Butiki Teas

mmmmm so it’s fairly late in the day and i really need to get moving. All i really want to do today is sit around the house drinking tea and watching tv but we promised to go hang out with friends. I’ll have to pack some tea to take along with me so that i get at least a couple more cups in. I enjoy this one from butiki though it will likely be one of the teas that rotates through my cupboard rather than being a staple. It’s got some interesting notes to it that i enjoy.

Sadly i had this more than 12 hours ago and it’s but a faint memory. I know that i enjoyed it but as for an actual tasting note, that’s note going to happen tonight. I’ll have to have more of this soon, though i may take it over to my dad’s place since we’ve booked a last minute trip to visit them over the long weekend. I know he really enjoyed the premium taiwanese assam i gave him, so i’m hoping he’ll enjoy this one and maybe place an order himself lol More on this actual tea later..perhaps tomorrow to make up for this crappy note :)

Yes, please!

I am so glad I decided to go home a make some tea due to having a couple free hours from work.
This one is so yummy!
The soft vanilla and caramel go so amazing well with the malty assam. The vanilla and caramel are very delicate and natural tasting.
I am definately becoming a Butiki addict with all these wonderful selections.

Thank you, Shelley_Loraine for the box of yummy teas that came in the mail today! I opened this up and went straight for the Butiki. :-)

This tea did taste like pistachios. There was a distinctive nutty quality in scent and first part of the taste. The green base was vegetal, buttery and maybe even a bit salty. I felt like I was tasting spinach very strongly as it cooled, which I enjoyed.

I got one very large cup out of this and I think I’d be more interested in trying the base on its own rather than the blend again. It was good, but not one of my favorites.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a winter tea. I’ve also realized that while I love licorice….I like chewing it. This is a great tea! The flavouring is totally black licorice goodness…my favourite kind! But a “normal” sized cup is good enough for a sitting and I really want it to be cold out when I drink it…likely the whole chai thing :) still though? I love this and I’m happy I have it. Love the ideas that come from Stacy’s customers – especially when they’re fellow steepsterites :)

mmmmm…another chai i figured i should try this morning since it’s a colder spring day today and i much prefer drinking chai when it’s cold. Let me first start off by saying that this smells like licorice. Black licorice. Which happens to be my favourite. Jelly beans? gimme the black ones! Again, i didn’t add anything to this, preferring to keep it simple and straight but i might be tempted to in future just to see what’s what. Thank you boxermama for this delightful and unique creation!

This is such a lovely cup! Malty, bold yet a subtle fruitiness.
This goes well with an afternoon of watching crime TV series on Netfix.

It is poring down rain today with thunder and lightening, so what else to do but sip delicious teas!

I’m too busy sipping this to type out a lengthy note………yum!

Very hot this tea does have a subtle fruity note at the front, then I definitely get the sweet pipe tobacco, finishing up with malt. As the tea cools the fruit layer disappears for me. This is a very smooth cup to me no bitterness, with a very light astringency…very light.
My neighbor smokes a cigar on his porch most nights and I enjoy the fragrance of the sweet ones. I wonder if he would enjoy coming over for a cup of this tea!
The finish is very complex, I can’t quite describe it yet…I taste malt but there is something else going on that lingers on my tongue.
I need to try the non-upgrade too.

My roommate, who is not a tea drinker, notified me that in his opinion this lavender chamomile smells like cat food and breakfast cereal. I told him that he’s probably high and that there was an exceedingly good chance that his soul is complete dog shit. This is one of the best chamomile blends I’ve ever had in my life. I’m very happy that I purchased it. Chamomile has a flavor, believe it or not. I was unaware of this while growing up because we had chamomile in tea bags which were like drinking liquid rice cakes. I would recommend this tea to my mother, my grandmother, her mailman, the pope, every contestant on The Price Is Right, and Emily the girl on the “ramen noodle a day” budget from the Allstate commercial.

I have decided that when it comes to black teas with me, it is either I like it or I do not. There does not seem to be much middle ground. Luckily, this tea easily falls into the like category.

