Nina's Paris

This is a very smooth, up-quality morning tea with more sharps in its flavor scale than flats. Nice coppery color and taste. Kicks you awake with stylish pointy-toed girl shoes instead of ten-pound army boots.

If you haven’t had a chance to try any of the offerings from the nice folks at Nina’s, you need to. All winners so far!

What a lovely tea ! I am a sucker for apple teas and for peach, apricot and vanilla teas so…i picked this one

I especially adore apricots but actually I refuse to buy any…I am living in Paris it just means we don’t have apricots around and I cannot buy directly to the producer…We are producing a lot of Apricot in the south of France but if I want to buy 1 kg (2.2 pounds) I have to pay 7 € ! 3 years ago during the season apricots were around 3 € which was correct. And I won’t speak about cherries (9 € a kg !) I hope in your respective countries you can buy seasonal fruits without contracting a credit :) !

The tea…of course I love this one.
I brewed it at 100°c and left it for 6 minutes.
Again same tea base as with the other Nina’s Paris flavoured blacks I tried until now.
The aromas are incredible and I got first peach and vanilla then apricot, apple is really behind.
This is my favourite of the Nina’s samples I tried until now.So delicate, so smooth and YUMMY.
Thank you Laurent and Mélanie from Nina’s Paris for the sample.

Thank you for this free sample (among others) from Sophie and Laurent at Nina’s Paris USA.

Taurus is my zodiac sign so this must be the tea for me then. Even though rooibos is not my favorite, I have found that overall I don’t mind Nina’s Paris’ rooibos blends. They tend to be quite smooth and don’t have too much of a medicinal taste like some rooibos teas have.

The smell of the dry tea is very tart strawberry. The brewed tea smells more sweet, ripe strawberry with a slightly creamy scent. The brewed tea tasted like strawberries and cream! Just like it is supposed to. The strawberry does have a tartness to it, that I found became a bit astringent towards the end of the cup (and after it had cooled quite a bit). The creamy taste blends well with the strawberry. Initially I thought it tasted like strawberry, then a bit later it was kind of like cherry, but then back to strawberry again after a bit more cooling. You can taste the rooibos tea in the background, but it is not too strong, and I think it does a good job of making the tea smooth.

Unlike others I found the scent of this one to be only mildly to moderately smoky perhaps this is the result of transit or maybe I have had some very Smoky teas of this variety before. There is hint of pine, and a slightly sweet scent.

I brewed this one gongfu style.

50s orangey brown maple colour broth with a
scent of smoke, grain, and plum with a hint of honey.

As I said before this is not as strongly smokey as some lapsang souchongs I’ve had. The tea has a slightly heavier bodied tea underneath it. It is warming, with a hint of warm bread and honey followed by sweet ripe plum dipped in honey with a hint of cocoa. The after taste consists of a cooling sensation in the back of the mouth accompanied by a developing honey sweetness at the front, as well as a heavier hint of malt mixed with a mild smoked honey flavour. A lingering peppery sensation develops later on and mixes with the taste of honey. The tea still leaves me with a general feeling of warmth.

60s more bready/grainy less sweet on first sip but still sweet in the aftertaste.

There is a fruity honey aftertaste with a mild smoke and peppery cooling sensation.

70s slightly thinner, nice mix of sweet honey, bread and smoke, tastes like artisinal multigtain bread cooked in a wood oven.

90s smooth balance between smoke grain and sweetness, less sweet, smoke a little more dominant over other flavours. Honey still comes out in aftertaste.

110s smoke, grain, faint sourness honey.
130s honeyed water with hint of smoke and bread

250s same as last steep

Altogether quite a nice tea and a nice choice for those who like there Lapsang Souchongs to be sweet and honeyed. Thanks Laurent and Sophie for the Sample!

This was the last of my loose-leaf samples that I had to log. And just as I was brewing this cup, the mail arrived with new samples, ha! I don’t think I will ever be caught up. But I look forward to trying the new samples when I get home from the beach on Friday.

I saved this sample for last because I was pretty excited about it. I don’t love rooibos, but all of the other teas that I’ve tried from Nina’s have been so well balanced that I figured this one would be worth a try. The dry leaves smell of fresh strawberries with a hint of rooibos. The tea in my cup has a rooibos and jammy strawberry aroma. The flavor is bursting with fresh strawberries and cream. There is really only a little rooibos noticeable in the aftertaste. This is really a great tea and I am loving this fresh strawberry flavor. Perfect for summer, and I bet it would be wonderful iced! Thank you, Sophie and Laurent from Nina’s Paris for this sample!

