Ysaurella

I am not a big fan of rooibos.
I drank this tea by mistake…the cup was for my daughter, she wanted to try this one before me !…I took her mug in place of mine (full of Queen Catherine)
This tea is an exception…cteresa you won ! you found a rooibos I like ! sure there is strawberry and sure some raspberry as well, totally agree with you.I get the soft almonds and caramel notes.
And all these flavours are working fine together.

The dry leaf itself is noticeable it looks like little needles, so cute and rare.

thank you cteresa for sharing this blend with me.
I really appreciated it and wasn’t impressed by the high ratings because never heard about this tea before cteresa proposed to send me some. So didn’t get high expectations.

To me, it’s not so strong.Malty but not too much (thanks God it is Chinese teas, not an Assam) I get the chocolate but in a different way comparing so many teas, it’s perfectly balanced with other notes, floral & fruity.
The tea base is really perfect, no astringency in my cup, is there a keemun as part of the tea mix ?
I had this tea in the evening and had no problem to sleep, really fantastic.
A beautiful tea to get whenever I want.

oh lord…I just received tonight my order from Butiki Teas.
My daughter is sick and wanted to have this one so we are sharing a mug of Maple Pecan Oolong with a great pleasure.

This tea is really marvelous,one of my staples for sure.
But I still prefer it not too hot, while cooling the flavours of Pecan & Maple are much present (and believe me on parole they are !)

I almost forgot how fantastic it was – I’m so happy to have now 8 oz to enjoy it for the whole winter.

I’m French and I don’t like red wine …paradox ?
Anyway I was brave and tried this tea, my dear Azzrian kindly sent some over me.

You know, the idea to create and blend a tea flavored with red wine couldn’t have come from France : It would be some kind of sacrilege here…(!)
So thank you dear American for always daring new things (with teas and with with food in general). Things shouldn’t be canonized as we often do here in France for some beverage or ingredients.

I cannot really say I taste a Merlot but for sure I have a real nice grape aroma especially on after taste.

Quite nice, well done 52 teas and thanks for being audacious

thank you so much cteresa for sharing this sample with me.
You’re definitively right : this thé du loup is a fantastic tea …and you know I ’m not a chocolatea lover…
The scent of the liquor is really chocolate (almost like Charlotte au Chocolat of Dammann Frères) but tasting it, I get the hazelnuts !

The tea base is not too strong finally and I was expecting a stronger black tea that’s why I didn’t steep it very long but I think I should try with a longer steeping time.
Anyway I like it very much but may prefer a more bodied tea with chocolate.

Thé du loup for sure is a masterpiece and deserves the high rates given here on Steepster.
A tea to recommend to chocolatea lovers – would you be my valentine dear wolf ?

Thank you so much cteresa for sharing some of this tea with me !
I should say right now : I like it but I prefer Nosy Bey from Dammann Frères.

Aroms of these two teas are really similar but different in the same time.Orchard peaches are just sublime in both blends.

First the scent of the dry leaf of Mélange de Galice is not as impressive as the Nosy Bey one : but it may be because the sample traveled a little by post mail.

Then, the vanilla seemed less present than in Nosy Bey.
The tea base is smooth and mellow, I really appreciate it.Everything is sweet in this Mélange de Galice and to me it is exactly what a peach & vanilla tea needs.

Cooling, the vanilla is more prominent.
The after taste is just sumptuous.

Nosy Bey, Mélange de Galice you are decadent teas ! I love that !!!

Finally I taste this tea …it’s in my cupboard for ages…well just 5 months :) No idea why I didn’t take some time to have it.

This is an holiday tea, the first one to use the Thé Noël name, Compagnie Coloniale is a very old French Tea company.

I appreciate very much the scent of the dry leaf : not habitual for an holiday tea : no cloves, no cinnamon. But cherry sure and almond.

This is delicious, really.
Next time I’ll leave it steep longer, because the tea base is a little weak to my opinion.

I can perfectly understand why in France this is one of the Christmas Teas best sellers.

I decided to do this matcha because my daughter wanted to taste it for tea time. she doesn’t like it even after adding some milk.
So get I a latte caramel matcha for myself now…
I get this sample thanks to Azzrian and I thank her again for sharing it with me.
It’s really nice, I love the flavour and the scent is just amazingly yummy.
Drinking it it is really pleasant but to be honest I am not very impressed.
I had a very good latte with a fantastic caramel taste but the tea base wasn’t really detected by my taste buds.
It may be because I am not a matcha drinker (this is only my second one and the first with milk).
Anyway I liked my beverage even if for me it wasn’t really a tea.

This a sample I received from my dear cteresa.She wrote on the bag “stir it well !” so did I (sometimes I am very docile :) )

At the very first sip I was like …ohhh the tea taste is like a David’s tea…a special taste I always had in any David’s tea I tried.And I found it weak, very weak.

Disregarding this " tea signature", continuing sipping it, I definitively recognized a keemun and was more satisfied.
The caramel is really well balanced,and cocoa is present but really much on the background.

cteresa mentioned to add some milk, I’ll try this way next time.

A decent tea, but for a chocolaty & caramel tea I do really prefer Wedding Imperial, it has much more personality to my opinion.

