Fauchon

Wrong listing, reposted under the correct one!

Caramel. Ooolong. Heaven.
The pairing of flavours leaves a lovely fresh mineral note and something akin to apples, but more like a spritz of apple than a mouthful. The caramel aftertaste is lovely, I am in serious lust!!!
Thank you MissB for sharing.

Oh Fauchon, why can’t I find you at Winners. I missed you when you were first reported to be there, thanks to my hectic schedule which prevented me from making a trip and snagging some teas. They were gone by the time I got over there. Winners/TJMaxx carried them coming two years now? They need to bring them back!

MissB was super duper kind to pass some of this down to me in the grab bag. The mango notes are incredibly subtle here, but I don’t know if it has always been like that or if it has to do with age. It’s also halfway between mango and peach. Not a clear mango.

In regards to the base, I am picking up on a slight smokiness that I get in some of Nina’s teas. Remember, I have an incredibly sensitive palate when it comes to any smokiness whatsoever. I’m by no means talking about Lapsang-level smoke, but rather the slightest undertone. Even so, I’m personally not a fan of that. The base also tastes on the dry side.

Ultimately, this would have been more my thing had they used a different base. But I can see some people being a fan of this.

Not sure what went wrong, but my most recent cup of this (and the resteeps), were terribly bitter, and not in a typical black tea sort of way. Very odd and disappointing. I may have overleafed, but it was a really strange flavour, IMO.

Travel mugged some of this, but I might have overleafed or oversteeped, as it tasted a bit funky. Or perhaps, it’s just best enjoyed in a mug.

I still have a bunch of this left, which is nice because it’s a good, smooth, chocolatey black, even though it’s old.

Looks like I acquired this tea courtesy of MissB – thanks!

It smells absolutely divine, like a creamy milk chocolate; the flavour is perhaps not quite as good, but at least it doesn’t taste fake! That’s always a plus in my books. It just seems to be missing some of the deliciousness of the aroma in the flavour. I might try brewing a few different ways to test it out (I wasn’t overly careful with it tonight). Either way, I appreciate the uniqueness of this tea.

Sad sipdown, but one that was necessary. This tea was pretty old, and what’s left at the bottom of the bag is only a shadow of its former self. I mostly have to use my imagination to remember how this tea used to be, but that’s ok, it’s mostly working. I’d love to have some of this around for a treat every now and then, but will be fine without it for a while.

Side note: the second last cup I had of this, probably only a couple months or so ago, was quite good. The issue here is that it was mostly broken pieces of leaf, and only 1 maybe 2 butterflies.

Quite delicious. Had some more of this primarily because the bag was next to the teapot (did I tell Steepster I got a variable temp B&D kettle? If not, I did. It’s great. I love it. My favourite part is how it tells me the water temp as it cools, so I don’t have to guess as to whether I should reheat the water or just use it. It has a stay-warm function but that’s fairly unnecessary for me.)

Anyways, after that long preamble, I enjoyed this tea, not unexpectedly. I need to get around to trying the other one from Sil, but I’m not 100% sure where it is right now. I’ve been carting teas all about, and there are about 10 different places it could be….

Um…. yes. Very yes. Maybe not quite as tasty as I was hoping, but it’s pretty darn good. Excited to compare it to the other version, which I believe Sil prefers.

Without being sweet, it is very… sweet, and full, and tastes rather like a salted caramel. The oolong base is not overly noticeable, though this would be a significantly different tea without it, I’m sure. I can see myself getting a bit tired of this though, because it is very rich. Definitely will have to treat it as a “treat” tea.

Thank you so much to Sil for passing this along, which was originally from MissB, I believe!

Not long ago my eldest daughter mentioned the trend toward adding savory flavors in unexpected places. In steps this sample from Cameron B! I have had it for a while but a lot of my samples disappeared in a kitchen clean up and were found on a high shelf months later.

