Strawberry Oolong

Mmm, first infusion smells light, fruity and delicious, and… are you kidding me. I just spilt it on my bed. :( I guess I got a bit overzealous in swirling it around. Luckily only spilled 1/4 of it.

The flavour is a light oolong with overtones of fruitiness. The fruit flavour here does strongly remind me of that in DavidsTea’s Blazing Strawberries, yet strangely also makes me think cherry blossom, like in Den’s Sakura Sencha. It’s pretty tasty though, and plenty strong enough.

The second infusion (4:30, 180F) is similar; definitely more oolong flavour and less fruitiness. Could probably get another few infusions, so might give that a shot tomorrow evening.

My one kind-of complaint is that the flavour is not so much of strawberry to me, and much more of cherry blossom. So more of a cherry blossom oolong. Don’t get me wrong – it’s delicious, but not quite what I was expecting, especially after the grape oolong.

ETA: Oh look! I finally remembered to mark a Tasting Note milestone!!! I’ve hit 400, woo! Missed every other landmark prior though, whoops. (And technically this tea shouldn’t even be #400, since I have two iced teas to log that I drank earlier, but oh well!)

ETA again: Third infusion (180F/4:30) is light and pretty tasty, with a floral-y, oolong aftertaste. Fourth infusion (180F/6ish min) is pretty similar. Basically tastes like a floral oolong now. Surprising amount of flavour left. I might try one more infusion, but I’ve had nearly enough of this one for the time being. Fifth infusion (180F/7min) tasted metallic and off; I threw it out as the leaves had probably sat too long, but I suspect it would have still been good.

I’ve been saving this sample from Butiki (thanks Stacy!) for the perfect day.

Today was the opposite of a perfect tea day. Not in a bad way! Just not ideal haha – I’ve been taking tea to work every day but it’s been a huge travel mug of various black teas. Every day for the past 2 weeks! This morning I had 4 minutes to make tea, and I know I didn’t have time to boil the water all the way to 212 AND wait for it to steep! I searched in my dwindling sample drawer and pulled this one out.

The reason it wasn’t ideal was that I wanted to sit and savour this tea, not throw it in a teasac and run! But throw it in a teasac and run I did! The water was around 170, because the bus ride is a half hour long and I didn’t want to torture the poor tea!

Well now I’m at work and the liquor is a pale gold. The smell is sweet strawberry and buttery green oolong – no mistaking it for anything else imo. The taste echoes that. Wow this is glorious – smooth and savoury, no additions needed. The quality of the oolong is so apparent with every sip – there is not even a hint of bitterness. The strawberry flavour is also expertly blended – it doesn’t overwhelm, instead the flavours mingle together like a perfect match. Instead of chocolate dipped strawberries, it’s strawberry dipped oolong.

I could drink this forever, and in fact – I will be making a Butiki order asap so I can drink it forever – as well as other flavoured oolongs and that watermelon dragonwell, hello!

LOVE this!!!!

This has the lil pearls I have seen in some Cherry Blossom Green Teas and I think they are lovely! The aroma is excellent! The Oolong Leaves are screaming multiple infusions! I will put that to the test! For the first infusion this is a highly flavored oolong. The strawberry tastes are wonderful! They are sweet without ANY trace of sour or bitterness. Very sweet and very nice! This is awesome hot or cold!

I’m totally diggin’ Butiki Teas Flavored Oolongs! So far every tea/tisane I have had of theirs is wonderful! I really like this company!!!

Ah…refreshing!

Four minutes seemed a bit long so I went with 3.5 min.
Either way, I think it would have worked. The strawberry is very light and refreshing.
Second steep was more of the same only a tad creamier. It all works very well with a green oolong base. Yep, this is good tea! thank you Stacy!!
The base seems to be of exceptional quality, as it lends alot to the flavouring as opposed to so many other types that just add flavouring to cover up any base notes.
I feel as if the strawberry here is more of an enhancement to the already present, natural fruity notes.
If only I could afford to stock this in my cupboard always :)

Thank you Stacy for sending me this sample!

This has some interesting little “pellets” in it, I’m not sure what those are… strawberry seeds? flower seeds?

Anyhoo this was steeped for around 3 minutes at 180F. First I tried it plain and it really has the traditional flavors of a Taiwan high mountain oolong. lightly floral, buttery and very delicate. The strawberry is mild and delicate, which I quite like. I then decided to add about 1 tsp. of turbinado sugar to see if I could make this more dessert-like. I felt like this small addition really helped bring out the strawberry flavor. Really good for an afternoon treat. ;)

I opened the ½ ounce packet and was surprised to find tightly rolled, green oolong leaves. For some reason, I thought this would be a roasted brown oolong like in Butiki’s Maple Pecan Oolong. But this is a pleasant surprise for me because I adore green oolongs. :)

The dry leaves give off a lovely strawberry aroma, and yet there doesn’t appear to be anything in the pouch except oolong leaves. I wonder how this was flavored…hmm, that remains a mystery even after tasting it. But I’m jumping ahead.

