Taiwanese Wild Mountain Black

OH MY GOODNESS

I prepared a cup of this sample from Stacy and it was amazing…so much so that I didn’t trust my own judgement alone.

I’ll tell you what it isn’t first. It’s NOT malty, yammy or chocolate. This black tea is unique. I’ve never tasted a black tea like this one before! I’ve had some outstanding black tea’s. They hit every mark that a great black tea should achieve and I’ve been happy (and I love my malty, chocolaty black tea’s).

Then Stacy sent this sample and it was different than the rest.

I had a little bit of tea left in the sample packet, enough for a
4oz. gaiwan at my Tea House, so I took the rest there Saturday Night.

I waited until everyone was gone except Preston, Joe, Sam and I.

Preston heated the gaiwan, put the long,wiry tea leaves into it and waited for them to warm up for scenting.
Then he lifted the top, put his nose down to smell the aroma, and said, “WAFFLES!”

Yep! Each of us sniffed the leaves and they smelled like the best Belgian WAFFLES ever! I couldn’t believe how delicious the aroma was.

The first steep was sweet, tasting like cotton candy or powdered sugar with an ice cream milkiness…thickening in the mouth in a delightful way. Such a dessert-like tea! Sweet and smooth.

The expression on Sam and Joe’s faces, and the “WOW, THIS IS FANTASTIC!”, (Said with gusto) isn’t something I hear from these young men.

I took a whiff of the wet leaves…coriander, honey maple syrup…interesting.

A second steep had a golden raisin flavor with muscat-honey syrup and butter. Thick in the back of the mouth and not cloying. I thought of sweet cornbread and honey-butter.

I didn’t have enough leaves to continue…and I want more. TEA!
We all want more. The raving (craving) about this tea carried over to today. Joe told Eric how amazing the flavor was.

By what magic Stacy acquired this tea, I have no idea, but let me tell you… when this becomes available on the Butiki Site, do all you can to get a hold of it before it’s gone!

It’s Golden Globe, Academy Award…you name it, this tea has it all.

Winner, Fabulous, Must Have in my Cabinet Forever!

This week has been pretty crazy. Orders were much higher than usual this week while we were trying to prepare some teas to be added to a new local store. Also, we finally received our industrial label printer. This thing is absolutely huge. Didn’t look that big in the demo video but it is very large. Pretty soon we will start integrating in nicer packaging labels that are waterproof, tear proof, and scratch proof. No more red smudges on our labels. Yay! Now I’m taking a brief moment to relax with some awesome tea before finishing up the description for our new Da Yu Ling Oolong, so we can have that up on website today.

I love this tea! This is my reward or special treat tea. The honey aroma is so intoxicating but while drinking its a bit lighter on the honey but still very naturally sweet. There is a also a buttery pastry flavor, I’m thinking croissant-like. This tea is just very warming and comforting to me. It makes me feel warm. I’m definitely tasting caramel and raisins but as the tea cools I’m getting some floral notes too. Sometimes I will overleaf this tea when I’m looking for more of the pastry notes and want to tone down the sweetness. With a little more leaf it can almost taste like a different tea.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make a very large purchase of this tea so I do expect that we will run out before we can purchase again in July/August when this tea is harvested again.

UPDATE: We have a very small amount left of this tea and will not be able to acquire more until after the July/August harvest. If anyone wants me to hold a half ounce for them, I would be happy to hold it for up to a week. We expect to run out by the end of this weekend.

Sipdown! heh Stacy was kind enough to send this to me with my last order and since I seem to be on a black tea comparison kick this morning, I figured I’d add this to the list.

This is a really great black. It’s neither malty, nor chocolaty but it’s delicious! I’m looking forward to the re-steeps on this one AND being able to pick up more of this from Stacy!

The aroma of this tea is a sweet, not quite fruity but almost kinda could be fruity only it’s not. Sipping this it’s like a sweet candy. There’s no bitterness to this and it’s not robust and rich….it’s unique. I am digging the after taste in my mouth as well.
Stacy! You found another winner!

Edit: Resteeps of this have proven equally enjoyable and delicious.

Thank you so much Nicole for sharing this one as a surprise blend with me.
It is a great great tea and you know I am not the biggest fan for straight teas.
I get mainly fruity notes to my opinion, I cannot say it’s raisin or another fruit but this is a joyful fruity tea !

I am very very happy because any time I tasted a straight tea from Butiki teas, I loved it and really loved it.
It means I can find straight teas I can appreciate without any reserve and appreciate the natural flavours.
So it really encourages me to continue exploring straight blends.
Some are so mysterious, other so dark, rocky or earthy, some so joyful…I really need to continue exploring :)

Finally brewing some of this up. It certainly reminds me of Premium Taiwanese Assam, with some fruity raisiny notes, but there’s also a bit of hay in here, instead of chocolate. I don’t have time to check other people’s tasting notes, but I have to imagine that others felt similarly?

