Bellocq Tea Atelier

I tried a five-minute steep today, and, unsurprisingly, this tea is much bolder than it was last time I drank it. The Ceylon’s even more pronounced, I think – I’m getting even more fruitiness, which I’m enjoying quite a bit. I am getting the faintest hint of leather, but I’m pleased to say it’s not strong enough to detract from my enjoyment.

This is a very pleasant breakfast blend. It’s heavy on the Ceylon, which provides some lovely stone-fruit notes, although the Assam is also present. I’m not noticing the Chinese tea component as much. I’m also pleased to say I’m not getting any of the dreaded leather Fuzzy_Peachkin mentioned – I steeped this at the shorter end of the suggested range, and it seems to have done the trick. I noticed that the instructions on the packaging say to steep for 3-5 minutes, while the website says 5-7 – I’d only looked at the packaging instructions while preparing this, and so I went for a 3-minute steep. It does result in a fairly mild cup, so probably not the way to go if you’re looking for an in-your-face wake-up tea, but maybe that’s something to try?

The only way I can describe drinking this green tea is by comparing it to the revelation of seeing clearly the first time you put on glasses after a lifetime of seeing things in a fuzzy haze. The notes in this were so fresh, clear and distinct. Did it have some of the seaweed type flavor I’m not fond of in greens? Yes. But the texture of that same taste was so different from every other green tea I’ve had with that same taste. It was somehow smoother and crisper, not quite as jarring and jagged as I usually find that flavor. It also seemed to work more harmoniously with the other flavors in the tea.

There were some very substantial dark green notes that reminded me of brocolli rabe With this was a very distinct and powerful lemon flavor. I usuallly pick up some generic citrus notes in tea, but this was in your face, make you pucker and tear up lemon!The flavors mixed together remind me of how my Mom makes soup by adding lemon and an egg whipped together to make the broth light and add some tang.

I often find myself drawn to teas that are well balanced with dark and light notes. Well this tea is a perfect example of balance- lightness and dark. Bitter, yet plesantly so, with a lightness to mellow it out.

Sipdown!

I sent the rest of this off for swaps, so now I’m out of it! It’s got a lot of mellow, green-bean tones that I associate with high-mountain teas and then it also has a nice savory kick to it with a pleasant, mild astringency. I like the 2nd steep the best, because the savoriness really starts to blend in with the mellow bean flavor.

This is a very interesting tea. I had it both yesterday morning and this morning but didn’t have time to log it. My first thoughts were that it had the sweetness of an Assam and the fruitiness of a Cylon. The more I drink it though, the more leather notes I pick up on until that’s the only thing I taste. Weird! I’ve never really tasted leather notes in any tea before. I knew they supposedly existed before, but this is the first tea that made them stand out to me. This is a smooth leather. It feels like how I would imagine licking a saddle or smooth leather bag (not that I do that). I’m not 100% sure I like thotes, but I have plenty of this tea to experiment with and maybe now that I know what to look for I might pick it out. More in other teas.

Black Floral, the lavendar bounces off the black tea with a crisp brightness. This is mildly complex tea with a variety of notes, lavender and linden dance through the drink. This is a very smooth drink that is good for 2 resteeps.

I couldn’t resist breaking into this tea after bringing it home from the tea meet-up!
The base to this tea is strong, malty, and smoky in the way that I always imagined smoky teas to be, but never experienced before. The smokiness is warming and comforting, not obnoxious and overpowering like lapsong souchongs. The woody cedar and the deep, sweet juniper berries further mellow out the smoky aspect.
The pine in the aroma and aftertaste reminds me of summers in Maine! It’s so relaxing! I really like this blend. It really makes me want to try White Wolf, which has cedar in it, when it comes back in stock.

I drank this with hubby and now I find myself relenting on an earlier statement. I said I didn’t think I would ever order the tins because I did not see how they could be worth as much as is being adding to the cost of the leaf. Indeed, it doesn’t seem to make sense. Look at the prices of various teas, figure it by the ounce, and then check the price with tin. The tin doesn’t add the same cost to different teas! And I am accounting for amount of leaf as far as I can tell.

But I went into A Southern Season and behold, they are carrying this brand now in bags. They have the tins sitting out as testers to sniff, and they are magnificent. I don’t think they would dent if an elephant stepped on them, and the double lid is STRONG I tell you! WANT!

The problem is that I don’t want to spend a fortune for the large tins but the small ones only come in yellow and I really want the French blue. You only get those in small if you sign up for the year of teas which is very high and includes a few teas I know I wouldn’t care for. Based on some old links, it looks like they used to sell the tins separately but there is no longer an offer of that on their site.

Sigh. I may call them anyway just to see if they will consider it.

Hubby liked the tea, and liked it well enough that I made my own similar blend to use up some shou mei that was getting a bit of age on it. I have served it, too, and we liked it.

