Cakes and boxes.

The cake before, looking very unglamorous. The cake after, looking only slightly less so.

So let's get this part out of the way first: I am officially done with my detox. It was 21 days of virtuous eating with G counting down the days until I could join him for a beer at the local pub again. But I did finish just in time for his birthday because well, I'm not cruel. There can be no teetotalling on the man's birthday. And boy it was some night-- a blur of drinks, food and music, with one of our guests passed out on the couch in a sitting up position with his wine glass gripped firmly in his hand. We could not even pry it from his fingers.
The sign of a good night.

The most frustrating part of the evening was this damn birthday cake that seemed to take more than a week to put together. I tested recipes that just seemed to keep failing until finally out of desperation I settled on a plain old yellow cake with a buttery vanilla frosting. I stacked it 3 layers high which was a bit show-offy, but I was hoping that would divert attention from the little butter nubbins that were visible in the icing. But after a few drinks this cake earned great reviews --probably more than it really deserved. The fact is, I am a complete amateur when it comes to cakes. G, in the past, has been forced to blow out his birthday candles on bakery bought cakes.
Poor fella.
So hard done by, right?

In other news, our shipment from the UK finally arrived yesterday.
Yesterday!
After 10 long weeks!
The first thing I did once I managed to find the right box, was unpack the tea pot, and my Mariage Frères teas and got to work on having a cuppa.
And oh it was good.
So our apartment is again drowned in boxes and it feels a bit strange. All these things from our life in Europe suddenly here, in Toronto. I like it. It doesn't feel so much like we left the adventure behind anymore. It's part of our everyday life now, albeit in small ways. And strangely, getting all our stuff back makes it feel like we are finally really here. We've got a full apartment and it's time to settle in.
Let this be the last of the cardboard boxes for a long, long time.
I mean it.

T.E.A.

First I will say that I was pleased as punch to see that many of you are just as enthused about Mariage Frères tea as I am. And I wish I could send some to all of you just so I could hear you gush about it afterwards. It would be music to my ears I tell you.

G was my official name drawing assistant (he did a beautiful job by the way) and though I didn't put the names in a hat as I'd promised they did go into a lovely deep bottomed bowl that I held far up above his head while he dug around for a name.

Let's get down to business shall we?
The grand prize winner of a tin of Thé a L'Opéra and a bag of Marco Polo Rouge is Olivia.

And because I wanted to spread the joy a little bit further I bought an extra bag of Thé a L'Opéra which has been won by Raina B.

Ladies, please email me with your mailing address and I will pop them in the mail pronto!
(oswegotea at gmail dot com)

To the rest of you who commented I have these final words:
To those of you who are just enthusiastic about tea: You are all so invited to my next tea party.
To those of you who are new to the blog: welcome!
To those of you who had never commented before: I'm happy to finally see some of the names of those of you who are out there!

And that, as they say, is that. Phew, that was fun. We'll have to do this again sometime, no?

Off to Paris. And sharing my tea love.

I can't seem to stay away from Paris for too long, so I am off to the city of lights for the rest of the week. The forecast seems to call for clear skies so I'm expecting to do a lot of wandering around. Nothing beats Paris in the Fall, partly because it gives you an excuse to bring all your girliest scarves, even if you are only staying for a few days.

This trip I seem to not be thinking all that much about the food. I'm really just looking forward to seeing friends, hanging out in cafes and just plain being there. And there is the small matter of my bachelorette party that must be seen to.

Yeah, you heard me.
Could it get any better?



**********
Tea Anyone?

You know how much I love my Mariage Frères tea. And I keep thinking that I would love to share it with some of you guys. I feel cheesy doing this as some sort of contest but I don't know how else to do it! So, here's what I'm thinking: leave me a comment if you are interested and I will put all the names (even if there are only 2 of you!) in a hat and draw for the person who I will send the tea to. When I get back I will announce the 'winner', who can email me with their mailing info. Sound good?

Feeling warm and fuzzy with Chandernagor Tea

Chandernagor Tea from Mariage Frères

It's been a while since we've talked about tea, hasn't it? Even though I no longer live in Paris, my love for Mariage Frères has not faded. Despite the fact that I can't just pop into their tea shop on a whim anymore, my collection doesn't seem to be getting any smaller. When I moved I really stocked up. The other day I realized that if I told you about a different one that I own once a week, we'd still be talking about my collection well passed Spring of 2008.

That is a lot of tea. And you know how I love to talk about it.

