Palais des Thes

Sipdown. I oversteeped this a little by accident, but instead of tasting oversteeped it tastes just as I’d like it. The honey and floral notes come out more this time and the base tea is actually present instead of being too weak. Upping the rating significantly, because I think this one just needs to brew longer.

This is my first black tea in five days! Sadly it’s a little lackluster for me. There’s a honeylike sweetness to it, but it leaves my mouth feeling powdery. The taste is also weaker than I’d like. Maybe it could be saved by overleafing, but I only have enough for one cup. Oh, well.

Sounded awesome, opened the tin expecting a blast of citrus aromas aaaaand……. nope. Their Thes des Lords EG has more citrus smell than this blend. Once brewed, the leaves oooze all sorts of bright citrus aromas, like a truck carrying lemons and grapefruits crashed into a lemon-zest factory, but the tea.. well.. not so much. Not much at all, really.

Funny thing, along with my order I got a few sample tea bags and one of the bags was this very tea. Opened it, and it had a bit stronger scent than the loose leaf in the tin did, but the brewed liquor was pretty much the same.

The saving grace of this tea, and main reason it doesn’t get 21-40 range score, is that YES there is a bit of citrus in there, but the russian blend of blacks is actually quite nice and smooth, and makes an excellent pairing with other teas in blends, especially where a touch of citrus won’t hurt.

Completely misses one target but scores enough points on a completely different one accidentally. Enough so that I might consider ordering a refill pouch eventually if I don’t find better partners for a few blends I’m trying to perfect.

This tea immediately grabbed my attention with its sweet and fruity aroma(I wish my shampoo smelled this good)! After bringing the water to 170F, steeping for 3 minutes, and inhaling the sugary steam, my taste buds were surprisingly quiet. The tea’s vibrant fragrance dimmed in the space between my nose and tongue. The flavor is exceptionally light and breezy. The fruity scent mixes with the grassy taste and the image of strawberries comes to mind.

At best, I find this tea calming. At worst, boring. I guess you have to be in the right mood to appreciate it. The weather is quite gloomy today in Northern Virginia, strawberries and grass actually seems quite pleasant.

the aroma is a mouthwatering mélange of dates & honey…when sipped, a truly delicious, fruity floral golden green tea, sprinkled with rose petals. i also get a definite strawberry note in this, so that takes care of the ‘red fruit’ at least in part. on the whole, no one note prevails save maybe the perfume imparted by a rich honey-date liqueur, but make no mistake, this isn’t thick or overly sweet. as Darjeeling can be likened to the champagne of black tea, so this is for green. taken without sugar, the infusion is dainty, elegant & graceful; the tartness of the fruits & green tea cut the otherwise gourmand aroma with astringent pragmatism, saving it from becoming what bitter purists might call a ¡confection! i imagine with honey this would be decadent. looking forward to try it that way & seeing this transform from Turkish delicacy into delight.

Backlog:

The description suggests this tea to be subtle and mild, but, I disagree with that, and would say that instead, this tea is smooth and rich. Very much what I would expect from a high quality Yunnan.

A medium to full-bodied tea, it is a “well-mannered” robust tea that offers a smooth invigoration.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/10/10/grand-yunnan-imperial-black-tea-from-le-palais-de-thes/

Backlog from Wednesday. I’ve been visiting a friend in New York for Thanksgiving break and I had this tea at a bakery while eating the original cronut. The tea was very smooth but a bit weaker than I expected. It may also be because the water didn’t seem hot enough. Anyway, a lovely surprise of a tea to accompany my first cronut!

Been awhile since I’ve talked about a tea on here…and it had to be one I didn’t like very much. Oh well. This one meant well.

This is the first blend that I’ve delved into since…uh…yesterday. (That English Breakfast teabag shouldn’t count!) First impressions: It was a blend. A green tea blend. Specifically, Chinese sencha as the base with orange and red bits strewn about. On smell, it was…well…fruit sugar. Not sure if they were aiming for apples with the aroma, but I got the impression caramel dipped apples. And we’re almost two weeks out from Halloween.

I obeyed the brewing instructions to the letter(ish) – 1 tsp. of blend in a 6oz. steeper cup, infused for three minutes. The water used was “about” 170F degrees. Couldn’t say for certain.

