Butiki Teas

I really want to try brewing this in milk. TO date, all my chai’s are simply brewed with water, which means i feel like i’m missing out on a whole other world of chai. Nik will need to come teach me the way of the chai lol As far as Chai’s go, this one is pretty well suited to my tastes. It’s not tooo spicy and nor is the cinnamon the overpowering flavour.

I need to try this with milk and see how that works with the chai. This is a lovely tea on it’s own, but I can also almost catch how it might blend superbly with milk. Another crazy week, so not much time to expand on my tasting notes. I’m hoping i can go back in the next week and update.

Tying to get quick logs in before if forget. The next four days at work are going to be crazy so expect less than usual from me. I owe Stacy a proper review of this tea as well, though it was a decent chai for this morning. I promise ill do up a proper one soon! Ill rate it then as well

Thank you Stacy at Butiki Teas for this wonderful sample!

Where do I start here? There are so many thoughts concerning this tea and it’s uniqueness. Let me state as we see with this tea, like many other things, it’s possible for other cultural groups to adapt and adjust it to their own region.

Wikipedia voices the following http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu-erh_tea:

Please note, I consolidated the main parts from this article to illustrate the theme of processing provinces.

“Pu’erh tea is a variety of post-fermented tea, specifically Dark tea, produced in Yunnan province, China… There are a few different provinces, each with a few regions, producing dark teas of different varieties… Those produced in Yunnan are generally named Pu’er, referring to the name of Pu’er county which used to be a trading post for dark tea during imperial China. While Yunnan produces the majority of pu’er, other regions of China, including Hunan and Guangdong, have also produced the tea… In addition to China, border regions touching Yunnan in Vietnam, Laos, and Burma are also known to produce pu’er tea, though little of this makes its way to the Chinese or international markets.”

As one can see, this tea doesn’t necessarily follow these normal sources for production and in my opinion, makes this tea even more intriguing!

Using the full portion of the sample in my gaiwan with boiling water, allowing for 7 seconds steeps, I found a sweet fermented sourness to the sip. Yeah, I thought that too – sounds weird, tastes GREAT! You can smell and taste a soy likeness with sauteed onions and roasted corn. Definitely reminds me of some teriyaki dishes that I’ve had from time to time, of which this makes the tea a very nice mid-afternoon or early evening. I could see this being a “dinner tea” in contrast to a “desert tea”. The difference is you could bypass a meal and easily substitute this tea for a soup of some kind.

After the 2nd or 3rd infusion (sorry, lost track), I started letting the leaves steep a tad longer – somewhere around 30 secs. This brought out a bitterness and taste that resembles acorns (yes, as a child I was curious:), then turned to a good astringency. With the longer steeping, it is certainly a full bodied tea, with a lingering tangerine/grapefruit citrusy.

Overall, I must say I’m pleasantly pleased with this tea. Very nice! Thanks again, Stacy for this wonderful addition to your offerings.

Additional notes: Just wanted to say that I’m still very impressed with this one. I see the black oolong leaves and I think it will be like a Fujian charcoal tasting oolong, but it is just buttery. It’s like a buttery flavored tea without the vegetableness of a tea that is green. And with maple and pecan, of course!

Butiki sent me a sample to try — thank you! Oh wow… this one is luxurious! There are definite flavors of maple and pecan here. It’s just like maple syrup with pecans! I’d say the pecan and maple flavors are equally present. There are huge chunks of pecan in this blend! The oolong leaves are black, wiry, twisty — I haven’t seen an oolong like this yet. I think it’s a nice base for the flavors. It doesn’t have a typical floral taste of an oolong that might otherwise taste terrible with maple or pecan. This type of oolong lets the flavors shine. There is also a slight flavor of dates or something similar.. and also something bakey! I wish I could have tried this type of oolong unflavored, to see how it is contributing to the flavors. Perfect with Thanksgiving in a couple days… it has me looking forward to all that pecan pie I’ll be having!