So I finally managed to find out the right steeping time combination for this Oolong.
I didn’t manage to fully eradicate a little astringency but I think 5 minutes are enough for this tea.

I think the tea base is just not for me. That’s weird because I am not an expert in Oolong but I’ve always read oolong teas have no astringency.

I have a complaint about the Orange blossom aroma, unfortunately I was expecting something really more present. To my opinion, there is a lack of Orange Blossom aroma in the tea (there are a lot of dried orange blossom flowers)

I was expecting a lot from this tea and I am really disappointed.

I’ll keep trying anyway… :)

it doesn’t look like the picture, the blend is more foaming, wery swollen as well and it doesn’t look so dry as the picture shows.
I think I used a too cold water(85°c), that’s what the MF salesman required but I saw on MF website now they do recommend 95°c.
Also they ask to leave it for a long 7 min steep…I left less and it is bitter.
I just love so much orange blossoms I think I just spoiled my tea. I’ll try again tomorrow- I don’t rate it for now and just give myself a zero for preparing it so badly !

I’m back on steepster …with a Dragon tea.
Mariage Frères does a special edition each year with a tea for the Chinese sign of the year.
until February it is the Dragon sign…so I hurried to buy it because it won’t be available after this date.
I wanted the tin…but the scent pleased me very much as well so I rushed after work Place de la Madeleine to buy it + 200 gr of Pleine Lune and 100 gr of Oolong Fleurs d’oranger. I am poorer now but happy with my teas.

The tea taste is not so promising as the scent. I think the green tea base should be similar to Sakura 2000. There is just a hint of slight astringency but very very very slight.

It is a fruity tea (goji berries), incredibly perfumed but not unforgettable.Anyway MF doesn’t sell it by weight to refill so that’s great, I have a beautiful tin to put another tea I love more.

I have no more brown crystal sugar (no way to find some here in my new town)…so I will give another try asap I find some in Paris.

I am in the middle of packs and packs and packs…for the move and ooooooh I found a wonderful parcel among the parcels…. I re-dicover the box from Kansas …the one I received from our lovely Azzrian full of tea samples! This is Christmas after Christmas again !

I decided to taste this one …because of raspberry my favorite fruit.
J’adoooooooooooooore les framboises.
This framboise is really natural and delicate, absolutely not tart.
Chocolate is really not my madeleine in tea but I have to recognize the 2 ingredients work perfectly together and the chocolate doesn’t overpower the tea base neither the raspberry flavour.

I appreciate this tea, really and would be happy to taste it again but I am not really in love with despite all its qualities.

I was expecting more framboise (but as said before I love too much framboise)
I love so much framboise I can’t say rapsberry …the French word is more romantic to my ears inversely to pumpkin (the French word citrouille is just so…incredibly weird !)

A very good Butiki teas job

I’ve been quite absent these last 2 weeks and it will be the same for the next two ones. I am moving from home January 2 and have so much to do : pack my teas especially…meaning I kept only very few to drink until the effective move.
So I leave my adored Paris for a near suburb…c’est la vie…I’ll have a bigger flat, a more recent one, with a better isolation, but my heart is broken somewhere…It’s not to be snobish but I think my life will be quite different.

The Tea !

Except the fact I struggled to manage to open the tin, I liked this tea very much.
I received it as a gift for Christmas by my Mom and it was a great idea.
Once upon a time Christmas…Il était une fois Noël is a very comfortable tea with a dominant apple and cinnamon in a supportive role- but the nice point is the presence of almond, very refined.
I didn’t get ginger but I need to test it again asap I’ll be installed in my new BIG kitchen.
More place for my teas should stop my sadness :)

this is a sample tea I just received from cteresa – thanks so much for this.

I love keemun teas, I love their mellowness. I never had a tea before with blueberry I think and was very excited about trying one.
Blueberry Hill is a good tea to begin with a blueberry tea.
I really had a high dose of blueberry and this is what I was looking for. In addition, I received as well a very floral note but in a second role.
I think this tea would fit perfectly with an English blueberry muffin on a greedy afternoon.
Now there is something missing for me especially for a keemun : no real mellowness, creaminess yes but no mellowness.

A beautiful tea.

This is the special custom blend tailored by Butiki for Azzrian
I thank you very much for sharing some of it with me.

I really love it – First the blend scent is wonderful, then the brewed blend perfume is unique …and the taste is just waouh…surprising and so yummy.

Tea base is not too strong-but absolutely not weak- and perfectly spouses the peach aromas. But we can detect a different very interesting aroma and this is probably hop.
There is a very very light bitterness (no astringency at all) which is so interesting because this is really like the flavour of a beer without alcohol :)
This is an original flavour in a tea and this is really a success for me (and I don’t like beer, so this is really a big success)

I am not familiar with tamarind – this is not something we find easily in France (except probably at La Réunion or in the French Antilles) – so have nothing to compare with and no special expectations with the tamarind flavour of the tea.

The brewed liquor has a beautiful amber colour and the scent is fantastic.

I find the tea a little bit bitter to my taste and just a hint of sourness but it is pleasant even if I won’t add this one in my shopping list.

