and reminds me very much of Marco Polo… with the information above, I wonder why. Fruity, vanilla goodness.

At first taste: This tea again mirrors Marco Polo but with some other subtle notes. The O Dor is good a subtle hints of other flavours. I’m tasting nutty of some sort, but nothing strong like hazelnut though. Might be almond (almond extract maybe?)

I love this tea with milk and sugar (or stevia as of late.) I guess I personally appreciate the more subtle and delicate flavours, as some people knock The O Dor for their “weak” tastes. Depending on the day, I like in your face teas, but usually I like more elegant and refined flavours that have depth to them.

This is another purchase from the Urban Tea Merchant tea salon in Vancouver. This tea comes in both green and black variations, but I chose the black one because I thought it had the more robust scent.

The smell…the smell is incredible. It’s like vanilla ice cream – but the high quality stuff that has bits of vanilla beans in it. Then there’s a mix of berry – I think I can smell blueberry, strawberry, maybe currant, and all sort of fruits or berries I can’t even begin to identify. It’s a bit like Mariage Freres’ Marco Polo only bolder and more fruity/berry.

The taste is surprisingly different however, as the first thing I get isn’t vanilla or strawberry but a sort of fresh, not-too-sweet fruit flavour, that seems vaguely familiar, only I can’t quite place it. Guava maybe???? There’s also a faint hint of something floral with it, but it’s not a perfumy sort of floral. There are other, sweeter fruit/berries flavours that follow, but they’re quite subdued in the wake of the intital burst of flavour notes.

Sweet nut cream vanilla fruit. Very similar to Marco Polo, but not strawberry like that one seems to suggest—more drop fruit, I think.

The taste, so far, isn’t anything alike, though. Bright and fruity, with a vanilla sweetness.

Getting distracted by music. ♪ Down at the edge, round by the corner, close to the end, down by a river. Seasons will pass you by, I get up, I get down. ♫

There’s something nutty in here too, I think. Hazelnut? I don’t know. Hmm.

I realized that I had two unopened bags that I still hadn’t tried from this company back in 2020 I believe when I bought some from Dustin. So this one and Perseus are getting opened up today.
The strawberry flavor of this one reminds me of Lupicia’s strawberry. I think I prefer Lupicia’s because I remember it being slightly sweeter and more candylike probably due to the sugar candy mix-ins that their blends have. It also has that perfume like quality to it. I think it reminds me slightly of Lupicia’s Neptune tea as well with the honeyed fruit notes. However, I sadly am not tasting any exotic fruits ex. mango, papaya, or passion fruit.
I made this cup plain without milk or sweetener and the black tea base was rather brisk. I’m going to have to try it with a shorter steep time and maybe some milk added next time. In terms of other french strawberry teas, I really like Jardin Bleu and so I don’t think I’d purchase this one. Glad I got the chance to try it and that it still tastes flavorful!

French Friday! Pulled my first French tea sampler out of the stash Dustin sent me to try. The dry leaf has a soft, candied strawberry sort of aroma. Steeped 2.6g to 350ml 205F water for 3 minutes. The aroma is even more pronounced from the wet leaf, though rather than smelling of strawberries, it has more of a candied tropical fruits note.

The aroma on my cooling thermos is still sweet/candied, and just a little floral, like a wildflower honey. I smell strawberry, grape, pineapple, mango, and even a subtle melon aroma. But the way the sweetness and fruity aromas are colliding, it makes me feel as if I’m sticking my nose into a bag of multi-fruit flavored candies, like Skittles, and attempting to smell individual fruits, when really they just smell… like Skittles. Sweet and fruity.

Since I don’t like my black teas bitey and tend to use a lot less leaf than pretty much anyone recommends, I have a very smooth cup; my experiences with Marco Polo, even using the same leaf-to-water ratio and steeping parameters, brought out a lot more astrigency/drying in the cup. The black tea itself has a bit of a bready quality, as well as some minerality, but mostly I taste the fruit, which still has that sort of perfumy quality. It doesn’t feel oily or waxy on my tongue like Marco Polo did, though (which makes me wonder if perhaps the age of that sample had done something weird with the flavoring oils). I taste that soft, candy-like strawberry note, and sometimes I taste purple grape (like the kind found in candies/drinks) left on my tongue. Sometimes rather than getting strawberry in a sip, I get a sort of mixed tropical fruit flavor. It’s a very strange experience, since my nose or tongue seem to read different fruit notes on different sips!

I am enjoying this cuppa and will be working on it throughout the day, with a top-off during my lunch break. Thanks Dustin!

I can’t figure out what I think of this! It starts out as a deep rich strawberry flavor, reflecting the scent. The finish is that same flavor. Some of the sips are great while others fall flat. When the cup cools it’s all flat as well. It’s like that alkaline mineral taste creeps in there, but it isn’t consistent. I wonder if a shorter steeping time would help. I’ll have to play around with this one!

I’m getting closer and closer to having tasted all the black teas in my cupboard once with a note to show for it. By current count I have 15 still untasted and unwritten about including this one.

Two caveats, though. First, I went looking for the Upton Castleton darjeeling today and I couldn’t find it. So I suppose it is possible I put that one in there by accident, but I don’t know for sure. I’m leaving it in for now because sometimes things turn up. There may be others that fit that description as well. Second, I am hoping that after this long weekend, I’ll have reduced that number to nine. If I continue at my current pace, I’ll have gotten through them all by the end of the month, what with Thanksgiving falling in the middle there.

So yay.

I’ll be a little sad when there’s nothing left to discover for the first time with my black teas, though. This one for example.

Everyone says it tastes like Marco Polo by Mariage. I wish I had tasted that more recently,
though I clearly loved it because I gave it a 92. I got some strawberry with that one. I’m not really getting strawberry with this so much. Maybe a little.

In the tin I smell berry fruit, raspberry maybe. And a cocoa note. I smell even more raspberry in the steeped tea. Not much of a cocoa note, though, more of a cream one. The tea is chestnut colored and clear.

The flavor starts out like the smell, but there’s more to it than that. In the aftertaste there’s a pleasant caramel note that has a touch of sweetness.

Just a really wonderful taste to start the day with.