What a wonderful and delightful tea from Butiki Teas!

I was quite surprised by the recommended water temperature for this one, as it appears to be a much greener oolong for that temp range(normally speaking). One thing I have learned and never hurts to try, is the company’s steeping instructions. The instructions did not guide me astray. They were perfect!

The tea’s leaves are medium darkness, but certainly leans more to green than roasted. Once you add the water and give the leaves its first rinse, you really see the nice spinach color come to surface.

The taste is sensational, with its floral, creamy and very light, but thick fullness. There is a cleanness, almost mintiness to the tongue. Has a lot of similarities to a First Flush Spring Green Tea, yet with a butteriness. Very satisfying and comforting, especially to the tummy. I really need this tea right now, so I’m glad to have this one on hand to keep me relaxed. Last week was a very long one. Monday’s are usually the days that we feel the impact of the preceding week. Glad for this cup.

One last thing, I’ve been working on these same leaves all day and they show no signs of depleting its great quality liquor. I will definitely have to come back to this one again later on in the week. It has a great character and shows great promise to becoming a favorite. Thanks again, Stacy at Butiki Teas for your excellent service and outstanding products!

Having a cup Malawi White Peony this evening. We spent most of the afternoon at the movie theater watching “Cloud Atlas” – it’s nearly three hours long, longer if you account for the previews! But it was a really amazing movie. Now I need to read the book.

Anyway… YOU too could be drinking this tea – did you know that we’re giving away a $20 gift certificate to Butiki Teas on the SororiTea Sisters blog? This giveaway ends tomorrow! http://sororiteasisters.com/2012/11/14/its-time-for-a-giveaway/ Did I mention that there is also free shipping that goes along with the gift certificate? Awesome!

This is really excellent – one of the nicest “white peony” teas I’ve had, and it’s not from China! It has a juiciness to it, the citrus tones really come right out and enhance the overall flavor. Vegetative too, and the fruit and vegetative notes really mingle well together. A really outstanding white tea.

I have a wee bit of this tea left, I think I shall send it to my SororiTea Sister Azzrian!

I thought I would do a quick review before bed time and after my conversation about cider on the forums I took it as a sign to try this one.

The raw tea smells like sour apples with a little spice.
Once brewed the tea creates a dark golden brown liquid that smells very similar to it’s raw state.

I can taste apple, clove and cinnamon and each gets stronger the more I drink. It reminds me of mulled wine that we have at Christmas time here in the UK, I wonder if that is the equivalent of warm cider in USA?
It’s definitely very tasty and happily appley. I’m being warmed up before bed time :)

I already had my little wake up call (literally) this morning. Long story short I have Lyme Disease…not to worry first dose of meds is already on board. Anyway it was early when I got the call this morning and I wasn’t fully awake. So I dug this out of the box from the order that arrived yesterday. The lemon smell started to give me a little bit of a wake-up. But let me tell you the tea was something else. Zesty, creamy, def an easy push into my day and has kept me going without all the nasty coffee jitters! :)

Sipdown! 825.

I think I liked this tea better this time than the first time I drank it. I really do think that 2-minute infusions are the way to go with flavoured black teas. Anyhow, I gulped this one down too quickly so I can’t entirely remember how it tasted, except that it was nutty and a bit sweet, completely smooth, and quite tasty! It looks like I may not have resteeped it last time, so hopefully I will manage to tonight, and see how it holds up.

Getting to a couple samples tonight, as I’m getting bored with drinking only the teas that I have lots of and that hold up well in a thermos…

The aroma of the brewed tea is weakly of cinnamon, and perhaps a little nutty. Good, but fairly weak. The flavour of the tea has the same flavours, and surprisingly does remind me of an almond cookie, actually! Just a hint of cinnamon, and some nuttiness, on a nice light but present black base. Although the aroma’s weak, I’m finding the tea to have just the right amount of flavour, and the perfect spicing for a cookie tea!

