Palais des Thes

Most of friends love it. It’s very flavourful et sweet, yet refreshing. Can be also drunk cool / iced. Good afternoon tea.

I drink this tea on mornings when i still feel bloated from yesterday’s food and i need to focus. Not that it helps, because i’m writing this review while i have a paper to write and due date… was yesterday. I don’t dislike this tea but in my opinion it is a bit bland. I much prefer a chai tea than black tea with turmeric.

I got a bag of this as a free sample with an order (quite) a while ago. I’m keeping it in the cup while drinking and I’ve added plenty of milk.

It just strikes me as a bit thin. I’m getting mostly hot water and milk and ginger. And I honestly don’t much care for ginger. It burns in the throat much the same way strong alcohol does, and while I do enjoy the occasional G&T I don’t generally make them very strong.

All I’m getting is ginger. It’s not very satisfactory. I think there’s a bit of cardamom somewhere in there, but it’s not very convincing. I think I’ll just have to give up on this one. I want a proper cup of tea.

Satisfying spin on chamomile. What I like about this is the delicate peppery herbaceous aroma and taste. It mingles really well with the balanced chamomile, apple and spices. Really light with a simple sweetness.

This tin was gifted to me and my wife by a friend. Even though we have a Palais des Thés shop 10 minutes away from our home, I must admit that I don’t recall ever tasting any of their teas. And so, yesterday afternoon, my wife and I sat down for an afternoon tea tasting and opened this green tea.

What a nice surprise when we opened the tin! The leaves are beautifully long and unbroken. They’re mixed with bits of fruit and curled up in the nicest way – not saying that other teas are ugly but these leaves look so regular? Their smell made us think of candy and cake, it’s very sweet which is probably due to the citrus and ginger bits. The marine side of the tea is quite nicely combined with the citrus and ginger, there’s no one aroma overshadowing the others, it’s a pretty elegant mix. Both the citrus and ginger seem authentic; nothing to do with other teas I’ve tasted in the past (cough Terre d’oc cough).

Brewed this for 3 minutes. It has a cloudy aspect, in a good way – the cup in which I drank it was grey, it looked like water I had fished out of a lost pond deep inside a thousand-year-old forest. Like a moss infusion. But in a good way! It scratches a very specific itch.
The brew itself smells like a citrus cake with a ginger spin. My wife thought it was the opposite – a ginger cake with a hint of citrus. We agreed on the cake element though, this tea is incredibly creamy, almost butter-y, both in smell and taste. The marine element of the green tea is still very present though. Overall a blend that works well.

The first sip was incredibly sweet, in a nice way, because of the blend quality. It’s not too sweet and it didn’t bother either of us. My wife noted how the orange in the citrus brings that sweetness to the tea. It definitely brings some balance to it, as well.

In my opinion, this blend is a great one for both people who aren’t huge fans of the marine side of green tea and need some aroma with it, and for people who, on the contrary, love green tea for what it is and are looking for a well-blended, good quality and interesting citrus-and-ginger spin on it. A previous review of this tea mentions the Kusmi green tea one, which I will try to taste before I run out of the Palais des Thés one, as a comparison.

I would suggest drinking this tea on its own, without any biscuits or sweets, because of the blend’s own sweetness. If you usually like your tea sweetened I would advise trying it without any sugar first.

Rating it at 76 according to my own scale – rating may be edited as I keep tasting more green teas.

Earl Grey teas are often my favorites, but I’m surprised that I like this blend better than Palais des Thes traditional earl grey. This one was absolutely delightful and really made my day better just by sipping it. I will be looking for again!

Another from Donatzsky, little sample package (good for my collection at least (if tea is bad))

I wantede do it western. Ratio tea/water would be bad. Grandpa – I was afraid it would be too strong. Decided for gong-fu then.

4 grams/85 ml.

Well, this tea sounds interesting. Cinnamon is my fav, pu-erh is still hit or miss. And I think this is shu.

I rather did not made any rinse, I was kind of afraid all cinnamon would be gone. So here we come:

1st steep, 20 seconds (why so long, Martin?)
Earthy for sure, but with mellow cinnamon notes. Those for aroma. In taste it is, unexpectably, similar. It is earthy, but thre cinnamon mellows it a lot and it actually tastes like some cinnamon cupcake. Good start I think.

2nd, 30 seconds
pours really dark liquor, much more earthy and no more much cinnamon. It is there, but weak. Not a good one. It is “muddy”.

3rd, 30 seconds
Yep, this is like first steep. But without cinnamon. It all flushed away? Earthy.

4th, 40 seconds
Longer, but more watery. Even clearer when poured, previous ones were very opaque, this one is actually clear. Probably it wasn´t meant to be made gong-fu. In taste it is some kind of cheap pu-erh.

5th, 60 seconds
Last one. It is almost clear. No colour, no opaque. No taste. Okay, little bit of taste – earthy something. But even that is so weak.

I had it actaully in muslin sachet.

One steep only, 4 minutes long.
Yesterday was kind of crazy day. I had two exams (hard ones), and I passed both. I was drinking beer in the evening with friends – I did not had much (usually I have more) and it just went not good.

So, I took some strong taste tea and as I was lazy to make gong-fu, I decided for pu-erh from tea bag. I am rather sceptical, I never was friend of pu-erh (that changed) esepcially when in tea bags.

But this tea is actually really good. Very woody, but still very mild. It not very complex, though. But for tea bag it is good one.