The brewed tea aroma is much like the dry leaf. The taste is a beautiful, floral, green oolong with juicy strawberry flavoring. It tastes of both strawberry fruit and strawberry seeds. Yum! It’s a wonderful flavor with a natural sweetness.

OMG, this is divine!!! It has all the wonderful characteristics of floral green oolongs that I love. But it also has one of the tastiest and truest strawberry flavors I’ve ever had. This is one yummy cup of tea! I honestly can’t do it justice with words. I feel like any time I wanted a green oolong, I could just drink this instead. It’s a perfectly balanced, perfectly flavored, natural tasting, fruity tea. I am in love! *Swoon!

Stacy you did it again! A high quality finely blended tea that invokes the flavor of real fresh strawberries but the sweet ones, not the under ripe tart ones lol. This has NO artificial flavoring in the taste and the oolong still is allowed to come through. Thank you Stacy!

Thank you to Stacy at Butiki Tea for this sample

This is some wonderful Strawberry Oolong!
I am really fond of Black Tea, Pu’erh’s, malty Assam, smoky Lapsang Souchong, but this Oolong swept me off my feet. The flavor after a 4 minute steep was an authentic and gentle strawberry in a buttery, creamy golden liquor. There was a touch of floral orchid taste on the finish . As I said before, wow! This is desert-like!
Adding some rock sugar brought me to the best Springtime Tea experience. Paired with little salty expensive local cheese for lunch from The Welsh Rabbit Cheese Shop and I am ordering this tea right away.
I have to commend Butiki on not only their fine customer service, but on how well they flavor their tea. Never overdone or harsh, Butiki is a reliable tea company! They are one of my top 5 vendors that I will reorder from often!

I don’t understand why this is still on my shopping list on Steepster rather than in my possession. Thanks TeaEqualsBliss for a couple cups worth of this!

I could barely stand it while it steeped, the aroma of strawberries in the kitchen was starting to get to be too much for me. But finally the four minutes were over, and I added a couple drops of agave and waited for it to cool a bit more.

Oh my gosh. This is definitely one of the best tasting strawberry teas I’ve had. And the strawberry flavor is a-m-a-z-i-n-g with this oolong. I love the floral and green notes of it, and how they seamlessly transform into juicy strawberries.

The oolong is pretty buttery too..so you can imagine how lovely it is to have a strawberries and cream flavor going on in here too.

Definitely getting more of this within the month. I am going to be good and say I’m waiting for the watermelon flavored tea Butiki is coming out with because otherwise I’d head over there right now and order. (Ok and also the student loan funds to come in but NEED.)

A Surprise sample from Stacy in my Butiki order.
I really wanted to get this tea in my order (but to be fair, I wanted to get ALL the teas) so I am happy that I still get to try it.
The dry leaves smell heavenly.
Oolong and Strawberries together? (one at first thinks…)
Of course! How could it ever be different!
Pouring the water over the leaves transforms me to picking the sun kissed berries in the Strawberry Patch.
But, the best part is that I can still taste the lovely creamy oolong.
The strawberry does not overpower the tea whatsoever.
A very lovely tea indeed!

This is a pretty great buttery oolong! I like how smooth this is! Unfortunately I’m not getting a lot of strawberry flavor in this. (I haven’t added any sweetener in it yet.) The strawberry peaks through every now and then if I’m really searching for it, but it’s not a consistent reminder that it’s a strawberry-flavored oolong.

Luckily I do have enough of this to try cold steeping some fresh leaves, so I’ll try that at another time.

For now I’ll try re-steeping the leaves I used for this mug in the fridge for a day and see if that does anything different.

Thank you to Butiki and Sil for passing along samples of this tea!

Many thanks to Stacy for this wonderful sample! I am glad that I decided to go with this sample.

Dry leaf: smells similar to strawberry green tea ice cream

This is a wonderful tea, light strawberry flavour with lots of green buttery oolong goodness.
It is slightly sweet, very smooth, and slightly floral.
The strawberry taste lingers in the aftertaste.

2nd steep: 90degrees, 4.5minutes, the strawberry flavour is a lot lighter, but the buttery oolong now shines.
The strawberry is still there, especially in the aftertaste.

The 3rd steep will have to wait until later in the day because I have lots of errands to run.