The steeped leave produced a dark gold liquid with what I can only describe as a calm smell. I discovered that this smell was in fact, a reflection of the tea itself. The taste is definitely calming, but I would rather describe it as smooth. To me, this is a good quality in a black tea. To be honest, I do not know how to describe the taste in this tea. I would suggest that it has a sweet taste, but other than that, it just taste fresh and smooth.

This is a tea that I would definitely like to keep around; for breakfast or after a meal or whenever I want a black tea.

Hello Steepsters! Between my computer breaking (leaving me virtually computerless) and finals followed by leaving the state temporarily, it has been quite a while. I would like to take a moment and apologize to Stacy from Butiki Teas for the delay on my end of our commitment. That being said, I will be attempting to put up the bit of backlogging I have compiled ASAP. Now, on to the tea!

The dry leaves of the Organic Ancient Bi Luo Chun are tightly wound balls which when steeped, release a liquid of strong vegetable smells. I used just under what I might should have of tea leaves so I increased the temperature some. Around 2 minutes and 15 seconds, I noticed that the tea truly did not have much color in it, so I allowed it to steep on. This went on until I stopped it at the 3 minute mark. This produced a gold colored tea, which I feared I may have over steeped too much.

My fears were relieved when I tasted it and it only had the slightest bitter bite to it. The tea is juicy and vegetal with a slight bite to it, which as I said might be my fault, but is not at all a bad thing. The second steep was allowed 3 minutes as well to test the finish of the tea. Despite my deceiving steeper, this one too produced a similar, if not lighter gold liquid. This steep did indeed have a smoother finish to it. The tea continued with the vegetal taste, though subtler. I could see this as being an easy go-to green.

The dry leaves are long, full, fluffy and green. The wet leaves release a sweet vegetal smell. The liquid is incredibly lightly gold colored with a subtle sweet pea like flavor. The second steep is much the same, though I did add a generous amount of time to attempt to produce a stronger liquid. This tea is a little too subtle for my taste but still good.

My first purple tea! YAY! Thanks Courtney for sharing a little with me so I can try it.

Like other Butiki teas, the flavoring here is very natural and a little subtle but not in a bad way. Mmmm, I love bluberry! The base tea reminds me a little of a green or maybe white tea? It doesn’t have a really strong flavor either, but don’t get me wrong, this tea isn’t bland or anything! It is really quite nice. I’m glad I got to try it. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a nice natural blueberry flavored tea! I think its the best blueberry tea I’ve tried so far.

SO surprised to like this tea. Usually I go to Taiwanese teas for Oolongs or go to India for assams…what a funny switch!

Very bold, chocolatey carmel taste. A hint of vanilla here and there.

BOLD, is the best word to use. yes, Bold.

I like their teas usually, and this tea is no exception. A great tea. Thank you

Sample sipdown! Thanks to Stacy at Butiki Teas for including this with my last order.

This is a really lovely tea. Another home run for Stacy (and props to Sil too!). The dry leaves smell beautifully of strawberries, though a little fake. There are some nice big chunks of strawberry in the blend though! First sip – tastes just like real strawberries. Sweet, juicy, tangy. There’s a touch of graham cracker flavor too, which rounds out the sip nicely. The tea gets juicier as it cools, inspiring me to try this iced. Putting the rest of the mug in the freezer to see how it tastes cold.

So tasty cold! Very strawberry. Not as sweet as the DavidsTea Sweet Strawberry, but nice and tangy. Very juicy too. The graham cracker flavor is gone, though, so this tastes more like a straight strawberry tea. This is definitely better as an iced tea than the Davids. I’m reluctant to decide which one I like better hot, since the Butiki isn’t actually a straight strawberry tea. The Butiki is definitely more complex and interesting though.

soooo even though i’ve found that there are some green oolongs that i really and some dark oolongs that i love…as an over all type of tea, they just aren’t my favourite. This one, while it’s certainly a delicious roasty, sweet, chestnut cup of yum…there’s something in there that makes me wish it was a black tea :) I’ve gone through a few steepings of this and while it’s certainly up there on my list of oolongs, i think it’s largely time to come to grips with the fact that i’ll never love them as much as my black teas. :)

I must have been a Parisian in another life. I wish desperately to have been born of French parents instead of Eastern European ones. As a chef, I am trained in classical French cuisine and it is still my favourite cuisine, although the Indian and Mexican are closing the gap.

