Fauchon

Oh wow! I don’t think I’ve had this one with cream before. It’s so good this way! Apricot and orange are NOT a flavour combo I thought I’d fall for, but I did.

Still, I think the 100g tin will be enough. Fauchon teas are expensive even in Europe, I think mostly for the seriously lovely tins. (I’m still looking at Madeleine de Miel, just because I’ve never seen these flavours before, and… honey tea! <3 http://www.fauchon.com/en/the-madeleine-au-miel.html)

Today I have decided to have teas I really like, even if I can’t completely taste them.

My BFF has gone grocery shopping for me (club soda, OJ, cat food) and is getting me breakfast (spicy Vietnamese beef stew with rice noodles).

I can breathe through my nose.

Things are looking up.

Tea, your texture is amazing. I can tell you taste like delicious things, even if I can’t really taste you. You’re sort of hinting at a bake shop today, which is interesting. I’m guessing that’s the black tea and honey commingling and making something delicious.

Mmm.

I steeped it up and immediately batted it off the pedestal it had placed itself on with the addition of a spoon of sugar and a lot of milk.

You see, I’ve had a bad week and tea with milk and sugar is comfort. I’m trying to give love to all my cupboard, so I’m not just having breakfast teas… I’m having ALL the teas.

This one is delicious any way I have it. I love the citrus and apricot flavours together. The base is nice and strong, but not “in your face”. So glad I found this tea.

So far I really like this one. Apricot, oranges, good with a little honey. I can see this being an excellent tea latte as well.

Win! Glad I accidentally ended up with this one instead of Après-midi a Paris. :)

Cold steeped this last night with a tiny bit of honey.

So so good. Yes, I will drink ALL this tea and then look around for more.

I didn’t have a chance to drink it at work, so I’m chugging it right now so I can move on to something else. :)

(2 tsp in my DavidsTea steeper, a tiny bit of honey, overnight. It doesn’t colour a lot, but the flavour certainly transfers!)

This is SO GOOD iced.

I made the tea this morning(ish) by using 1.5 tsp tea and 1 cup 195F water and about 1 tsp honey. Steeped 5 min, then poured it over ice in a cold drink container. I think it’s 600ml. I topped it up with cold filtered water.

SO GOOD. Really. Peach and honey to start, with a lingering nice herbal taste of thyme and honey. A little dry feeling from the tea, very very refreshing. I can see me going through this super fast in the summer.

So… this is weird. Weird but good? Good but weird? Something like that.

The thyme is so strong. Dry, the smell of the peaches come through, but after steeping I mostly get thyme. I added 1/4 tsp sugar to try to bring out some sweetness of the fruit, but I’m not so sure it’s working.

As it cools, the peach comes out a bit. I can see this being an amazing iced tea in the summer. I’ll have to try cold steeping it soon-ish, even though it’s now the cold and rainy season here. :)

(2 tsp in ~15 oz)

The flavouring in this tea is like a cross between Italian Torrone and Turkish Delight. I quite like it, but I find that if you want the flavouring to pop brew it for less than the recommended four or 5 minutes. I can definitely taste the marzipan which blends well with a slightly fruity, slightly bitter rose and Jasmine. For those who hate floral teas this is not overly floral, it’s more candy like. The almond flavour is part marzipan, part nougat and part cake ( if you’ve had a cake baked with almond flour). It is not overly sweet, which is nice as I prefer to be able to sweeten a tea to my own tastes. The Tea is quite pretty with a scattering of rose buds, jasmine pieces and sliced almonds. The base is a chinese black but it brews up to that thick sort of consistency that assams often have.

The tea brews up to a dark amber and smells of a rich white cake. The base tea underneath brews up to a thick, slightly tannic and malty fruity tea. It adds a slightly bready texture to the tea and would handle milk or cream well. I find that if allowed to brew too long the base overtakes the flavouring of the tea.

The tea re-steeps nicely. The more I sip this tea it reminds me of cake, which is nice and fitting since it’s my ‘jour de naissance’.

I drank the whole mug before I got to writing this, which is a bit of a shame because I tend to forget quite quickly what’s happening with my first impressions of a tea… while there’s a zoo going on around me. You know the drill, a teenager who wants to DO something, a 5-year-old that spilled the liquid chocolate popsicle mix all over the kitchen, a client emergency, and a phlegmy cold. Yep, that’s my Sunday.

The tin for this tea was ingenious, and offered a little cardboard hello as I opened it, basically saying it’s packaged this way to retain the flavors. Neat! I had to slide the top off sideways, then lift a sealed jewelbox -like door to get to the tea, which was filled to the brim. The scent of raspberries wafted up to me, and a touch of… cake?

Steeped, this still smells mostly of raspberries with something else a bit floral in the background. My first taste threw me off, as there was little raspberry. More of a… cakey, minty floral something or other. Intrigued, I drank more, and it evolved. Raspberries did come into the mix, and much more so once sweetened with Truvia. I can taste the rose in there, and the aftertaste is definitely dry raspberries, with maybe, mint? Cooling, dry.

I like this a lot, even though I’m struggling to describe it well. Surprised me, as I was expecting more of a birthday cake kind of tea, like DAVID`s maybe, and this is so much more complex and intriguing.

Felt like this was a long time to steep a black, so I may try for 3-4 minutes next time.

