Since I’ve been so deep into my Comptoir cups lately, I might as well keep it up into the new year. Reading about this one, I was excited about the almond-cherry combination. Artificial cherry can be so vile, but sometimes it veers very nicely into bitter almond, so I figured this tea could be a double-almond experience, at best.
The dry tea smells absolutely gorgeous. It’s hits a few perfect galette des rois notes, but then turns a little boozier, like a liquored-up crème d’amandes/frangipane. The best part, though, is that it tastes exactly as it smells. I rarely (never, really) feel the least inclination to add alcohol to my tea, but I really do want to try this with a few drops of amaretto.
The cherry is present, but it’s more a cherry ghost than anything. (The ghost of cherries past.) It adds a bit of sweetness and rounds off the flavour very nicely.
All in all, this is a very lovely tea. I definitely want to compare it to a black version – I’ll check if Comptoir do one, otherwise I’ll try to find that one by Mariage Frères (ETA: Actually, Theodor – see the comments.) everyone compares to a galette des rois.
[From my epic Instant-Thé order to Rome, October 2013.]
80 C, 3 min