This tasting note is not very long, I know. But I just do not feel writing in English today so much. Or at least, this morning.

I have to downrate this one a bit (84 → 80), I brewed completely same as last time.

It tasted pretty generic green tea with no grassy notes, rather just mineral and little seaweed. Little bit it reminded me ocean air in aroma.

Probably old, I know…

Muslin sachet, 75 degrees, 90+ seconds.

I unpacked it from foil wrapping expexting at most pyramid sachet. But It was muslin one. At least I think it is a muslin one. That was nice surprise. I boiled the water and let it cool down on its own. No fridge, no ice – just slowly cooling down. Then it hit 75 °C mark and I put the bag in.

After recommended (half between Cameron B’s and half what is written) I took from yellowish-green liquor sachet out. It is clear, nice colour.

In taste it is nice grassy tea with notes of spinach I think. Quite unexpected – sweet.

Pretty easydrinking sencha – with not so complex flavours. But I understand it is nice for morning – they even suggest it. Let’s see how it will wake me up :)

I have a soft spot for this tea and really like it, despite its being overly perfumed.
It’s like a more citrusy Earl. It brews less intense than it smells and I often like it a little stale or after it has been opened for a bit.

Thanks to Roswell Strange for a sample of this tea! Unfortunately, I think I overleafed or oversteeped it – it was quite potent, and tasted heavily flavoured, somewhat floral. I’ll have to give it another shot when paying more attention!

Sipdown (606)!

Oh wow – this is very much that SUPER generic European “red fruit” flavour that just tastes like generic red fruit, maybe with something peach-y in addition and some vague floral undertones? It’s not bad but it just tastes like SO MANY other teas that come out of European tea companies like Palais des Thes, Dammann Freres, etc. It’s such a generic flavour(ing). Plus, this is a little bit bitter from the green tea base – so it doesn’t even have a leg up on that whole ‘genre’ of tea flavours. It’s fine for now; not something that will stick out in my mind months, or likely even days, from now…

This was actually my least favourite of this line up, which surprised me…

I thought that the mango notes themselves were fine, albeit quite generic. Especially when paired up with a rooibos/honeybush base. It reminded me a lot of Tea Taxi’s Tropic Thunder, actually – just less sweet/juicy. The thing that really sort of ruined the cup for me was the surprisingly strong smokey characteristic is had? Like, I have no way of even attempting to guess where it came from but it was super powerful and reminded me a lot of hickory smoked wood? With a gamey sort of quality to it too? It was REALLY unpleasant, and completely unexpected given the tea description.

I might try this again just to see if it’s consistent, but wow… It was not good.

I am officially moved into my new place!

I still have things to unpack, and I’ll have to go to the old place on the weekend just to clean up the room for whoever moves in next but I am done hauling stuff to the new place. Plus, I have my kettle and most of my tea collection unpacked, so I’m back to having tea at home after work…

In fact, that’s what this cup was! I had a particularly stressful and taxing day at work and also managed to go the whole day (inadvertently) without having any caffeinated teas so I needed something both with some caffeine, because I was a shell of a human, but also soothing and relaxing. This fit the bill perfectly!

It’s light bodied but not lacking in flavour, with a dewy and floral pear flavour throughout accented by just the faintest hint of rose. Couldn’t have picked something better for the mood if I’d wanted to!

Cold Brew!

A little bitter, and distinctly grassy – no way someone doesn’t immediately peg this as a green tea blend when doing a blind taste. Also has that dewy/floral pear flavour that I love though; the one that reminds me a little bit of Loreal pear scented hair detangler; but, like, in the best way.

Still like this more hot – but it’s nice cold brewed too!

It’s been a while since I last had this tea, but it was a delightful selection for an evening “relaxing” cuppa last night after I got home from work. I’ve been having headaches off and on for the last two weeks, and last night’s was really bad so all I wanted to do was having a nice, long soak in the tub and then hide in my room with a warm cup of tea and all of the light’s off, in complete silence.

This was very smooth, with a more floral/perfumed pear flavour and hints of very relaxing rose – sort of like my own “spa day” in tea form. I really, really love pear teas; and in particular I tend to enjoy the more dewy, juicy and floral pear notes often used in European blends (sweet/bright or creamy pear are also good though!) and so this really hit the spot. I certainly felt very zen/calm and while my headache didn’t go away, it was tolerable which is still a win in my books!

This was my second favourite of all the Palais des Thes DETOX line up, but I still really adored it. One of my all time favourite flavours done by European tea companies is pear; they just always seem to perfectly nail the lushness of the flavour, while capturing the sweet, floral elements and that sort of “dewy” quality.

This is definitely an amazing pear flavour! I think the choice to put it on a green base actually makes sense in this case too because the greener/natural notes of the tea base lean in very heavily to the natural qualities of the pear flavouring. Adding rose? A stroke of genius, as the pear itself has very floral undertones. The whole thing is just really well balanced/crafted, and right up my alley. In fact, every time I smelled the dry leaf or steeping/steeped cup I was hit with this huge pang of Deja Vu and I think that’s because pear is just a flavour that European tea companies deliver on so consistently?

But yes – if you like pear I 100% recommend trying this tea.

Just finished a delicious and cozy mug of this tisane – sweet cranberry with something about it that loosely reminds me of granola or oatmeal, but softly. Like, this could be a “breakfast tea” for me very easily in terms of flavour. Still delicious in the evening, though. The little bit of bilberry sweetness is a good touch too.