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Two black teas grown in France!

There are growing numbers of small tea farms appearing in Europe. There's some pre-history to this, but most of what I'm referring to is independent little initiatives trying it for the first time. I've written about Dutch-grown black tea earlier this year. And at Brussels Tea Festival I met people from two French farms, one in Brittany and one in Basque.

Here are my tasting notes. I only bought their black tea, since it's my main interest, but they're making others too. They are small producers - you buy very small batches of tea. It's high-quality, often intended for multiple infusions. Not cheap, of course. I drink it without milk or anything else, and that's probably the intention too. The general advice is to brew these for 3 or 4 minutes at 90 degrees, but you can try different ways to see what suits you best.

I'm going to say straightaway that I have a favourite out of these two, and it's the "Mendiko" from Basque country. I had the same impression when I tasted them at the tea festival, but I was super keen to try them both out at home:

Mendiko-Tea - tea grown in the Basque country

Nice-looking thin dark leaves. Strangely, they specify on the packet that it should be brewed for 3 minutes and 34 seconds! Are they having a laugh?? Anyway I did as I was told, with 90 degree water and 3g of tea in my mug. The resulting brew is light-coloured red, but really what strikes me at first is a gorgeous honeyed smell with a hint of biscuit - really appealing.

Drinking it, the honeyed flavour continues through, nice, with a medium body behind it. I didn't expect it to be very "hefty" like a strong black tea for a Brit, and indeed it's light, but it does fill the mouth. It's a great cuppa.

Second brew: the aroma is more muted, of course, but the flavour is still very present.

Third brew: doesn't taste of much. Fourth brew: the main flavour has gone, and what remains is pure watery with a slight lingering sweetness. You could well stop after two, but this tea exits gracefully!

Kerizel - tea grown in Brittany

Nice-looking thin black long leaves - very long and wiry. I brewed it for 4 minutes.

The tea has a nice solid red colour, and a lovely sweet golden smell. The taste is also nice and golden, on the front of the mouth. I miss a little the "heft" of anything dark or at the back of my mouth. I find this tea a bit more onedimensional than the Mendiko or the Zuyderblad - for me it's not as moreish.

The second infusion is viable, it's the same but a bit less pronounced - slightly more balanced, even! - but I don't get much from any further brews. Still, no astringency or anything like that on the exit, which is fine.

Glad I bought these packets. It's pretty rare to find tea grown so close to home, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else is out there.