Recently, reader Galbanumgal very kindly posted about a Mariage Frères sale at Cultured Cup. I promptly ordered four teas, and sadly did not like a single one of them. Now Mariage Frères is trolling me with the Earl Grey Haute Couture collection ("A collection of grand crus harvested from organic gardens sprinkled with fragrant morsels of noble bergamot peel from Calabria"). Limerance is black tea, Charisma is green tea, Magique is Yin Zhen silver needle (white tea), Majesty is blue tea (oolong) and Rhapsody is white tea. €26 - 29 each. Luckily these do not appear to be available in the US.
Oh no..which ones were they? I will gladly take them off your hands if you decide to part ways. I haven’t met a MF tea I didn’t like
French Breakfast, Russian Breakfast, Casablanca and Roi de Earl Grey, and I should have sent them all to you but instead I mixed them into other things to make them more drinkable. Sorry!
There are a few MF teas I really adore, but I already knew I should not order their teas “untasted”, and simply disregarded the lesson. Actually, when I went to record my notes (yes, I’m an obsessive) I discovered that I tried Casablanca years ago and already knew I did not like it, so serves me right.
French Breakfast is one of my favorites and I always have that one on hand. The others you mentioned I haven’t tried.
Just looked up Casablanca..interesting blend with the mint.
French Breakfast is an oddity, and I do not know if I believe them when they say it is not flavored. I buy many Keemuns and other sorts of varietal black teas that have distinct chocolate undertones, and have never come across a tea in the wild that was anywhere near as sweet as French Breakfast. But maybe! I am hardly an expert on tea.
And I can see why someone who liked a sweeter breakfast drink than me would love it, and I understand it’s one of their big sellers.
Oh dear. Mentioned it because I was pretty sure you loved MF! Discovered that the line doesn’t appeal to me, as I prefer unflavored black tea. Had to dilute whatever it was I bought, using 1 part MF to 4 parts of other black teas, so we have the doctoring instinct in common!
I do love a few of them, and you were very kind to post the sale! I just need to stick with the few I love and stop trying to branch out. Many of the MF teas are just way too sweet for me.
And doctoring tea is fun, isn’t it? I keep a decent sencha on hand to cut any overly flavored green teas, and I have a whole arsenal of unflavored black teas to cut everything else.
For that price, they better be worth it. But my hopes are very low.
I have tasted a few that I like and many that I absolutely don’t like. I bit of a pity, since I like the packaging and that it is an old tea house.
I think the last one I like was Thé de Lune.
If they started to make them into candles, I think that would be a brilliant concept for them 😉
They have made candles in the past. At the moment they are selling tea incense.
Oh I didn’t know they have made candles before..I would have loved to smell them 🙂
Pia reviewed one here, ages ago:
https://nstperfume.com/2008/12/27/mariage-freres-rose-dhimalaya-candle-home-fragrance-review/
I see that tea on their site still, but not the candle.
Time for an a la carte tea sampling service by mail!
I wonder if there’s something like that for perfume . . . 🙂
And lots of tea companies do that! Plus there are large tea swapping groups. It’s pretty much the same hobby.
These are very tempting, I love MF teas. But I visited one of their shops earlier this month and spent an insane amount already, so I’ll pass on these.
Shame you didn’t like the ones you “blind-ordered”.
The shame is on me for ignoring my earlier experiences!