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I guess I wasn’t a big fan of this before. I actually found it ok this time, was expecting to need to add milk/sugar but it was actually perfectly fine without, probably in part due to age? Malty but not as punchy as the name would suggest.

Never did taste the cocoa here. This was a light, slightly sweet, pleasant genmaicha the other day. It may have lost some of its subtleties over the years, but is still a tasty cup.

Weird tea. Aroma definitely is funky, but brewed up, the flavour isn’t too bad. Fruity, maaaaybe I can pick out pineapple. And a herbaceousness that must be the cilantro. Also, cream. It’s weird. I think I was supposed to give this away to someone but forgot. Too bad, because I don’t want to finish it, heh.

On that note, I’m basically through all of the Butiki teas I’m aware of owning, with the exception of duplicate packages, and two pu’erhs (my interest in trying them is just so low, I may not get there). May find a couple hidden gems, but definitely have confirmed the losses of Pistachio Ice Cream and Pumpkin Milkshake. Also, my Steepster cupboard is horrifyingly out of date on my Butikis, because I have legitimately sipped at least a few down! But I’ll never be sure which were just lost to those dratted mice. Fun times! Plans are to prioritize a few Butiki sipdowns where teas are going south, and get going on the Frank-era 52teas stash.

I had no idea what to expect with this tea. Yes, oolong. But sechong has no meaning for me, so it was a mystery! My first impression was disappointment, because the little rolled balls look to be fading in colour (I expected a vibrant green) – but after brewing, it turns out it’s clearly a roasted oolong, so the colouring is exactly as it should be. Didn’t take good notes about the flavour, but it was pretty good. Light roastiness, nice sweetness. Apparently it’s a blend of a few different oolongs, which is interesting; I need to pay more attention next time. Overall, a pretty tasty cup.

Thanks to Nature’s Tea Leaf for the original sample, and Sil for passing it on!

Sipdown! 111/365!

Alrighty, working on the backlog now. I finished this one off the other night; it was mediocre at best. I think it was either overleafed or oversteeped, which is too bad. Just had that metallic, astringent flavour.

Hmm. Thought this was likely a share from Sil or possibly VariaTEA, but they have too many notes for that to be too likely, especially given how much tea is in the packet. Did I buy this one myself? I probably will never know.

Anyways, using this as a palate cleanser between oolongs. I was getting too confused. This tea is okay, but there’s not enough pear (I like what I can taste, though), and no cardamom to speak of. Maybe there were cardamom pods, and it was hit or miss if you ended up getting one in the brew? It is perfectly pleasant though.

Second Verdant oolong of the evening. This was from when I belonged to the tea club an eon ago, which I really enjoyed. I have many of those teas still to drink (tried most of them), but it will be a fun time when I get to go through the straight tea/Verdant bin! Luckily most are well-sealed and straight teas, so aside from the greens, flavour loss is minimal if at all.

Off-track. This tea, by contrast, is not floral. Wet earth/dirt is what comes to mind when I smell the cup; it’s not unpleasant, but it’s certainly a mustier/drier smell. Familiar, though. Almost like… leafhopper-bitten teas, or a darjeeling? I’m grasping; I wish I could pinpoint what I’m tasting. The taste is initially somewhat sweet, which is an odd contrast to the aroma. This tea is more drying than the previous one; my tongue feels the sharpness a bit, especially on the initial sip. I think it’s actually that mustier flavour giving it the astringency. Curious.

Definitely prefer the other wuyi oolong, as creaminess and lack of astringency are my preference. This one is just okay.

Dang it all. I made the mistake of brewing up two similar oolongs from Verdant, and am not sure which is which. I’d kept it straight but am now second-guessing myself. So I think I am reviewing the correct one here, but it’s possible I have them reversed. They are noticeably different, so I might be able to sort this out in the future if I’m wrong!

Anyhow – this one greeted me with quite the floral aroma upon removing the infuser from my cup (yes, I brewed western style. I’m simply too lazy for gongfu, though I suspect this would shine in that context). Brain too tired to deduce the particular floral, but it’s not an uncommon one to oolongs (reminded me of some greener ones). I was worried that it would also taste floral, but it doesn’t overly. It’s actually fairly creamy, light, minerally. Really delicious and enjoyable to drink. A lovely creamy, umami flavour left in the mouth after swallowing – a tea that one wants to have remain on their palate for a while. It’s interesting – I actually prefer the taste remaining in my mouth post-consumption more than I do the taste of the actual tea in my mouth. Unsure why, but that has happened to me before, in particular with oolongs. Perhaps it’s a sign of the tea being oversteeped and too complex, then when watered down, it really shines? I have no idea. Either way, this is a nice tea, and it might be making me tea drunk. The baby should probably wait to wake up for his mid-sleep snack until Mommy is sober again.

Waaaay behind on logging. And many things. I’m trying to do more things outside the house with baby, which is good for us, but has resulted in very little getting done aside from making supper and doing laundry. Sigh.

This is a first in a long time though – I’m actually writing this note (and hopefully the next three) while I’m drinking the tea. Bonus – it’s even still warm! I slept away half of today and although I was tired around 8pm, I pushed through it (probably a bad idea) so I could tackle dish mountain, and diaper laundry, and hopefully have some time for things like this!

This tea is yummy (note: review is for an Anne reblend; I believe I also have/had the Frank version). I’m a fan of lime flavouring in tea, and it works nicely here. Really not sure I’d be able to distinguish lime vs lemon-lime, but this is different than straight up lemon. There is a bit of fluff to it, taking any possible edge off, though it’s not overly creamy. The kukicha is a great base here – seamlessly blended in so much so that I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

Reminds me much of other creamy lime blends, like Lime Marshmallow and Lime Pear Fluff. Should really do a comparison. I’d forgotten that this tea existed/had a similar flavour.

Upping rating a couple notches, 75 to 77; I don’t think I had re-rated this one post-reblend, and the Frank-era version I tried was old.

Sipdown! 110/365!

Sometimes, my mouth is really good at validating my thoughts on a tea without the bias of knowing the company/age/anything. As an example – forgot what I’d brewed up (as usual), and was sampling a trio of teas. Hit this one, and immediately thought “OMG this is delicious!”. Yep. This was an absolutely amazing tea, right down to the last cup, even though at that point the leaves were somewhat broken up. Pure decadent lemon fluff, perfect flavourful green tea base (it was shockingly still good, too!) This was one of Frank’s real gems, and I’m going to miss it horribly. If I recall correctly, it took a bit of time to grow on me, but ended up being one of my all-time favourite flavoured greens (you could even say, one of my all-time flavoured teas. Yeah, it’s that good.)

Upping the rating from 87 to 95. This might be the best lemony tea I’ve ever had. I’d love to see this reblended someday, but it’s one of those teas where it was so amazing to start with, I suspect it will be quite difficult to replicate.