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Thank you Sil for giving me this in a swap!

The dry tea smells delicious. It smells like green (unripe) pineapple, also smells sweet. The taste of the brewed tea is sweet, creamy, and pineapple. I am very surprised that this tea actually maintains its pineapple taste. This has been blended very well.

Super impressed with my first Butiki tasting!

As soon as I saw the description of this tea, I had to have it. Earl Grey and oolong, who could resist.

Upon opening the package, there is a strong bergamot and citrous scent. The dry tea itself is beautiful. There are bright coloured gogi berries, mixed with the dark green oolong tea and other ingredients.

While brewing, the tea smelled mostly of green oolong. To me the taste is strong oolong. There is a subtle hint of bergamot and I can taste the perfume of the frankincense. I was a bit disappointed, I thought the bergamot would taste stronger. But I think this might be due to making only one cup of this tea. I think becuase there are several ingredients in this tea, that you are going to get different things in each scoop. I think I just need to make a pot and use more tea, to get more of the ingredients.

Obverall I am very satisfied and happy with this tea. Looking forward to many more cups.

I got this as a surprise sample from Sil. Sil, you’re awesome!

I was excited to try this tea, mostly because I had to run out and do some errands. And I have a brand new travel mug for loose leaf tea to try. So I brewed it up and ran out the door.

I am not sure how to describe this tea. The dry tea smells like a sweet black tea. But the smell is very generic, and hard to describe. The taste of the brewed tea is very black tea prominent. There is a fruit sugar smell to it. I don’t get any taste, or any hint of vanilla. The vanilla may be there but it is masked by this generic fruit sugar taste. After drinking through my travel mug, it dawned on me that this tea tastes almost the same as one of my apricot teas, and that is the fruit sugar taste I am getting.

I have enough tea left for another time, I might decrease the water temp a bit and increase the steep time and see what happens.

I decided to cold brew the last of this tea. I was planning on having it at supper time, so I put it in the fridge before I went to work in the morning. But I got storm stayed out of town so it ended up brewing for about 32 hours. I was a bit worried when I took the strainer out becuase the liquor was a deep, dark, maroon colour. It was quite bitter, but I added extra sugar, about 1/3 cup, and it turned out to be delicious. I would not normally cold brew for this long, but in the end it turned out good.

On first smell of the dry matcha, I was a little concerned. It did not smell anything like raspberry. I thought there was quite a chemical smell to it. But I went ahead and brewed it anyway. From experience with Red Leafs flavoured matcha, I find the smell is not always indicative of the taste.

I got this was as robust flavour in classic grade.

I decided to make this one as a latte. I thought it would fit good with the raspberry and cream flavour. I used 1/2 tsp and a bit of sugar. I dissovled it in warm water. As soon as the water hit the matcha, I got a whiff of raspberry. Then I mixed it with about 6 oz of warm frothed milk.

The smell of the brewed matcha, is still not quite raspberry, but the taste can only be described as delicious. It does taste like creamy raspberry. It also seems like there is a nutty and cinnamony taste as well. Absolutely delicious.

I bought this to have cold at work. So I will need to do some experimenting to see how it will taste cold.

You can find this matcha here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/raspberry-and-cream-matcha.html

This is a bit of a backlog from this morning.

Ok, so I got storm stayed without the tea. I know. Super horrible. I did have an emergency stash of tea at work, but I ended up staying with a co-worker who did not have any tea. I almost did not make it, I needed tea so bad.

So after having the shakes all night (ha ha), I went for breakfast at a restaurant as it was still storming and the roads were still closed. I got bacon, eggs, and potatoes – the best comfort food I could think of, and I ordered tea. I did not have high hopes of what I was going to get for tea, it ended up being the usual Canadian standard, Red Rose.

I had been tea-less for so long, that I gulped down the first cup. I just needed to get it in my system. I savoured my second cup over my bacon and eggs.

I would have wished for any other kind of tea, but I am glad I was able to at least get a cup of something. Looking back it was quite over steeped as the waitress put the tea bag in the pot before she brought it to the table. So it was pretty strong and thick, but still palatable. But at the time, I thought it could have been the best cup of tea I had ever had.

I am back home now, enjoying my endless cupboard of teas.

I got this in a swap from Sil. Thanks so much.

The smell of the dry tea is sweet strawberry but there is also a peppery type smell, like black pepper.

The brewed tea is very dark red-purple. It still has that very strong peppery smell still. The tea tastes like sweet strawberry and there is still that peppery taste. The peppery taste could be more of a very bitter or tart rhubarb. I feel like I get a slight taste of rhubarb in the tea. Wait…the peppery taste could be a bit more of the taste of pie crust. Hmmmm. I am starting to understand this tea. I did add a few peices of rock sugar.

This tea tastes better and better as it cools. Next time I would like to add some milk or cream, strawberry rhubarb pie a la mode. Mmmmmmm.

I couldn’t resist picking up this smokey version of Earl Grey.

The dry tea sachet smells very strongly of Earl Gray/Bergamot. Very similar to Harney and Sons Earl Grey Supreme.

Brewed the tea smells of a very blunted Earl Grey, only slightly citrousy. The taste of the tea is slight Earl Grey with a smokey finish. This is a good tea, not too strong, but also not too weak. The smokey flavour works well with the citrous bergamot.

The dry tea is large pearls of black tea. While steeping the balls unfurl into a mass of black tea leaves.

The brewed tea smells sweet and slightly floral. There is a hint of sweet grains – maybe wheat or rice – I can’t quite place it.

The tea has hints of a sweet milk chocolate bar with rice crisps in it. Mmmmm. Delicious. This would be a great tea for after a heavy meal, just a touch of sweetness.

Edit: The more it cools, there is strong nutty taste to it, like unsweetened hazelnut.

Keemun is my all time favorite black tea. Now as I say that I realize that almost every black tea I review is my favorite black tea. But I think for sure keemun is my favorite, but maybe also CTC assam is my favorite. Hmmmm.

This keemun smells like keemun. It is hard to describe how it smells. There are hints of chocolate, coffee bean, and there is a floral fragrance to it. The tea tastes the same as it smells. It is a medium bodied tea. I find it to be very refreshing. Good for any time of the day, unless you want to sleep at night, then maybe avoid it in the evening.