The liquor brewed a pale, somewhat foggy green with a leafy (but sweet) aroma invoking a sense of honey-dipped peanut butter. When I sipped it, I must say I recoiled a little. There was an unwelcomed syrupy texture on the forefront. It settled down, allowing the rest of the tea aspects to shine through, but it was definitely jarring. Like, “flavored tea” jarring. The middle was sweet and lightly floral. Some of the natural grapy lean of the Chinese sencha even poked out like a prairie dog. But…the finish.

Ugh.

No polite way to put it. The epilogue and aftertaste were…soapy. Astringent, still sweet-ish, kinda lavender-y…and just unpleasant. If only everything from the middle and top note had remained. I think that the blended elements themselves could’ve held this infusion up better without the flavoring agents. ]

A second infusion was a drastic improvement, keeping hold of the fruitier aspects, while ditching the soapy palate texture.

Margaret’s Hope offers a very different experience in the bag. The dry smell is lush and woody, which becomes noticeably brighter once steeped. As we saw with Nudo, this Second Flush Darjeeling takes on a manner of being sun-warmed, evoking brighter weather and a more engaging cup.

Definitely all warm tones here, to complement the golden liquor. Whoever Margaret may be, it’d seem that her hope was that the world would be pulled into everlas-tea-ng summer. Unfortunately, she may get her wish, but luckily this cup is so good-humored that, at least for the next little while, you’ll be content to forget about the impending roast-ification of our planet. Each sip brings you… Full review here: http://snooteablog.com/2013/10/29/snooty-tea-review-palais-des-thes/

Tea #32 from Another Traveling Tea Box

Now here’s an Earl Grey I can get behind. Probably because it’s a rather subdued, almost sophisticated tasting EG.

The more delicate approach to the Bergamot really lets the Yunnan base come though. It’s woody and earthy,and ever so slightly sweet — a perfect play off the light citrus.

I’m letting the last cup go on, but I’d consider getting some of this for myself in the future.

Tea #23 from Another Traveling Tea Box

I love yunnan black tea, but I’ve never had one quite like this. It was interesting to see it used as a base for earl grey, although it didn’t up being one of the best EGs I’ve had. Still, this is something that I would consider ordering for myself at some point, just for variety. There isn’t much left in the TTB so I’ll let this one continue on, although it won’t get much farther.

I probably should point out that this doesn’t get steeped at boiling, but rather 185, and I think that will make all the difference in the world in regards to flavor. Boiling will likely produce an astringent cup of tea.

Backlog:

It had been a while since I tried my last “Monk’s Blend” type of tea before brewing up a cup of this, so it took me a while to recognize this as what it was. This is tasty … I like that the base of this tea is not just a black tea base, but a blend of green and black teas. The green tea brings a crispness to the cup, a lighter flavor which helps to soften the sometimes astringent black tea.

It’s sort of bubblegum-y with it’s fruity notes. This one is plenty sweet without sweetener … it surprised me at just how sweet it was. My sweet tooth was quite happy with this cuppa!

I’m a little tired and I need to open a new box of contacts. How I know this? As I squinted at my profile just now, I read, ‘All pets are off’ and wondered what the hell whoever had written it meant by that.

Those poor smelly pets.

Anyway, this is today’s second batch of Thé du Hammam, but this time… iced! This has the same unfortunate reaction to being cold-steeped as Kränku’s delicious kiwi vanilla – it gets all foamy. My glass seriously looks like I’ve been drinking beer from it (and it’s not just the contacts this time).

Aside from that, it’s nice – clean and fresh, but without much of an aftertaste. I was hoping for a little bit more of that smooth, creamy vanilla LPdT do so well, but this is mostly vaguely Hammamy and nothing else.

In accordance with my ratings rule that greens, whites and oolongs must also be tasty and delicious iced, this might have warranted a five-point reduction, but I was going to give it another five points after enjoying it so much hot this morning, so I’ll just do nothing and congratulate myself on giving it such an insightful grade right from the start.

In other news, the right index fingertip pad is a really bad place for two mosquito bites.

Today’s tasting notes are going to be wildly unoriginal, as I’ve only had one tea, in two incarnations.