-Dry blend has red rooibos with pieces of dried strawberries.
-Dry leaves smell like fresh strawberries with a hint of rooibos. Tea liquor aroma is of rooibos and jammy strawberry.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium reddish orange color.
-Fresh strawberry flavor and finish. Light berry and cream aftertaste with a hint of rooibos.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Very good tea. Fresh and juicy strawberry flavor with a heavy cream note. Only a small rooibos flavor noticeable in the aftertaste.

It is my second sample kindly sent by Laurent and Mélanie from Nina’s.

I am an Earl Grey lover, I have at least 8 Earl Grey or Earl Grey variations teas in my cupboard. So I was really happy to have another one to discover.

I didn’t respect the brewing advices of Nina’s because for the first sample I found the tea base light for my palate so I decided to steep 5 minutes.
And I think I have been right.

The bergamot is subtle and delicate and it was really light on the dry leaf scent.It smelled subtle but delicious.

The liquor is beautiful, an amber coulour, translucent, very lovely but I was a little worried because generally when I can see clearly the bottom of my mug it often means the tea base is light and often too light.

This Earl Grey has a very nicely balanced citrusy bergamot, this is really well done.Flavour is really a perfection :natural, not over- perfumy,it’s just as if a very fresh bergamot had been squeezed and added to the tea.

I suspect the keemun used as base is the same as the one used in Thé de Vendôme. I can taste it better here vs the previous sample but it is still a little too light for my taste. I would have prefered a medium-bodied tea but this is really a question with my own tastes.

This Earl Grey is really refreshing and perfectly blended. I would consider it as a Summer Earl Grey.
I imagine it can make a very nice iced-tea as well.

mmm this is a sipdown as well, though i never logged it in my cupboard since i knew i’d be drinking it today. Another sample sent my way by Laurent of Nina’s tea. I really am looking forward to placing an order with them when they have their website up and running…though if that takes much longer i may just get it through amazon.

I don’t drink a lot of smokey teas but i have found a few that i enjoy a lot and then there are others i’ll use mostly for cooking with. This is a blend that i would do both with. It’s a very smooth smokey tea that has a fantastic smell to it! I added a bit of maple syrup to this and man it is one fantastic cup of tea with the added sweetner. If you like smokey teas, this is well worth trying!

I’m tired of this tea. So it’s going in to my swap box.

It’s not that it’s a bad tea, but i never find myself wanting to drink it, and it’s got too much of that woodsy sort of rooibos taste to it that i don’t like. If this had just a little more strawberry flavour it would be perfect. Without it though, it’s not for me.

I added a teaspoon of David’s tea vanilla rooibos to this one since i know that the rooibos in this one isn’t my favourite. With the added vanilla, this is a lovely strawberry vanilla tea. :) Without it, it’s a little woodsy for my taste, though still a pleasant cup!

I had a cup of this in celebration of Nina’s awards at the tea competition. They now have an online store, even if shipping is still a little wonky heh their customer service is great as always though :) and i’m happy to say, more japon is on it’s way to me now! wooo hoo!

i think i’m too hot. started to write this note and now i’m not feeling well so into the cold shower i go. long story short, pulled this one out since i need to start working on Jan-march teas lol if i’m going to keep up with my goals. while theres a little more rooibos taste here than i want, it still a tasty treat

(240 ‘cause apparently i did toss this one in my cupboard) Another sample from Laurent and one of the ones i’ve been most looking forward too. I love me a good strawberry cream tea (thank you nicole for the additional walter bishop you sent!!!!!!!!!!)

this tea smells divine! holy strawberries batman!this…this is reaaaaallly good. It’s not at all like walter bishop or the other strawberry rooibos blends i’ve had. it’s different. and equally delicious. it’s like a juicy strawberry burst open in my mouth. slightly artificial but not in the strawberry starburst kind of way…just a more like strawberry flavour than fresh strawberries picked from the garden.

this one is really good….i can see this being tasty cold brewed AND with sweetner/milk in it. really nice!

Second steep, longer, 4 minutes, less water, 95°c and not boiling and the base comes better out.
It’s still light for my personal taste but it may be the purpose of this tea to be especially light (light on tannins too)and refreshing.
I need to continue exploring my samples of Nina’s tea to have a better panorama on their creations.

Anyway : smooth and mellow tea (awww Keemuns I love you), light bodied with wonderfuls natural aromas of orange and grapefruit (most on the grapefruit side to my opinion) : definitively a pleasant tea for an evening in summer.

Thank you so much Laurent and Mélanie for having sent me some samples from Nina’s Paris.