I have to admit that this wouldn’t end up as a favourite though; I’m pretty picky about flavoured blacks apparently, and one of my requirements seems to be strong caramel/vanilla flavouring, which isn’t in this tea. However, it is definitely still tasty!

Thanks for sharing a sample of this one with me, Azzrian!

Wow! (This is saying a lot as I am still not sold on green teas). Many thanks to Stacy for sending me some of this one. It smells very toasty and vegital dry. Steeped this tea is…juicy, an odd word, but it happened to be the first to come to mind. I’m also getting more toasted notes and spinach too.

As I continue to sip (trying not to gulp it down) I get a little hint of butter and maybe, some sweet pea too! I’m really getting the feeling of drinking my veggies and enjoying it too. I see this as a Christmas gift request…if I can hold off that long!

Liberteas sent me some of this! Thanks so much! You know I like a black tea in the morning! This ‘brews up’ pretty dark and I’m not sure why but I’m smelling a very VERY faint hint of maple to-the-nose. It’s quite nice!

Taste-wise this tea doesn’t take you on a roller coaster ride – it’s a nice even-steven medium strength black tea from start to finish. It’s slightly sweet and has a subtle/mellowy-malt to it. Right in the middle of the sip a hint-of-walnut taste pops in to say hello!

Yum! This is tasty!

backlog
Grape Oolong
This was a Sample from Stacy at Butiki Tea and it isYummy!!, it smells like grape bubble gum and taste like grape Dum-Dum pops,I really like this one Lance like it and it is very hard to get him to drink an Oolong with me so I’m glad to get this sample.We Will buy more of this tea :)
Sorry so short but thats about it, it’s jusy grapey :)

Photos on blog
http://toadsteablog.blogspot.com/2012/11/grape-oolong-by-butiki-tea.html

Daba, oh, Daba,

Couple of days ago I thought you and I were done for good, providing you don’t exist anymore and therefore I can’t restock on you :-(

But then, it occurred to me that I should put some order in my cupboard, and surprise! There you were, from the height of your 1/2 once, waiting for us to meet again!

I will cherish the tiny little bits and pieces I have left of you, but tonight, I can’t resist you! Come for a late night swim in the Gaiwan with me :-)

(See previous notes)

Today, I had planned to dedicate my day to drinking my favourite teas.

When I woke up and looked outside I had a shock: the scenery had no pigmentation left in it, only white EVERYWHERE! 60cm added to what was already there… took me hours to get out of the house. The joy of having 4 seasons :-)

Daba, you will be missed… I have tried to extend your life for as long as I could, but sadly, it all comes to an end today.

You have been a good companion, I think I have treated you well, making you my official favourite green tea.

You didn’t sell for cheap, that I remember, but tragically, you are not for sale anymore, that’s right, you’re hometown Butiki doesn’t seem to carry you any longer.

I’d like to think that we’ll meet again in this life, Daba chéri, my cute Lilliputian green tea (see previous note )

Stacy I hate you. No, I love you. Hate you. Love you. My wallet hates you…but that doesn’t count for anything so only love for you then!

Thank you so much for allowing me to try this oh! sooo very special and unique tea!

BUT! The consequence to that is that I will now have to brake my tea fast ( I « pretend» I’m fasting on tea orders until december, that gives me a false sense of self control, which is truly non sense and pure lie)

I don’t know much about this tea but I was immediately drawn to it when I last visited Butiki’s virtual shelves.

First the shape: surprisingly hard and rigid little green needles. They are shiny, which is odd for me, can’t think of another tea in my cupboard with shiny leaves… Can you?

They almost feel like plastic between my fingers, as if they have a carapace of some kind! The fact that they are so hard makes me wonder how they will ever soften up when brewed.

In the Gaiwan they go!

First steep renders a very light yellow colour. The smell is sweet, almost corn on a cub type of sweetness. The taste is buttery yummy… sweet corn indeed, but strangely, that sweetness collides with some tangling sparks of citrus juiciness. What a pleasant yet very strange feeling that creates in my mouth.