This was the second tea served at our tea time and was a really neat tea experience. We began the tea time with tea cookies made with fresh cardamom that had been rolled in ground sugar, which made it the perfect texture between fine granulated sugar and powdered sugar. The first tea had been Decaf Ceylon Orange Pekoe, a sturdy workhorse of a tea with classic pekoe flavor.

Then I sipped this and – WOW. So much thyme! Brothy tasting to me because of the savory herb, I still liked it. My youngest daughter said she still tasted a lot of peach but I did not. She believes it is because loves peaches and eats them so often that the taste is more apparent to her, which is likely true as I rarely eat peaches.

This isn’t something I would buy by the pound but it was a really neat tea to try and I enjoyed it. Thank you, CameronB!

The dry leaf smells like that orange, tacky, peanut-shaped marshmallow-type, cheapo candy… Circus Peanuts! Yeah! Like a too sweet vitamin C chewable tablet and with a slight nutty wash to it.
The flavor is vaguely sweet, but mostly it tastes like a true hazelnut. Dust-flavored skin and all. The vague sweetness may in fact be coming from the mandarin flavor, but I will never know. It is about as orange flavored as generic Orange Pekoe, which is to say, a brighter flavored black tea.
Regardless, it reminds me of my beloved orange blossom earl grey from Twinings, and for that, I will gladly drink down the rest of my sample. Thanks, MissB!

Awwww…. sad sipdown. I’ve had this for years. I didn’t like it much when I first got it, but it eventually grew on me. This last cup was the most macaron like out of all the cups I’ve had, light and fluffy like with perfumey notes of raspberry. I do hope to come across this tea again if they still make it. In the mean time I guess I’m glad to have more room in my cupboard. :/

I’m liking this tea more and more! I even crave and seek it out at times. I wasn’t craving it today, but I’m glad I picked it even if I almost choked on it in my tea drinking eagerness!

I got the sudden craving yesterday for raspberry chocolate tea. Not sure where that came from, but I don’t have a tea that fits that criteria. Shocking. So I turned to this tea as an alternative and have been drinking it for two days despite not really digging it for the past three years. I’m not sure if aging of the tea has played a part or if it took three years for me to be in the right mood for it. It still needed cream to not be bitter, but once that was added it was much smoother. It is still very floral, but I’m picking out raspberry much more than I have before. Could be it is because I’m concentrating on it more. It is still very light and fluffy, like I mentioned in a previous post, but I’m not minding it as much. I would like to mix this with a chocolate tea and see if and how it rounds it out! In the mean time I’m glad I kept this around.

It’s been ages and I still don’t get this tea. It is so light, tastes like perfume and is all high notes. It seems really unbalanced and fluffy. I have found some brands of French teas that I have a better success rate with, but I’m starting to think Fauchon and I just aren’t meant to be.

The first sips of this cup were almost unbearable! It was super strong and had a bitter edge to it, even with cream which usually mellows it out. The next few sips were better, but almost overwhelming with the floral flavor. A few sips after that and I could pick out some raspberry in the floral mix. As I go to take another sip, I catch almond notes in the scent. Maybe that is the intense floral I’m picking up? It gets better as it cools, but it’s definitely not an enjoyable cup from beginning to end. I was looking at the steeped leaves and they looked more green than black so I may try steeping at a lower temp if I decide to try this tea again, but I’m getting to the point in my tea appreciation that I don’t have patience for teas that don’t yield a great cup.

Having this hot steeped and poured over ice today. This is very floral! I get a ton of rose in the aftertaste with a bitter wave. I might be able to imagine raspberry in the sip before the rose kicks in. With some teas there is a bitter taste in the first few sips that fades once I get used to it, but it stays strong in this tea! Adding cream makes this tea WAY better! I can pick out notes of raspberry in the scent of the tea, but it is still difficult to pick it out in the sip. I’m not super familiar with the taste of macaroons, but this tea is inspiring me to become more acquainted with them. I’m not crazy about this tea, but I’m not turned off by it either.

GTTB4

Well I see service solahart is back. Man, those guys just don’t give up.