So let me tell you about this tongue twister of a tea called Chandernagor. I can't remember when exactly it was that I was first introduced to it, but I was still in Paris and it was cold and raining. I was meeting a cousin of mine and her friends for drinks. We settled on some Moroccan place just across from Les Halles, a corner joint with low lighting, lots of candles and comfy couches. My cousin and I got there early and settled our rain soaked selves into a couch by the window. And wouldn't you know, they had Mariage Frères tea on the menu.
Cut to us feeling cozy and relaxed with 2 steaming cups of Chandernagor tea warming us with the scent of cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger and pepper.

I was instantly in love with it. And it didn't take long before it nudged itself into my collection.

The Chandernagor blend reminds me of chai tea and I'm sure it would lend itself well to being steeped in milk considering it is just a blend of spices. Having said that, I'm wondering why the heck I haven't done that yet. In my defense, the tea is so charming on it's own that I rarely think to mess with it. But now that the colder weather is here I think I might just give it a try.

Is it weird that I feel all warm and fuzzy just talking about it?


*******
-the tea is named after a French trading post in India
-click the Mariage Frères label below to see my other posts about their tea

And now I'm back..

Matcha green tea chocolate with black and white sesame seeds

After 5 days in Paris I need to recover a little bit. The wine, the food, the speaking French. It's hard work people.

I wasn't sure what to expect about going back. I had lived there for a year and a half and I wasn't sure if going back was going to make me a bit sad.
I mean, I wasn't going there as a tourist, I was going back to a place that I called home for 18 months, a place where I still have friends. Good friends.
And well, it's Paris for heaven's sake.

But when I got there, it kind of felt as though I'd never left. I sat in the back of the taxi on my way to my friend's house and everything looked the same, familiar. It still felt like my Paris.

I did all the things I intended--the Salon des Saveurs , a falafel at L'As du Falafel, a stop at Mariage Frères for some new tea. We had a homecooked mexican feast one night with one too many margaritas, and a schlep out in the rain in our heels another night for a fabulous dinner at Spring.

But the most perfect of all was spending one rainy day in my pj's on my friend's couch with endless cups of coffee, chatting about nothing in particular, in an apartment full of windows and a fabulous view of Paris from all directions.

My suitcase was a bit heavier when I left of course. I added three new teas to my overflowing collection, a bottle each of pistachio oil, pine nut oil and pumpkin seed oil, a jar of sundried cherry tomato paste from Italy, a bar of Sadaharu Aoki matcha green tea chocolate and some fresh Bouteillan olives from Provence.

It was a good trip.
I have to admit, I did feel a bit sad to leave, but Paris and I, we still have our thing.
And I'll be back there in July so I can't really complain, right?


Stuff and more stuff that I love..



*********************
Mille et Une Huiles
-these oils taste so true to their flavours they knock my socks off.

Spring
28, rue de la Tour d'Auvergne
75009 PARIS
T 01 45 96 05 72
m° Notre-Dame de Lorette

Not this again..

Bouddha Bleu tea, and my new Mariage Frères tea cup

It's been a while since I waxed poetic about Mariage Frères Teas. Which is probably not a bad thing, since you'd probably roll your eyes at me if I did. And to those of you who are sick of it already, I suggest you divert your eyes now.

The truth is, I haven't been drinking all that much tea lately, despite the fact that my tea cupboard (named so because it holds only tea and tea paraphenalia) is literally overflowing.
But summer killed the tea freak in me. It put my tea-freaky self in cement shoes and dropped me in the river to sleep with the fishes.

But August has been quite a surprise. In the blink of an eye we went from 2 weeks of sweat-drenched t-shirts to whipping out the socks and the long sleeves. It's been a bit of a slap in the face.
It took some time before I started to feel the itch, but suddenly that tea cupboard was open again, and there I was back to my old habit of sniffing and mulling over which flavour to select.

Wedding Imperial, and its heavenly scent of chocolate and caramel, won me over on that first day. A cozy, rainy afternoon was made all that much better for it.
And then soon after, on an early morning, with a bit of a bedhead and very cold feet, Bouddha Bleu, a green tea with blue cornflowers, found its way into my tea cup.

The love affair has started all over again..

-----------
And because you know I had to buy the book that describes all their teas, I can tell you what MF has to say about these two lovelies.

Wedding Imperial
One sniff of this stuff and you will be hooked.