Not to be mistaken with bitterness, it’s more of a tang biting back at you, with refreshing notes, the sharpness of pink ruby red grapefruit comes to mind.

Saltiness emerges out of the second steep. Corn, snap peas, and that tang still very present.

4th steep was pretty much the same…

I forgot 5th steep, left it for more than 4 minutes… That seemed an awful lot considering my tiny gaiwan! Did someone mentioned PEAR? Yes, it’s in Stacy’s description. Well goodbye grapefruit, hello pear! After 4 minutes, of course it’s astringent (which I personaly don’t mind when the taste is so complex and delightful). But the pear is striking! More minerals have also emerged, that makes it «salty pear seaweed» like!

At this stage, the leaves are very soft and plump, they look exactly like Lilliputian snap peas or green beens, if I ever saw some! Could it be that Stacy really got this strange little tea from one of Gulliver’s travel, or did she go pick it up herself in Liliput? Let’s just keep the mystery alive…

You can have a look here: (yeah, that’s my new thing, experimenting with tea photos…As if my life is lacking of tea surroundings!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/8182813649/in/photostream/lightbox/

This morning, I fainted when I got up… no big deal, I have a history of that. But I banged my head a little and felt dizzy throughout the day. (Ahh!! I hear you say, that explains the Lilliputian hallucinations!)

It’s a little scary when this situation occurs while I’m alone in the house. But Doberman Dexter came to the rescue and helped me get back on my feet :-) To help me regain my equilibrium, I needed something with special energy, a positive boost that I often find in green teas. Having read some of the reviews (Bonnie’s comment about tea-buzz) I decided it was the right moment to try it.

It gave me just what I needed. It energized me and made the worries and fears go away… I self medicated in an all natural way!

I must order this in a hurry, tea fasting is officialy over! (It never really started anyway)

Thanks to my Sororitea Sista’s for some of this!

I think I over infused this a bit and got more vegetal than refreshing and/or citrus than my sista’s Liberteas and Azzrian got out of it but I still really like the way this one tastes (possibly) over-infused and vegetal. I will be more aware the next time I infuse it to go a little less. As for this time around with the vegetal flavors popping thru…they are comparable to Kelp/Spinach/Collar Greens, even.

Stacy over at Butiki Teas is on my mental wavelength.

She should probably have that checked.

Her flare for the unusual rivals even my own. And, boy, was this unusual. I mean that in all the best possible ways I can muster. While it technically shouldn’t be called a pu-erh in the traditional (read: Yunnan-produced) sense, it meets all the character criteria I care about. That being, it actually tastes good. Cocoa was at war with coffee, and chestnuts were the jury and arbiter…er…as far as flavor goes.

Whatever it’s called, I want more of it.

My full feature on it (and other tea/writing adventures) can be found here: http://steepstories.com/2012/11/12/writing-epiphanies-and-japanese-pu-erh/

I’ve been saving my sample of this award-winning organic Bai Mu Dan for the right evening. As I pour this pale gold tea, it’s delightful fragrance has me in anticipation. I almost think I catch a faint whiff of brown sugar. The taste is smooth, creamy and natural.Yummy, this is truly reminiscent of fresh cantaloupe from summertime. The second steep is equally flavorful. A wonderful blend that with a little sweetener is perfect for a dessert tea, but hubby likes it straight too.

I have a hard time believing it’s tea that I am drinking, it tastes so much like a cantaloupe cream flavored candy or something.
I have been drinking pretty much solid black teas all week.
Its been one of those kinda weeks…but I had some time this afternoon and wanted something fun and delightful and light…and this tea fit the bill perfectly!

I’m still loving this one a lot but need to lower my rating because my tastes have changed a little since I bought 4 oz.
It is really a lovely Oolong with such a natural taste of maple and pecan…absolutely not a tea of season but it is so cool to be out of sync sometimes.