THE EXQUISITE, PROMISING AND EXTRAORDINARY ART OF MAKING TEA: MARIAGE FRèRES.

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Isabella Cecconi

Generally, tea is the reflection of culture and civilization. Its essence must be respected and adapted to local tastes and taken into account when getting the best out of it: climate, water, atmosphere and sensitivity to flavor.There is no battle between coffee and tea. There’s no winner, nor defeated. Sipping tea is like heart embracing, it’s like a reminder of travels, plantation, exotic flavors.Mariage Frères is France’s oldest House of Tea, and without doubt the most exclusive merchant in luxury teas. It’s a tea that embodies the most evanescent moment and places in life. With over 600 varieties of rare teas laid out in apothecary style, with hundreds of oversized black canisters lining the walls throughout the store, the company is a tempting assortment of tea-flavored and scented products.At Mariage Frères, tea is prepared according gold rules by tea sommeliers, according to wonderful frangrances, made up of all the many ebullient aromas escaping from the countless number of tea boxes. The scent of tea permeates everything. Mariage Frères is the most amazing teahouse in the world, it’s the place where you understand the difference between happiness and bliss, the place where you wish a moment could last forever because it strives for excellence in a quest of the finest harvest. Around the world, Mariage Frères represents the most refined qualities of the French art of living. French tea first saw the light almost three hundred years ago, during the royal court at Versailles. Sometime later, around 1660 Nicolas Mariage made several voyages to Persia, the Indies. Later with a deputation chosen by King Louis XIV he concluded trade treaty with the Shah of Persia himself. At the same time, Nicolas’ brother Pierre sailed for Madagascar as special envoy of the French East India Company. Two hundred years later, their descendents Henri and Edouard were still dealing in tea, spices, and oriental goods. On june 1854 they founded Mariage Frères tea company in Paris, becoming the premier tea company in Paris and importer in France. Today the company is represented in over sixty countries by one thousand highly selected retailers in cities like NYC, Los Angeles, Moscow, Sydney, Singapore, Hong-Kong.  If you are a tea lover and haven’t tried it yet you really should mark it down on your priority list. So I think you’d better keep calm and carry on drinking.