408 Tasting Notes
You may be intrigued by this company …as I was when I bought it in a tea shop (along with my George Cannon teas).
This is French company (of course I thought first it was English with such a name !) and a company based in Brittany as they argue they want to be the first tea brand of Brittany, it sounds nice as Brittany is more reputed for its cider, kouign amann, pan cakes, caramel beurre salé and butter….and and and sooooo much splendid food specialties ! I love Brittany…I wish I can live in Vannes or in Rochefort en Terre…
So yes, Brittany needs a tea brand !
This is a Christmas tea, what’s better in the middle of May ?
It’s a very special Christmas tea because the main flavour is really orange, then a delicate vanilla and behind but very behind spices (with a very discrete and a very very very discrete clove)
The tea base is really smooth and mellow, we can taste it very well, it is not hidden behind the flavours.
This is a very nice blend and a very different Christmas tea as the main guest is a perfectly blended Orange, very natural.
That’s true Oranges are a Christmas symbol as they were often in the past the only gift. That’s nice to remember this sometimes.So thanks to this company to remind us with a such lovely tea.
Preparation
I am just coming back from the Mariage Frères shop Place de la Madeleine in Paris.
I needed to refill my box of Prince Igor …so bought 100gr BUT of course I cannot enter a MF shop without buying other teas…
I wanted to taste this one for ages so here it is !
I am terrible with vanilla : I had too much vanilla teas or ice creams made with a stupid artificial vanilla now I am suspicious.
I generally refuse any vanilla ice cream except those of 2 or 3 brands and I do the same with teas.
Knowing Mariage Frères I was sure the vanilla was a good vanilla and I am not disappointed at all.
This is a sumptuous Bourbon vanilla…meaning the Vanilla comes from the following islands ONLY : La Réunion, Mauritius,Madagascar or Comoros. This is the same Vanilla as the one used in Wedding Impérial but of course here no caramel and the tea base is not an assam but probably a Chinese tea and it is so mellow, awwwww love it !
This blend is perfectly balanced between the flavour and the tea base.
I think it can become one staple.
Preparation
aaaaah! i need to try this one lol
i will buy this. i will i will.
This is the only one I got to bring back from Paris, it is my favorite vanilla. I wish I could taste right now, I really want some now :(
Sounds amazing! :)
yes it is especially if you like real vanilla :)
I love Vanilla though like you, I am picky!
Have you checked out Black Orchid as well? I was comparing both recently and ended up deciding for Black Orchid, but keep wondering about Vanille des Îles – they must have something different!
nope I didn’t try Black Orchid as I thought it was more a floral tea (until I read your review recently !)
I’ll add a sample of Vanille des Îles in your envelope :)
Oh, but you do not have to! Or swap for some of the others then – I added no extras, could not think of anything (well, must buy more teas). But I now wish i had included Black Orchid or the humble clipper teabags.
No prob Teresa, I’ll add this one for sure I am always very happy to see your reviews about the teas I sent – you can detect all the flavours and describe them so well, it’s a pleasure to read your posts.
That is a great compliment, thank you!
I agree with you, Ysaurella! But yours are very good reading too!
Thank you so much Nicole for sharing this one as a surprise blend with me.
It is a great great tea and you know I am not the biggest fan for straight teas.
I get mainly fruity notes to my opinion, I cannot say it’s raisin or another fruit but this is a joyful fruity tea !
I am very very happy because any time I tasted a straight tea from Butiki teas, I loved it and really loved it.
It means I can find straight teas I can appreciate without any reserve and appreciate the natural flavours.
So it really encourages me to continue exploring straight blends.
Some are so mysterious, other so dark, rocky or earthy, some so joyful…I really need to continue exploring :)
Preparation
This one is awesome!
This is also how I felt! I can’t wait for it to come back.
The way everyone describes this, I feel like it’s a mystical unicorn in the distance that I can’t catch. lol!
that’s how golden fleece was when i first joine steepster…. now it’s this one.
When I first joined steepster (labor day weekend, was it really only 8 months ago?), Golden Fleece was as unattainable as it’s name implied. A few months in, David included a sample in one of my verdant orders. Then it became available (& yes, I’m still hoarding some). This Wild mountain black was similar. I was on an ordering haitus because I’d gone so crazy over the Holidays & to keep myself under control I didn’t even look at tea websites (that would be like an alcoholic going into a bar to order a glass of milk…). By the time I knew about this tea, & went to the Butiki site to order some, it was gone!! ;_;
Luckily, Sil, the wonderful awesome Sil, sent me a sample!