"A paean to love. This glamorous blend is steeped in the passion that weds the malty power of golden Assam tea leaves to the sweetness of notes of chocolate and caramel. Perfect clarity. Evidence of a peerless marriage. "

Bouddha Bleu

"For centuries, Buddhists in the Land of Free Men have perpetuated the custom of making special offerings of flowers, fruit and tea to monks. From this green tea, sprinkled with blue cornflowers, there rises a blend of fragrances recalling the ripe fruit on a tray laden with offerings. A tea steeped in spirituality."

**excerpts are from The French Art of Tea, available at Mariage Frères stores, in many languages, for approximately €12.

Mariage Frères Tea. And then some.

Canister Love

When I last posted about Mariage Frères, I had just bought my first one.
The love affair continues.
I guess there are worse things to be obsessed with.
Oh, I know you're wondering if some of them aren't really all that good.
Well that's just crazy talk for skeptics and non-believers.
I just won't invite them to my next tea party.

-------------------------------
Tea Info
There are 3 Mariage Frères tea salons in Paris.

It's about half the price to buy the tea in the bags as it is in the canisters. The canisters are great, but it's harder on the pocketbook if you are obsessed like I am.

Across the street from the location in Le Marais, there is a second MF tea shop where you can sniff the teas at your leisure. You can also buy bags of tea already packaged on the shelves, as opposed to getting them packaged by the staff from bulk bins at the other locations. In other words, there is no fighting with other customers for the staff's attention. It's as self-serve as it gets.

Having tea at the salon may seem pricey to some. A pot of tea costs approximately 7 euros. But I have discovered that it provides about 6 cups of tea, so if there are 2 of you, its 3.50 each, for 3 cups of tea each, which is actually a great deal. And it is perfectly ok to just go for tea and nothing else.


It's possible that I may have a problem...


The servers provide you with a huge book filled with all the descriptions of the teas (available in many languages) so you can select one before ordering. Or sniff some in the shops attached to the salons to decide what you want to try before going in .

Word of warning: they charge 4 euros for a single madeleine. Ahem.

My current tea collection:
Boléro, Thé a L'Opéra, Vanille des Iles, Vanille Impériale, Bouddha Bleu, Thé des Impressionnistes, Sankar Bop, English Breakfast, Ruschka, and my absolute current favourite: Surabaya.

And I am a happy girl.
But I still want more. Is that wrong?


Tags:
Mariage Frères
Paris Tea
Paris

Mariage Frères Tea; I am officially converted.

Thé à L'Opéra, Mariages Frères

At any given time, since I left home at the age of 18, you could look into my cupboards and find a wide selection of tea. English Breakfast, Jasmine Green Tea, Peppermint, Chamomile. If you looked in my cupboard 2 years later, you would find the same boxes, still there, gathering dust. Even when I moved, which I have done alot, I felt compelled to take those boxes with me.

But every now and again I would go through a tea phase. In Sheffield, I had trouble sleeping, and so it was that I forced myself to drink Chamomile tea every night before bed. In Germany, I occassionally dealt with stomach aches and knowing that mint tea was good for digestion I ended each meal with a steamy cup. These phases never last very long and end up doing nothing but taking up valuable cupboard space. I can't even remember why I bought that Fennel Tea this past summer, but that first sip caused a full body shudder, and I never went back.

Then I moved to Paris, and for the last 2 months I have completely forgotten about tea altogether. I had heard about Mariage Frères, and the reviews had all been good. But I saw the stores, I saw the products and I saw the price. So I paid no mind. Until one day I was in a gift shop with a small Mariage Frères display. I was drawn to the sight of open canisters, inviting me to stick my nose in and take a nice big smell of the tea leaves themselves. My nose and I were ready to get down to the business of justifying our disdain for spending so much money on a wee bit of tea.



One sniff of Thé à L'Opéra and that was it, my disdain was out the window and this tea was coming home with me. Even if it didn't taste good, I would wrap it up in fabric and put it in my sock drawer, because it smelled so darn nice.

For someone who wasn't a regular tea drinker, spending 10 euros on a 100g canister was entirely against my natural instincts. But sometimes instincts are wrong, right? And though I'm giving a rave review, remember that I've only tried one flavour. But I've got seriously high hopes for the others. And you'd be surprised how far 100g can actually go.

So instead of having 10 random flavours of tea at a cost of 2 euros a box that I will never finish, I have one fantastic tea. And when I don't feel like drinking it I can still stick my nose in and enjoy a little bit of aromatherapy. And on top of that it comes in a really handsome canister. Enough said.

Thé à L'Opéra: The vert vanille aux fruits rouges
(Sweet Spices and Red Fruits Vanilla Green Tea).


Mariage Frères
30 rue du Bourg-Tibourg
Le Marais, Paris
75004