Edit: 3rd steep at 90degrees, 5minutes, still wonderfully sweet, with lots of lovely buttery oolong flavour left. This tea just goes on and on!

I haven’t tried many flavoured oolongs so this is something of a novelty. The base appears to be a standard rolled green oolong mixed with what looks like dried cherry (?) blossoms. I was rather cautious about this tea at first, but as it turns out it wasn’t necessary. The strawberry flavours were just right for this oolong and the end result was slightly sweet and deliciously fruity without tasting artifical. Damn, what a good tea.

The second steep (@ 5 min) held onto its flavour fairly well too, although I got more oolong than I did strawberry. This is another tea I would totally order again given the chance.

Once again, good job Butiki Teas!

This is delightfully strawberry-ish in the bag. On my first steeping, I was a little haphazard with the water temperature. I boiled it, then let it cool off again…lazy. I didn’t really taste the strawberry, but it was still earthy and delicious.

Steeping number 2…got out the Breville One Touch and heated this to the appropriate 180 degrees, then steeped for 4 minutes, adding a bit of rock sugar. This time, the strawberry came out very subtly while keeping the delicious earthiness of the oolong.

Seriously, folks. I am going to keep steeping this until it just plain gives up today.

Delicious. This will be a staple.

1 tablespoon for 375 ml

Sweet, floral and creamy. Strawberry is present in the background and blends right into the oolong. Really nice oolong flavour with pleasant sticky/tangy sweetness. This tea is what I would imaging a strawberry flower to smell/tastes like.

As the tea cools I am detecting a very authentic strawberry aroma which translates into the flavour- although I find it to still be in the background of the oolong taste.

Flavour continues to increase in strawberry taste as the tea cools.

I love anything strawberry and this is one of the best strawberry teas I have ever tasted. The strawberry flavor is real – not that artificial candy flavor (not that there is anything wrong with that). The oolong base is bold & strong enough to hold its own with the strawberry presence. It tastes wonderful. No sweetener necessary. This reminds me of Californian summers.
EDIT: I gulped this down in a few minutes and resteeped. The tea was just as strawberry-licious and oolong-tastic as it was the first time around. Thanks for the sample, Butiki. You’ve got a customer! :)

The smell of the dry leaves on this one wasn’t as strong as that on the Flowery Pineapple Oolong, so I was expecting a very subdued kind of flavored oolong. I was wrong though! The strawberry was there and immediate at the first sip – my first thought was calling it “robust.” The taste on it is a natural sort of strawberry, and the sweetness is ideal. I may be mistaking some of the oolong flavor with strawberry though (I haven’t yet had it unflavored), as the description of it mentions honeysuckle and natural sweetness! Absolutely going to be resteeping this one.

I think I’ll definitely be exploring the world of flavored oolongs through Butiki Teas – the flavors have never felt “fake” or overpowering, and they’ve been consistently delicious.

I abused this tea horribly today by steeping it in a paper tea bag, with randomly poured hot and cold water. Still. It was really, REALLY good. I refilled 3 times.

The flavour is fresh, creamy, and delicate. I didn’t get a tonne of strawberry flavour out of this oolong, but there was enough I knew I was drinking a strawberry tea. I think it’d come out more if I steeped it properly, and definitely if I added a pinch of sugar.

Yummers. Definitely an oolong I can see restocking. For sure. I want more, but it’s bedtime.

I’m still not completely sure I was in the mood for an oolong, but alas, I brewed this one up anyway.

Initially I only tasted oolong tea, which albeit, is delicious, but I was hoping for more strawberry. A few more minutes passed and as it cooled a very subtle strawberry taste came out. Just enough to taste it in the background of the oolong. I’m quite enjoying this so far. Just steeping a second steep now.

My other free sample from the Butiki order!

The dry leaf is strongly floral when you smell it. I can only liken it to Tie Guan Yin because I haven’t had much experience with green oolongs. I get a hint of strawberry in there somewhere but mostly it is that strong florality – I’m not good with flowers so sadly I can’t even tell you what kind it is. :(

After steeping those leaves massively increased in volume, but the steeped liquor is a pale yellow. The scent has become a tad fruitier, though, so that’s a good thing. The taste is buttery flowers that becomes a brief flash of strawberry before transforming back into the floral oolong again. Very well balanced, and the strawberry itself is a very natural, sweet flavor.

I think green oolongs just aren’t my thing, though. And I think that’s because flowers just aren’t my thing. Why drink something you can’t even eat, you know? Me and my quirky palate…

Nonetheless, I can definitely appreciate how well done this blend is. And I would certainly not refuse it if it were offered to me! I just don’t think I would seek it out on my own. Doesn’t mean I’m going to have any trouble finishing up the cup, though….