Review: Mariage Frères, Paris

A few weeks ago Coffee Boy and I popped to Paris on our way to Berlin. It sounds very extravagant but actually, because for once I was organised, the journey cost us less than our usual flights to Berlin (perhaps I could learn something from this...). It gave me the perfect excuse to visit Mariage Frères - the mother of all French Salons de Thé. Sixteen years ago we used to live in Paris but I had no more than a passing interest in tea in those days so I'd never even heard of Mariage Frères at that time, let alone visited.

A Beautiful Boîte

I have to admit to a secret longing. It's been nine months now and I feel I have to come clean. At the beginning of the year I was visiting friends in the Czech Republic and whilst hanging out in their kitchen I spotted a gorgeous tea tin that had come from shop in Paris. It was a lovely flat oval shape and when you pulled back the sliding lid, there beneath it was another lid which you pulled off using a little handle. I didn't even try the tea inside but the tin lodged there in my psyche just waiting for a chance to assert itself.

China Tea from a Russian Shop in Paris

I was recently invited to dinner by a friend who is an amazing cook. Needless to say I was quick to accept the offer, not least because she is also a tea fan and I knew she'd have something interesting for me to try. Well, she didn't let me down. She had made the most amazing Asian food with dim sum, noodles, gyoza, pak choy, tofu and an absolutely delicious mango dessert. And the tea offering was pretty darn good too.