This is the first. Hot in spite of the weather, as I had it for breakfast and hot tea really does make more sense for breakfast no matter the weather, in my opinion. I was going to fruit, too, but then there were phone calls and things.

Again, I have to say how impressed I’ve been with Le Palais des Thés in terms of consistency and quality – I know they’re probably (or, most definitely, really) not the tea company to turn to for unflavoured experiences in a fair price range, but the four flavoured LPdT teas I have I really, really love. I find myself returning to them frequently, and I want to restock all of them.

I haven’t tried them iced yet, but for that you will only have to wait for the next note.

This poor tea – it’s been offered to guests on numerous occasions, and swapped, and I have snuck an un-Steepstered cup on occasion. There’s not that much left now, and this is only the second tasting note for it.

The shame.

I’m so on the fence about Palais des Thés. I know they’re not even comparably as high quality as Mariage Frères. MF have such excellent base teas, and such exuberantly debauched flavour profiles that it’s not even a fair comparison.

But when I just want a simple, comforting cup, I admit I go with PdT more often. Because MF’s teas are demanding – all head games, smoke and mirrors. PdT’s teas, on the other hand, are simple, accessible, predictable.

And I just turned into Gone Girl’s Nick Dunne, didn’t I?

Thé du Hammam, we meet again – I reviewed the rooibos a couple of months back: http://steepster.com/annchen/posts/184694. I am unsure whether or not that’s too high a grade in light of my recent love affair with Mariage Frères and their Rouge Provence, but we’ll see.

The green version smells beautiful; sweet, floral and fruity. In the cup, though, vanilla kicks in, and it’s the patented, creamy Palais des Thés vanilla I enjoy so much… but which for some reason isn’t particularly present in their actual vanilla tea. I really want to like LPdT more than I do, but there are all these little inconsistencies that glare.

This tea is the best of the greens so far, though, and what I wanted their green vanilla to be. In many ways, it’s similar to my long-time Lupicia love Strawberry & Vanilla, but without the lightness Lupicia do so well. This is also quite astringent. (To be fair – if I’d had this before Lupicia’s tea, I probably would have rated this a 90.)

Flavour wise, most of the distinct fruity notes disappear in the cup, there’s more of a mellow fruitness which is quite good, especially rounded off with the thick vanilla aftertaste. For me, the payoff is just that – the lingering, sweet vanilla.

I tend to go for the shorter steeping time/hotter water strategy at the moment due to my current kettle situation (which may change very shortly, fingers crossed that the Italian postal service don’t make me send them my CV and birth certificate and passport photocopies as per their usual routine), but I would really like to try this at 75C/3 minutes to compare.

[Purchased at Le Palais des Thés in Tel Aviv, June 2013.]

I’m not normally a lover of green tea, but this one is superb. Immensley thirst quenching, it is satisfying and leaves you feeling fresh and replenished. Lovely!

Excellent. Fragrant, aromatic, delicate and delicious. One of my favourites.

There isn’t that much left of this. I will absolutely try to remember to try it iced before the rest of it disappears.

I was so sure I’d feel like putting together a huge Lupicia order for my birthday, since I’ll be in US next week anyway, but I haven’t felt the urge. It’s true I’ve been finishing up some of my favourites lately (Momoko just this morning! I still have some in the fridge, though.) but I still have so many good teas to choose from I don’t feel an overwhelming sense of urgency.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have shopping lists from Lupicia, Adagio, Le Palais des Thés, Comptoir des Thés et des Epices and Mariage Frères all put together, though.

No, that would be going a little far.

I’ve been ridiculously busy – lousy timing, since I have samples from the ever-amazing Ysaurella that I want to try and write elaborate tasting notes for, but, alas, no such luck.

Okay, so looking back at the previous notes for this, I’ve really fiddled about with the rating. And it’s seemingly a never-ending story, because I’m going to nudge it back up to 90. I love this tea, and until I find a better pear tea (if ever) I want to keep it around.

The leaf is beautiful, the tea itself is fresh and clean and natural-tasting, and I enjoy it very much.

So much, in fact, that this tasting note will have to cover the four cups I’ve had over the course of the past two days.