Organic Sparrow Tongue

Western Style. I should stop drinking tea at 2AM. School habits die hard.

First sip: It tastes like solid ordinary green oolong to me. although, I shouldn’t say that, as technically I have only tasted ONE straight oolong up to this point.

Second sip: Whoa! Did my Dad take some of the butter that he had just melted for the popcorn and dump some into my teacup? It’s extremely buttery, and there’s something like honey but softer and more floral. After experiencing that I went and double-checked the online write up of this tea and it mentions honeysuckle notes? I don’t remember what honeysuckle tastes like but maybe that’s what it is.

I’m still unsure how to describe oolong but soft buttered spinach sort of covers this one. I’m also getting something “freshening” mid sip and in the aftertaste. Apparently there is also a cinnamon note but my dead tongue only gets a hint of it if I take a gigantic mouthful and imagine hard enough.. It’s dominantly sweet butter.

Second Steep: Consistently tastes like the first steep. Buttery body and a sweet finish. The brothy “texture” continues to be thick like melted butter too.

Wow! I honestly bought this for the inclusion of “sparrow” in the tea name. I wasn’t anticipating much- I definitely wasn’t expecting to love it on first steep. I guess I’m a sucker for butter, cream, or anything that so much as mentions birds. This is definitely as delicate and mellow as a “sparrow’s tongue” and the small, scrunched up dry leaves further painted that image too. I checked Butiki’s website and apparently this tea is on sale for 33% off until January 18th. I may have to take advantage of that next week.

Thank you, Stacy for sending me this sample in my latest order!

I steeped this for around 1.5 minutes at 180f per Butiki’s instructions.

First steep: a lightly vegetal, very aromatic brew. I get the sweet, slighly floral scent of honeysuckle coming up in the flavor of this. Slightly spinachy, yes… but not in the same way as a sencha, for instance. The tea has a sweet lingering aftertaste with some vanilla on the palette.

Second steep: ooh, I forgot about this one for a while and I can’t remember how long it was steeping. Now it has definitely gotten brothy, buttery and very floral. it isn’t as sweet as steep #1 but I also let it steep for too long, I think.

3rd Steep: floral notes seem to be retreating slightly and now I am getting a nice, nutty flavor reminiscent of almonds. Still a great light vegetal and brothy flavor too with a bit of sweetness. mmm. I have enjoyed this a lot, thank you Stacy!

So folks… it’s an oolong. Yeah, that’s right. Stacy was kind enough to include this as a sample for me with my last order even though she knows I am not a fan of the green oolongs (I asked, so she complied!). I haven’t yet gone through any re-steepings of this but holy this is actually kind of tasty. I’m brewing this western style to make life easier for me. I can’t even begin to describe what i’m tasting. There are no floral notes..it’s sweet…and not vegetal at all.

I have to say stacy…this one’s kinda good (for an oolong grin) Looking forward to a few re-steeps on this one. I’d probably even go so far as to say id keep this around in my cupboard for my friends who enjoy a good oolong, because i would drink it from time to time :)

Woah, another Butiki tea that I’m the first at reviewing?! Strange!

Anyhow, in the mood for an oolong tonight. Had some fun making rice krispie squares with the boy tonight (oh, what an adventure! He topped them with not only M&Ms, but butterscotch chips, and then chocolate “drizzle” (AKA blobs). And somewhere in there we thought it would a good idea to put the squares under the broiler to melt the butterscotch chips, and ended up toasting the whole thing… oh boy!) and now am trying to pack quickly for our weekend at “the cottage”! Hopefully fun! Either way, it all meant I wanted an oolong. Yep.

Sorry Stacy – I completely forgot about the updated brew parameters you sent me, so just went with what was on the bag (I tested it though and definitely didn’t screw up, so no worries)! Anyways, in the bag, this smells fairly nondescript. By aroma I probably would have thought it was a vegetal green, or green oolong.

Brewed up, there’s a bit of a sweetish smell, no, more than a bit, and it’s also a bit oolongy. A little green, a little toasty.