Thé de Vendôme is my first sample : I have chosen it randomly among the other samples…;) … Do you know how I choice randomly ? I pick one randomly and randomly say…oh no, not this one tonight…and then another always randomly…until I randomly choice this one. This is my typical touch for hazard …
So I went for this one because it has grapefruit in the ingredient list and it is mentioned to be a keemun and I love keemuns.
Grapefruit seems to be a difficult fruit to respect in a tea.I had very few and was curious.

The sample is a delicate and beautiful tea bag made of a luxious muslin.
I like to sniff the dry leaf so you should imagine me sniffing the leaf through the muslin…definitively the less sexiest ceremony for a tea BUT that’s the way I am.
The dry leaf so was absolutely divine, for sure it is orange and grapefruit and a natural scent.

I strictly respected the timing advices of Nina’s : 2 minutes (even if I found it really short) and used boiling water as no temperature recommendation is provided.

I retain my note at the moment because even if I can say the aromas are just fantastic and incredibly refined, sophisticated and so natural, the tea base is really weak, present but weak.

I will retry soon with a longer steep (4 minutes at least) to see if the base is coming out better for my taste.

I walked into the den a little bit ago and the scent of pine smoke caught me before I entered the room. So I gladly used yesterday’s leaf to have this one again. 2nd cup a day later is just as deeply flavorful as the first. Our elegant Nina has a wild side. Who knew? Love it.

I’ll be posting a full review on my blog in the next week but I can’t wait to talk about this one. It totally surprised me. Here is a snippet:

This cup is perhaps the heaviest smoked Lapsang Souchong I have tasted but it is not ashes. This is fully developed sweet pine smoke. It actually tastes like pine to me. It is sweet without the bacon or pork BBQ notes. While it is heavy it has layers of taste as you sip.

Count me a fan!

How did they do it? How do you get this much flavor from such tiny tiny pieces of leaf? This starts lightly sweet, then passes through green and leafy, on through fruity and wine, down into toasty before ending in a nice touch of bite. It is very smooth – even the bite at the end is not harsh. Just a very nice cup.

This is a sample sent by Laurent and Sophie at Nina’s. Thank you! I tried to review this early this morning but Steepster was acting up again and it wouldn’t let me.

I used my whole sample to make a small pot of hot tea. My friend and I drank one 5 ounce cup each with no sweetener. The rooibos base comes through very clearly but the strawberry is nice and fruity. I saved the remaining eight ounces and let it cool. I added simple syrup and ice, and I think this is the way I enjoyed it most. It is nice and light, clear and fruity.

Thank you again, Nina’s!

Sipdown. This is such a creamy pot of tea, with perfect strawberry flavor. A great tea for a summer evening. I am sorry to see this go.

The discription does not lie. Strawberries and cream! This is scrumptious. The strawberry flavor is perfect, just like the real thing, fresh from the farmers markets.
Even if Roobious isnt usually your thing, give this a try. Its wonderful.

Thanks Laurent for this free sample with my last order. I am not a huge rooibos fan, but I am glad Laurent added some rooibos samples to my last order, because I am enjoying them.

This tea smells of rooibos and also of strong sweet mint. Mostly spearmint smelling. The hot tea tastes of light, smooth, sweet rooibos and strong mint. Seems to be a mix of pepper- and spear- mint tasting. Underneath the mint, there is an unsweetened cocoa taste. The rooibos seems to give the tea some sweetness. I do not normally like chocolate teas, but this one seems to be well done. It has a chocolate taste to it but is not trying to mimic chocolate. Like I have found with some of Nina’s other rooibos teas, the taste seems best after it cools a bit, but before it becomes luke-warm.

You just can’t mess up a tea that has strawberry in it. This little sample from the nice folks at Nina’s has a bushel of farm-fresh strawberry flavor and is thicker and more velvety on the tongue than other rooibos blends.

…oh my…and with a little sweetener as k s recommended, it turns into shortcake!

This was labeled as Taureau on the sample. My first review was eaten, amazingly not by Steepster this time but my crappy internet connection. Sigh. Short version: To my fellow Steepsterites who weren’t sure they wanted to try this one because it’s rooibos – you really need to reconsider. First sip reminded me of a light cup of wild strawberry. Not tart. Instead it is kind of mildly green. At this point I added sweetener – OH WOW! I don’t care if you normally don’t you need to sweeten this! Totally amazing. The cup explodes with strawberries and cream. I do get a woodsy touch of rooibos in the aftertaste but it blends so well even rooibos haters probably won’t mind. This is a caffeine free tisane I would actually look forward to sipping.

I’m not sure what to make of this one! It is a lot richer and earthier than I expected. And kind of smokey though I’m sure it isn’t actually smoked like a lapsang. That is the only thing I can think to compare it to though, a VERY mellow lapsang! Interesting. A new experience for sure :)