(((Gives Sil a big Hug))) Thanks!
Now I too can wait for it’s return!
what ? it isn’t available anymore ? nooooooooooooo Stacy !!! is there any chance to see it back ? it may depends on the season ?
Ysaurealla – she’s trying to get more in for July/August. So stay tuned :)
thanks Sil , I will sure ! :)
Ysaurella-Yep, Sil is right. I’m just waiting until the next harvest. July/August couldn’t be soon enough. I miss this tea.
I was hoping you’d like this one since you don’t find many unflavored blacks that you like. :)
and you were right having this intuition, Nicole – thanks again :)
backlog of this morning.
This is a very pleasant black tea base, without any bitterness nor astringency. The apricot flavour is sweet, mellow.
I am not sure the flavour is 100% natural but anyway it works perfectly.
I like mono flavoured teas, this is a kind of ode to a flower a fruit, a spice.
I love apricot and really enjoyed this one, thanks Nicole for the share.
Preparation
This was my tea first cup of the day.
I oversteeped it stupidely as I get distracted by a phone call.
I had to add a splash of milk to drink it because it took a taste too strong for me, a kind of earthy taste.
I didn’t get the typical mellowness I normally detect immediatly in keemuns.But may be due to the oversteep.
With milk it was really pleasant. I have enough to try a second cup thanks to the sample kindly sent by Sil
Preparation
I have this one thanks to Sil too, and was thinking maybe today would be the day to try! But then I oversteeped my regular afternoon black badly, and decided to wait for a better tea-treatment day. :)
yes I hate when I oversteep my teas ! especially when it is a sample :S
Yes, I hate that too.
I have the chance to write this note thanks to Sil – thank you so much for sharing.
You know I’m not a plain tea person. It means I don’t get all the natural flavours you mentioned in your notes.
It’s a medium bodied tea, quite malty but no so much. What I get much is a smoky burnt taste. I feel a little like if the tea itself was hidden behind this flavour. It is mineral too to my opinion.
It’s doesn’t taste chocolate to me or maybe the grilled cocoa beans.
I’ll try a second steep to see how the tea evolution is
Preparation
But you tried it! And that’s important :)
absolutely ! I am trying to have more plain teas to develop my palate. I know I love keemums and orange pekoe types…more reticent with plain assams, but depends on the teas really. I need to continue experiencing plain teas
ah yes me too, i don’t have a good tasting machine in my mouth either. not for the subtleties. just your saying this helps me feel a little less malfunctioned.
and i keep trying too. having fun all along the way of course!
yep drinking more and more teas is really fun !
This one gets better through the steeps. It gets a tieguanyin creamy floral aspect to it.
It took me a while to like plain teas. But once you get use to them you can get hooked.
Ysaurella, this is great that you are trying. I know this analogy is mentioned quite often, but it is true, straight tea does compare to wine and the more you have it, the more you get to appreciate it in your own ways :-)
thank you all, I keep trying :)
You will also get to try this one again, along with the caramel vanilla assam & a few others, as I have once again sent you a box. Hopefully this one will not get stuck in customs!
Keeping my fingers crossed!
This is a sample surprise kindly sent by Nicole, thank you very much for this one too.
The dry leaves are full of pineapple chunks and smells like caramelized fruits.
After steeping it smells really like a fresh home made cake coming out of the oven ! incredible – and it tastes absolutely like a caramelized fruit cake.
The pineapple is not very perceptible as caramel, cake and vanilla flavours but I can taste it very very very far behind.
The flavours are so strong you keep the taste a long time after drinking !
A very well done dessert tea.
Preparation
ok, I’ve been brave and finally have tasted this tea.
I bought it because of its name and because of Bonnie and because of The tea Fairy and because of Tommy the Toad…because the 3 of you are making a lot of gorgeous notes about pu’erh…and I wanted to try.
So I decided to go for a flavoured one…and then I have never brewed it…It’s really scary to begin with a pu’erh !
However, each week since I bought it my daughter asks me : why did you buy this tea ? It stinks…why did you buy rotten tea ? and why don’t you try it now you have bought it ?
Tonight cteresa made a note about it, as I sent her a sample of it, and I felt like it was really the right moment to dare…(however my daughter is with her grandma, she cannot laugh at me !)
I feel stupid now…for have been scared by a tea !
The taste is not horrible, it has a kind of mix of earth taste + mango vanilla taste.