I quite like it when herbs are paired with fruit in teas, desserts and foods, etc., so I was exicted to try this one. However, the smell of the dry tea was a bit disappointing. Smelled just like mixed dried herbs to me.

The brewed tea has a very quick sweet peachy taste just at the very beginning of the sip but it soon gives way to way too much herb. While quite hot, I was not able to distinguish thyme as the herb. It was more just like generic Italian spices. But after it cooled the thyme became quite strong.

It may have just been the sample I had but there was way too much thyme and hardly any peach in this one.

The black tea base was quite obviously nothing to write about. Ha ha. I would say it was quite mild, no astringency noted. But also no creaminess or thickness to the liquor which was a bit disappointing. The tea felt very thin.

This was a generous sample from a swap and I made it as the second tea of tea party. Tea number one was a bust but this one made up for it.

I have only ever had one Fauchon tea, Le Bonheur, and it is quite good. It reminds me of Paris from Harney and Sons. I chose this tea for today based on the dry leaf aroma. I had my daughter make it at 203F for 3 minutes.

Dry leaf and steeped tea smell like a creamy chocolate eclair, the real deal. I was glad that everyone liked this since they didn’t like the Rishi Wuyi Oolong that we had first. This was the favorite tea today.

Our dessert was a French Silk pie made by my daughter. The crust has pecan meal in it, and the chocolate pie was tall and fluffy and so cool on this miserably hot and humid day. Topped with whipped cream, of course.

I give this tea a zero for a unique reason.

So, I took this and many other black tea blends to work because they are the easiest to brew with what I have available there. After about two ounces in, I began to feel nauseated and then after 15 minutes I got a stomach ache. I decided to call this tea to an end and pour it out.

Upon getting home I drank some more to see what would happen and immediately my turned inside out… I just had to try again for myself to see if it really was the tea. Now that I am home I am sipping away at an oolong.

I initially asked Sil for a sample fo this quite a while ago, being that it is a newer blend from Fauchon and I always want to try their stuff. Unfortunately, some postal service and/or customs seems to have swallowed that tea package because it is still MIA. Booo. I did, however, get a sample of this tea from MissB, so I do get to try it still.

This is definitely very nutty, almost chestnut more than hazelnut. It reminds me a bit of Chauds Marrons from Lupicia, but without the smokiness. Very sweet, candied-like. I don’t get a ton of citrus/mandarin flavor, but I suppose it is there in the background. Pretty tasty, and I’m happy to have it again, but I am glad I got a sample before buying a whole tin because it’s just not the kind of tea I would be able to drink a lot of.

Yet another tea from MissB. I did ask her for any Fauchon teas I hadn’t tried, and this was one. I had a cup of it hot yesterday and realized that I don’t care for hot flavored green teas anymore (except for my rose dragonwell). So I decided to take this one and the rest of the greens she sent me home to cold brew, because I do actually prefer cold brew flavored green tea to black these days!

And I did vastly prefer it as a cold brew. I actually had no idea what the flavors in this were supposed to be, and what I came up with was violet and some others. Apparently it’s citrus and lavender? Wrong purple flower. Well I don’t taste the lavender (fine for me!) and I do get some fruity notes that could be citrus. Overall it was more one those inscrutible french blends that’s impossible to pull apart, but works well together. All in all, yum.

Sorry for my absenteeism as of late; I recently purchased a new home and it has been so chaotic! Anyhow, Thanks to Miss B for the chance to try this tea. I found the aroma very pleasing with an intense apricot fragrance that made me salivate. When brewed the flavour was slightly less concentrated but still lovely. The combination of black tea (perhaps of the keemun variety?) and apricot was truly magnificent. I can see myself enjoying this tea in the future.

Yum. creamy citrus is spot on. That’s really all I’m tasting as well. Creamy in the sense of a cream earl grey, but with a mellow citrus background instead of earl grey! Makes me think of my lime meltaways when I don’t use enough zest!