I don’t think of tea being a French thing and it would take some tea to steal me away from coffee on Saturday morning. With my warm baguette (yes, I went to the bakery at 6 am and got that) and my triple-creme Brie, croissants and the truffled eggs I made this morning, you just have to have coffee. This morning was no exception. What does this have to do with tea you ask? Well, tea is all about the senses, as is food. I’m sure you didn’t need to know my breakfast habits but I’m also sure you’ll think of it when you’re having your cereal or toast.

But since this is a tea review, I’ll tell you that I did manage to squeeze in a cup of this before I went to the bakery. I like it, a lot. There’s no mistaking the lemon peel flavour, even the uninitiated one can attest to this. I grew up with lemon in tea — every cup of tea I ever had growing up had a slice of lemon in it — so this tastes very familiar. I was 2 for 2 with butiki teas and so I had to try this one, my third. It is not a breakfast tea for me but an afternoon patio drink. Kinda like this:
http://instagram.com/p/Y3VEarnqRb/

Thank you to dexter3657. Gawd, I think I need to buy some tea of my own! But now I am getting to know my likes and dislikes somewhat.

Good bye Tamarind Pop!! I received this a while back from Dexter3657 and was happy. Initially she sent me a sample and when I enjoyed that she later sent the rest of the bag.

I made this tonight because I badly need a drink (of the adult kind). I blew off some steam by doing productive things (like grocery shopping and tidying) but when I returned from said chores and was thirsty I decided to make this. I wanted something only lightly flavoured, which I remembered this being, because I wanted a big jar of iced tea. (Damn, those people in House of Cards drink a lot of iced tea)

This tastes only faintly of tamarind but I am quite happy with the amount of flavour I get. Mostly tea, some tamarind. Oversteeping is not a great idea with this one.

I don’t know what I did to this tea today but it tasted so different than my first attempt which was oh so yummy. I timed it but it almost tasted like I overstepped or something. I failed to get a lot of tamarind and then as it cooled it got bitter. Can’t figure out what I did. I know it’s good because I had it before. Anyway, I took the last of the sample from Dexter3657 and I am cold steeping it in a jar till tomorrow. We’ll see what happens.

Earlier today I explained that some of the teas I got in a treasure box from Dexter3657 smell similar and I realized it must be a cross-contamination of sorts. I was looking for the offender, the tea who shamelessly pushed itself onto others. Well, I found it and thus I punished it by drinking it. Some of it, anyway.

I had to drink it. The smell has been driving me nuts for two days now. I was sniffing the air like a hound on a hunt and looking a little crazy, it has to be said. I’m trying to make friends with black teas and I’ve had some success. This being one of the more successful attempts. Only very slightly astringent and a very unique flavour indeed. I sweetened it. I always do. I only use unrefined or minimally refined brown sugars or agave. In this case Turbinado was used.

I have absolutely no desire to try this iced. It is the fastest I ever drank a black tea. The thing is I can still smell it all over the other bags. You know what this means… I have to drink those too!

All gone. this was my treat today because we couldn’t get ice cream last night lol. thanks again omgsrsly. best tea surprise!

so sad….this is almost gone. thanks to omgsrsly, i got to have this one again but also got to remember why i was sad when butiki closed up. one more little cup’s worth left of this one.

omgsrsly sent this to me in a “mystery tea” tin. I haven’t had a chance to drink it until today but when i cracked it open i was like….butiki…caramel vanilla….omg! SRSLY! and she confirmed that i wasn’t crazy and yes that was the tea lol. I had a cup today after my run and it was divine…glorious…amazing… all that and a bag of chips.

SIPDOWN! I’m sad to see this go, but it’ll be back. I had a bit more than the recommended amount of tea, but not enough for a second cup so i simply overleafed this one. A pleasant experiment! It made for a slightly more caramel cup of tea.