Quite interesting without being exceptional to me.
I maybe won’t wait 3 months now to try another pu’erh…on the other hand I like to sniff the teas I’m going to buy and this is not the case with a pu’erh…so…wait and see
Preparation
Hahaha! Ysaurella, I so love this note and whenever you comment on that very smart and witty daughter of yours :-)
Please don’t feel stupid, if you only knew how many times I got scared by Pu’erh ! (still am occasionaly!) I always end up like you, thinking why did I get scared in the first place… Over time, I realized the only pu’erh that are «fishy» are the ones of lower quality. I persevered cause I find pu’erhs very intriguing, and after a lot of «training», I truly enjoy many pu’erhs now, though my personal likings are more towards the non-flavored ones.
P.S. I will be mailing your teas only wednesday, sorry for the delay…
I was terrified the first time I tried a puer tea too! ;)
awww good to know I am not alone :)
@ The Tea Fairy : pas de souci…je suis arrivée à 19h01 à la poste ce soir…et elle ferme à 19h00 dans ma nouvelle ville ! c’était 20h00 à Paris…Je poste tes thés demain matin seulement du coup :)
The interesting thing about this and another pu er I liked (sophisticated of me, two pu ers I could tolerate) is not so much the taste, more of the mellowness. Not the main taste but sort how smooth the aftertaste was – though I admit this could have been more intense at just about everything. Very interesting!
you’re right it was mellow, I was sooooo focused on the fact I could have drank it that I forgot to mention the mellowness
The name is really nice once again, and seem so adequate for a tea with an earthy-like flavor. I’ve never brewed pu-erh, just had a few sips in some tea-shops, so hot it’s more burning than flavorsome. I’d also be scared at this perspective. And even the Lapsang Souchong cteresa shared with me, still scares me a bit, even though I already had a full pot of it.
I need to thanks very much Nicole for this sample, she added it as a surprise in my parcel :)
I love this surprise ! It’s a Butiki tea, and I’m rarely not in love with a BT tea and however it is a Pineapple tea ! I love Pineapple !J’adore l’ananas ! Ananas sounds much tropical than Pineapple.
The dry leaves are long and so beautiful,and I love to get chunks of fuits in my fruity teas so I’m lucky I have at least 3 chunks of a beautiful pale yellow Pineapple. the scent is definitively Pineapple. I really enjoy the oolong tea base you used Stacy.
The taste is so fresh and soft, I adore it. I am not disappointed at all by the Pineapple taste of this tea, it was often the case in the past with other teas, unable to respect the natural taste of this fruit.
Stacy are you thinking about working on a Raspberry tea ? I am the raspberry biggest fan…and never found a tea I consider as really respectful with this berry.
Nicole thanks so much for this one !
Preparation
Glad you are enjoying this one! The Wen Shan Bao Zhong base is one of my top 2 favorite oolongs. Unfortunately, I am not planning on working on a straight raspberry. We will be working on a raspberry beer tea which is pretty close but will have a bit of bitterness that the hops provides. I would be happy to work on a custom raspberry blend to develop the perfect raspberry blend for you.
I loved very much the custom blend you did for Azzrian around beer too, Peach Hoppitea. I’m looking forward to taste your raspberry beer tea :)
Thanks for the custom blend offer – I keep this in mind as we say in French…ce n’est pas tombé dans l’oreille d’un sourd ! Do you use this expression as well ? something like your proposition didn’t fall on deaf ears ? :)
you’re correct. in english we say “falling on deaf ears” or in this case “your offer hasn’t fallen on deaf ears” :)
Glad you enjoyed that one. I had a great time working with Azzrian on her beer tea. Yes, we have a similar saying and my mother says that quite a bit. :)
I love this oolong base as well. So light and refreshing. This was the first oolong I had that made me reconsider oolongs as a whole. I’m so glad you liked it!
Stacy has also made a Raspberry Truffle Black Tea that is phenomenal! I highly recommend it!
I picked up his sample tonight among all the samples kindly sent by Devilish
To me, this mysterious tea has mango and probably tropical fruits.
It’s really very mellow and sweet, just like having a kind of smoothie sirup with water.
The point is for my taste the tea base is really weak to welcome the flavours.This is the kind of tea I would let my daughter have without problem.Pleasant, sweet and not strong at all !
It may be a nice iced tea perhaps.
Thanks Devilish for sahring it with me :)
That sounds like a wonderful tea!