Why do I bother with any other chocolate tea when I have this?

Had this the other night – I forget which. Tasted less amazing than it has in the past… which is weird because I really thought this was one of those teas I couldn’t mess up. I’m thinking my tastebuds were off.

1.5 tsp in 12oz.

Amazing! Must steep at a lower temperature from now on in. It takes an amazing tea and makes it truly special. Now I get chocolate first, then orange, and all of it delicious.

Tea #3 of indulging myself. Still surprised at how cocoa-like this is.

This is a very different experience from the last time I drank this, and I’m puzzled as to why. Still great, still lovely with lots of depth, however it’s lacking in flavor.

Am I getting sick? Is my general poopiness bringing my tastebuds down? Hm. Weird. Going to add some Truvia and enjoy the liter I brewed.

Holy moly. Just as I thought this tea was perfect as-is, I added Truvia to it.

The first few sips of the second mug (that sat a while), are more orange, less chocolate. About halfway through the cup it got back to the dry 100% cocoa-y vibe, and so I decided, “Why not? I’ll add some sweetener and see how it tastes.”

Well now, it’s like candy. I’m a greedy gal who wants to gulp it down in one sip. That’s right, like rich, decadent, very dark, orange chocolate, minus any cream, although it is quite buttery. The orange is most prominent now, with the dry cocoa following. Oh, wait. Do I dare add cream?

Maybe next time. This is just plain awesomesauce, and I want to cup to last forever.

Opening this tin makes me think of oranges. Pure, freshly squeezed oranges. It’s divine and lovely, and I inhaled quite a bit before putting 1 tsp. per 8 oz of water into my Breville.

Amazingly, this actually smells like those chocolate oranges I find everywhere in Canada over the holidays. They look like an orange, and you whack them against a table or something for them to “break” into slices… and then you take off the foil and eat the orange-flavored chocolate yumminess. As Fauchon specializes in baked delicacies, this is what I imagine what their chocolate orange would smell like. Heaven.

The first sip really surprised me. I took another few to confirm. This tastes EXACTLY like caocao nibs – the unsweetened globs of goodness I usually put in my cereal for depth and crunch. The mouthfeel is the same (dry and cocoa-y), the texture is similar (thick) and it’s quite shocking to me how similar it is. The orange follows almost as if it’s a child lollygagging behind; it’s there, but only if you’re paying attention.

This is my first 100 rating on Steepster, and now my favorite tea. Next cup, I’ll try it with some Truvia to see how it changes. Right now, I’m just going to inhale and enjoy this dry, almost tart, caocao orange flavor.

The scent of this tea is of white tea, lemongrass and a hint of something creamy. Usually I don’t pick out the individual ingredients just by the scent, but this one puts it right in front of your nose!

Sipping… this tea is so straight-forward… it’s as if every element from the scent has been enhanced and translated right into the flavor. Lemongrass is the most prominent note for me, closely followed by the white tea. I wish there were more of the cream/vanilla, but it hides in the background and isn’t completely missing.

I like this tea, but have to be in the mood for it. It’s not a blend that I can drink anytime, but it’s not one that I would avoid either.

i think… that perhaps fauchon and i don’t get along. Dinosara sent this one my way, and i really thought i would like it but the floral taste is too much for me. I don’t get much in the way of vanilla, though it is there for me a bit. Instead it feels very much like i’m back in my grandmother’s bathroom smelling her floral hand creams. Only that’s what it tastes like to me. bah. Oh well, can’t win them all, and if you like rose, you’d probably really like this tea.

sipdown! i had some of this hot brewed earlier today and then cold steeped the rest. Let’s talk about how that was a bad idea. Don’t do it. I was hoping it would let the flavours come out a bit more…no such luck. Ah well, at least i enjoyed the hot steepings of this one, and i’m really glad to have crossed this off my list! thanks a bunch dinosara!

I may have steeped this one at too high a temperature, but i still have some more to play with so that’s all good. This is another one from dinosara and it’s an interesting one. I’m not sure how i feel about it. I didn’t get much in the way of macaron from this, but i did get the raspberry flavouring, though it was more artificial than being close to real raspberries. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but i’m glad i have a little more to play with.

this was an interesting darjeeling for me this morning – not my favourite sort of darjeeling but i did like that it was different. this has more floral notes than i prefer but there’s also a taste running through that i do like. Happy to have the chance to try this one.

sipdown on this one (225) i don’t like it. pretty sure it’s the oolong base that just ruins it for me. it’s not one of those tasty oolongs i am ok with..instead it’s got this weird ick factor going on when mixed with the orange and almond. yep..oh well, glad i got to try it since this is one i would have expected to have liked!

not a sipdown! I tried this one in because i wanted a bit of flavour, without having to look through samples that i didn’t set out last night lol. Overall, so far, i’m underwhelmed. I think i need to overleaf this a bit. Mostly it tasted like a green oolong. As it cooled, more of the orange started to come through but the almond side of this is missing. Luckily i have enough to make another cup in the nearish future to see if i can get it right and have a tastier cup!

Thanks to RogersCK for a sample of this! I love how creamy and lemon-y this tastes. Despite its delicateness, this blend holds it own without any problem whatsoever. I can definitely envision curling up with cup of this and watching snow fall softly outside. Mmmm… yes, winter suddenly sounds much more appealing.