I have been rather desperate to try some of these Butiki blends for quite some time now. They seem to be so unanimously well received and strawberry oolong in particular sounds like something that can’t fail. So when I was in a position to offer Hesper June a sample from my collection of something she was interested in trying and I had the chance to ask, I took the opportunity to ask if she might be able to spare a sample of some of that. She was!
This particular one wasn’t initially one that had made that much of a bleep on my radar. Not until I actually removed it from the box that Hesper June sent me. Then I went all ‘Ooooooooooh!’ and my eyes were like this O.O and now I’m going to try it having just been waiting for a good time to do so since, ooh, Friday.
The leaves definitely smelled like pistacio ice cream. In a sort of way in which the ice cream doesn’t smell cold, which is kind of odd. I imagine if you could freeze dry ice cream, that’s what it would smell like. Powerfully nutty too and almost marcipan-y.
After steeping it’s less of the freeze dried ice cream and more of the pistachio and almost marcipan-y notes. It reminds me of Christmas marcipan sweets, which frankly makes me wonder if I’m going into some specific Christmas mode or something! Second time today I’ve had something that I thought smelled like Christmas.
Oh, that’s very pistachio on the flavour! How intereting! There have been so many different nutty flavoured teas out there, but I’ve never had one with pistachio before and now I honestly can’t think why. It lends it’s flavour beautifully to the base, and I definitely think a green tea was the right choice for the base here.
I’m getting mostly the green base and the pistachios in the flavour, but then it’s a very smooth experience. Long and smooth and thick. I think this is supposed to be the ice cream bit, and although it’s not as sweet as actual ice cream, it does indeed invoke that sort of thought. (If it was as sweet as ice cream, I probably wouldn’t have liked it.)
I’m so glad I asked Hesper June to sample some Butiki, and I’m glad she decided to share some of this one with me. It’s lovely.