The flavour of this one though? AMAZING, GUYS! Rich and honey-sweet, with perhaps a hint of toastiness, yet a green oolong sort of quality to it too. It reminds me of the Gui Fei Oolong I had from Butiki a couple days back, at least in terms of the type of sweetness, but it’s lighter here, and the woody dark oolong flavour is notably absent. This is another one, though, where I’m nearly at the bottom of my cup before even finishing my review, which is a very good sign. At a four minute infusion, there’s just a hint of an astringent, drying characteristic at the end of the sip, enough to make me contemplate trying a slightly shorter infusion, although if it were to cost me in sweetness, it wouldn’t be worth it.

Anyways! I’m no oolong expert or anything, but this one’s another delicious, no-fuss oolong, in my opinion. While Verdant’s darker oolongs are definitely amazing, I find them to be a touch more finicky when brewing, which is not a problem here.

Also to note: I probably used more than the 1 tsp of tea recommended here. Probably closer to 1.5 tsp. So, fewer cups from the small bag, but that’s ok. Still far cheaper than a beverage from Starbucks, or Tim Hortons, even!

I got a sample of this one with my last Butiki order and it is really good, It has a slightly sweet aroma and the taste is floral sweet and slightly vegetal very greenish at first and I did pick up hints of cinnamon on the first two steeps before I read the description on Butiki’s page, with later steeps it gets buttery and smooth and quite oolongish to me but looses the cinnamon notes while the floral sweet notes stayed. I rarely ever follow steeping instructions and I usually just give my teas several short steeps in the gaiwan, I steeped this one about 30 to 40 seconds starting off, they way I steeped it brewed up a delicate pale color kinda yellowish, when looking at the steep it looks as if there really not much to it then you taste it and it so full or flavor. Very nice tea :)

Sipdown, 196. This one is also thanks to Stephanie!

I think this tea may be too relaxing… I am nearly falling asleep this afternoon. This is a really lovely green oolong. I wanted to try it because I’ve never tried a sparrow tongue oolong (though it sounded like it would be up my alley), and also because it’s name is sparrow tongue. :) I am finding this fresh, floral (like lilacs), and lightly buttery. Lightly sweet as well. It’s definitely more similar to a tieguanyin than to an alishan, which is a plus in my book. Not too vegetal or leafy. Yes, this is very nice; the kind of oolong I could drink all day.

okay I lied, there’s an oolong sample I’m sipping down as well, not just greens!

I did the western style steeping.

Whoa, this is super buttery! There’s a bit of sweetness and some vegetal too! The spinachy vegetalness is very very yummy! I spent awhile just lightly sipping away, zoning out on youtube videos.

resteep – very good! The butteryness is still there, creamy texture with some floral peeking out. Floral? I love floral! Very addicting flavor that I wanna just keep sipping away at!
This resteep is refreshing too!

I do love my gui fei oolong, but this Sparrow Tongue one is pretty good! shopping liiiiiisst!

I think I’m waking up finally! yay! I might be ready to move onto teas that take more attention!

I’ve had bad luck with my last two cups not working out (dumped immediately), so time to try an Oolong instead of a third black.

This is just what I needed!

First steep was 90 seconds as the package directed. It’s very creamy, buttery and has lots of spinach notes. It smells like tasty oolong and the tea itself looks barely yellow.

Second steep: 110 seconds. It’s a deep golden yellow this time around, and the creamy butter has subsided. I’m getting spinach notes still and other oolongy flavours. Very rich.

Third steep: 120 seconds. It’s almost orange yellow, and very vegetal. Very enjoyable.

Before I forget I drank this one Saturday, the day after the worst migraine I’ve had it months, so I didn’t want to try anything aged or too roasted. I thought this would be greener but it was actually a perfect middle ground. Cute little pellets unfurling into delicious orchid candy-like tea. It tasted very familiar and maybe I had actually brewed it once before but it had a lot of the qualities I like. Will definitely revisit soon, perhaps western style. Yum.

This was a free sample that came with my Butiki order. (Thanks, Stacy!) My first thought was that it was really sweet for a green tea. Then I started to taste a light, buttery vegetal quality to it. As it cooled even more, I started to feel a cooling sensation almost like it had mint in it, but without a mint taste. I REALLY liked this one! ONWARD FOR A SECOND STEEP! :-)

I love a nice rich buttery oolong! Mmmmm…so good.