Despite its quality I think it is just maybe not a tea for me or maybe I won’t be a fan of tamarind if I ever have the chance to taste it.

Thank you Azzrian for the sample I am very glad to have had the opportunity to taste it.

Thanks to Azzrian for permitting me to taste my first 52 teas.

So inversely with a crème brûlée I have nothing to say about gooey butter cake, I never had the chance to taste one.
I made some research about this cake and it seems really nice, maybe one day I’ll try to do one.

I must confess something (I hope 52 teas would forgive me !) : seeing the picture I saw…a Hachis Parmentier !and I found this very weird…but knowing that a bacon maple tea was existing…I research the Gooey butter cake recipe and was totally reassured !

The dry leaves scent is really amazing, so fruity, absolutely divine.
Brewed I get a very thin aroma of pastry but the leading note is more fruity and clearly lemony.
Lemon is the star of this tea I think.
The black tea is smooth and pleasant but I didn’t find it very much character.
This is a nice afternoon tea, probably ideal to go along with a pastry.
I’m looking forward to taste this famous Gooey Butter cake pastry now !

This is again a delightful tea sample I get from Azzrian – thanks for sharing a so big bag of this one with me !

Nobody’s perfect…I am French…you know that La crème brulée is a French dessert (I am very sorry for my dear British and Spanish friends – but really this is a French dessert, it seems we get the older date for a mention to the recipe- end of Century XVII)- let’s say I should have eaten a thousand tons of crème brûlée in my life because this is one of the dessert we get in almost every restaurant and because this is one of my favourite dessert.

Why did I digress ? Because to me this tea is not a crème brûlée tea.
It doesn’t mean this tea is not wonderful, because it is a wonderful tea, it’s just that to me there is no crème brûlée around.
But I am not vegan and I know Butiki teas only uses vegan ingredients- so it may be because I never ate any vegan crème brûlée.

Having said that, I really loved this tea as a pumpkin tea and this is an exploit because out of tea life, I really hate pumpkin.
The flavour pumpkin here is really perfumed and refined, completely different from another tea I had with pumpkin (the flavour wasn’t natural I think in the other tea).
This means this tea can be the first step for me to walk though the idea to try to eat again some pumpkin… so thanks Butiki teas for that.

Dry leaves are very beautiful and the black tea is really perfect : smooth but not weak.

A delicious tea to recommend to any Cinderella (and Cinderellos !)

No notes yet.

I received enough of Cantaloupe & Cream tea to get one big mug.I need to warmly thanks the generous Azzrian who sent me all the rest of her bag.
I was drinking my tea as if it was a liquid treasure …I think it is, really.
As far as I think about Cantaloupe I’ve always liked it …wherever it was from…Cavaillon or from Charentes…The aroma is so wonderful, so perfectly delicate.
This is exactly what I got in my mug : a wonderful melon taste as I got a perfect melon scent while infusing.
Regarding the cream…I am not sure I got it but this is a mellow tea, very smooth.
The dry leaves were so beautiful it was exactly as having a little garden in my infuser.
This one is in my shopping list now.

There is something I noticed with Butiki teas : for some reasons I prefer their teas warm and not hot…I am definitively not like Tony Curtis & Jack Lemmon !

Azzrian thanks so much again for permitting me to taste this fantastic tea – hope to see you soon back on Steepster- I miss your notes :)

This is a sample lovely Azzrian shared with me.
Well I am surprised because the tea description mentions a brewing time of 2 min and I have 4 minutes on the Butiki teas little bag…I did it 4 minutes so not sure what is the correct time finally.

This is not my favorite Butiki teas, for a black tea I found it a little too weak even if the delicate flavour of almond is very pleasant.The cinnamon is really a second role here.

My almond tea reference is Pleine Lune from Mariage Frères – the almond flavour is a totally different one with Almond Indulgence,a sweeter almond.

This is a nice tea but this one won’t go in my shopping list (thanks god because on 3 Butiki teas tasted I already added 2 on my shopping list !)

Things happen …finally…there is a rooibos I appreciate !
It’s not as good as real tea to me but it is nice.

Mango lassi isn’t my favorite Indian lassi (I prefer the mint or the rose one) but this is a beverage I like anyway.

Here the mango aroma is really wonderful and take the head of the notes.
It’s not creamy as a lassi can be but the quality of the mango aroma is really impressive and I really appreciated this rooibos (this is an exploit !)

Thank you Azzrian for the opportunity you gave me to taste this blend.

Thanks too to cteresa for supporting me to continue tasting rooibos :)

Thank you so much Azzrian for sharing this blend with me.

I really enjoy it, I find the green tea base very subtle without any astringency nor bitterness even if I over-steeped it a little.

This is my second Butiki teas only and I am really impressed with this brand.
The pistachio flavour is the leading role – it is clearly creamy but cannot really say I get an iced cream flavour, much more a creamy pistachio (which is perfect to me)

As my mug is cooling, the flavours become more interesting : the pistachio is more & more present and the creamy note totally invades the aftertaste. I imagine it could be a very nice iced tea as well.

I really loved it – thanks again Azzrian