I have been neglecting this and it is time to concentrate on drinking it a LOT before it gets too old to enjoy. I wanted a quiet and contemplative cup tonight for a little candlelight and soft music, just something I have been needing. I invited hubby to join me and I really didn’t know how he would feel about the mint in this. He isn’t a mint hater, but he wasn’t overly fond of chrysanthemum and has preferred unflavored white and greens at times, but I gave it a go.

It turned out that he did like it quite a bit. We enjoyed five steeps of this tea. My favorite part of it is the anise. I really hadn’t had it much before and long ago did not care for it in German cookies, so I am surprised at how much I like it now. Anise reminds me a little of licorice root, which is probably crazy to those of you who are super tasters. I think making homemade cola syrup helped my love of anise to grow, and now I want to start making some homemade anise teas as well.

I really don’t understand the pricing on this website. The photos are gorgeous, the packaging makes you feel positively spoiled when you order, and I didn’t balk too hard at $27 for two ounces since it was just a little splurge for myself. But $125 for 7 ounces in a tin? I love the tins, too, they are magnificent, and at that price I hope they are double lidded, but I honestly can’t see myself ever ordering tea in a tin from them unless I win the lottery…..BIG.

A few months ago my husband forwarded an email to me from his office. A lady in another division found out that I like tea (overlook the fact that I didn’t say “am obsessed with”) and was asking what companies I like. She sent a list of companies from whom she orders, and this was one of the few on the list I was unfamiliar with.

Their website is gorgeous. Their Facebook feed makes my newsfeed pretty every day. The owners of the company were stylists for Martha Stewart Living, and the husband of one owner was a stylist for Anthropologie, so you can guess how gorgeous everything is.

I ordered this one because I was curious about the unusual flavors they have combined here. I chose the two ounce bag to make it more affordable, though I think their tins are heavenly looking. (You can choose for it to come in a box instead of a bag for three dollars extra.)

The dry leaf is positively beautiful. Serving this at a tea party, I would definitely want to display the leaf in a pretty container prior to making the tea. The aroma is mostly spearmint.

The steeped tea is pale gold in color and now smells primarily of star anise, though as it cools the spearmint steps forward a bit again. At no time is it powerfully minty like a Moroccan Mint, but rather it is a nice refreshing breeze blowing through softly.

A guest joined me, and she said she really dislikes licorice and thought she would not enjoy this tea, but she ended up liking it.

My tea came in a pretty bag with brown paper tape with blue pattern. The instructions are handwritten on the label and it was tied up with a pretty ribbon. They also included a generous sample of White Nixon, another of their white tea line. Everything was packed in lots and LOTS of brilliant yellow/gold tissue paper.

Their tins are amazingly beautiful, but I am curious why adding a tin to your order adds a different price depending which tea you are ordering. If the tin is worth $18, why does the addition of the same tin add $17 to one tea order, but $22 to another?

As pretty as the tins are, I will save that splurge for when I am rich as Croesus and can have a whole row of them. For now the bags are pretty enough!

I haven’t had this in so long and I’ve no idea why. I got it about 1 1/2 years ago and haven’t made too much headway into the tin ever since. I think it might be the floral, the combination of lavender and rose is fairly overwhelming but I think this has actually mellowed out a bit with age so perhaps I’ll enjoy it more now than I did when it was new… it certainly smells glorious but I’m not a big drinker of floral teas.

I detect something spicy in here as well, interesting. Perhaps it’s the black tea?

There is a store in the Rockridge district of Oakland called Maison d’Etre and that is where I got this tea on Sunday. I haven’t been there in a while because I have some bad memories associated with that place. Time to move on and leave the bad memories behind. I’ve never heard of Bellocq, but of course I had to get some new tea!

It’s a black tea made with roses and lavender, I admit this is a bit too much for a breakfast tea as it is exceedingly floral. To me it almost seems like a shower gel. The lavender is quite strong here. They suggest having this with a piece of lemon cake and I think that would be really nice. I’m not sure if this is an everyday type of tea but I do like it.

Today – nobody is going to tell me I am not good enough. I am good enough.

This tea is like a boxing match of jasmine and rose, or rose and jasmine, depending on who’s winning at the moment, and the fight may be about a lurking linden blossom. I thought the tea might be a bit too heavily floral for me to enjoy very often, but it’s surprisingly clean tasting, fruity and sophisticated, and I think it will stay in my regular rotation of afternoon teas. It would work well with the tiniest bit of raw honey, if one were that way inclined.

smooth body. sweet flavor of the tea.
subtle evergreen, wild orchid and honey notes.

Infusions: 2-4

Excellent chai. Not too spicy, but still full of invigorating spices that blend perfectly with milk and a bit of honey.

Incredible notes of fresh cherries with chocolate and cinnamon. A definite winner!