I do get the leafhopper notes, which is what’s coming off as raisiny/fruity to me – they’re less pronounced IMO than in Gui Fei or Mi Xian, which is fine; I probably like this tea better for it.

Anyhow, I still think I prefer PTA because of the chocolate, but I’ll have to refresh my memory once I get ahold of my bazillion ounces that’s currently waiting for me a couple provinces away.

ETA: Second infusion, less water, accidentally untimed infusion length. Still tasty, and I’m getting more of the leafhopper notes and less sweetness (it’s present in the aroma, not really the flavour). I preferred the first infusion. The lack of sweetness almost gives it a bit of a cardboardy flavour, which is a bit odd.

OMG Sil!!!
This tea smells amazing! AND the aroma has that lingering “after aroma”, hanging out in my sinuses like incense, like you get from a really good Big Red Robe.

The flavor reminds me of the leafhopper bug-bite teas, especially Mi Xian Black, with a certain sweetness & a taste profile that I really have trouble defining. It is sweet & honeyesque. It also reminds me a little of Master Han’s wild picked tea, but is also very different.
There’s a spicey flavor that’s been hard to define. I knew I recognized it, but I actually had to open my spice drawer, look around, smell a few things, & then there it was, as plain as day: Coriander! WoW!

So it is a very interesting tea, and very tasty! Thank you, Sil, for sacrificing this sample & giving me the chance to try it out! You are awesome! But then again, we already knew THAT, right? :D

My Butiki order came today and I went straight for this one because I had sampled it once before and had good memories. It is just fantastic. Leaf hopper teas are all great in my experience. I’m going to try to put a full review in later, but others have described it very well-honey, pastry, waffles. I am already thinking I will have to order it again before Stacy runs out!

I got this as a sample with my order and it’s like nothing I have tasted before. At first I’m getting a verrry subtle hint of something that I can’t quite pinpoint…saffron? Cardamom? I’m intrigued.

And then…the pastry flavor emerges. It’s like a buttery honey-glazed raisin bun. The flavors are layered in such a way that every mouthful feels like a sip of tea followed by a bite of pastry. I feel like I’m at an afternoon tea; the only thing missing is a pretty china cup (this deserves so much more than my clunky work mug!). This is a treat-yourself kind of tea, and I’m not ready to let it go after just one encounter. It’s definitely going onto the must-buy list.

Yes yes yes. Be back soon!!

ETA
Ok, here I am. So, Kittenna sent me a sample of this and I loved it. I drank two steeps this afternoon at work. I am not going to sit here and pretend like I can discern all of the unique flavors within this tea, just know that I am not really a fan of straight teas, generically speaking, but I am going to order this next time I hit up Butiki.

My list just keeps growing. It was flavorful and roasty and golden and not at all boring or overly strong to drink. It was just what I needed at the end of my work day and I’m sure I will “need” it again.

Eta again…
I got 2 flavourful steeps out of 1 tsp of tea in a normal sized coffee mug, went for a third but it didn’t have enough flavour for this lady.

Merci Kittenna!! :)

1 tbsp for a 12oz pot.

Unique flavor among black teas I have tried! A sweet, fruity element that reminds me of the Gui Fei Oolong I tried last week. So, this must be a special taste that comes from the leaf hopper teas.

Smooth, no astringency, very special flavor. Hard to compare with anything else, but I like it!

This. Is. Amazing.

I smell the baked pastries when I sniff the cup. I don’t taste raisins or anything else, but this does have a completely unique something to it. I do get maltiness, even though others have not. And I did steep it for a loooong time accidentally so that may have contributed to the dryness in my mouth after drinking it. But it is not in the slightest bit bitter. It is stout and heavy.

This is a phenomenal, unique tea. If I could afford to, I’d drink it every morning. It steeps at least twice, thought, so that’s a plus. :)

Recieved a sample of this from Stacy at Butiki with a recent order. After her review, I knew I had to try it!
Dry this tea doesn’t smell like much. Once brewed, though, the tea has a pleasant and wonderful aroma. I smell honey and a baked good (croissant?) that’s definately buttery. Almost like waffles, as another reviewer had said. There’s also a little of the black tea present in the smell, adding just a hint of earthiness. Oh boy, does this smell good!
The taste is very much the same. Baked-goodness (buttery and delicious) and a hint of honey. I also get a light caramel sweetness. The earthiness from the black tea compliments these flavors well, and is very nice. Absolutely no astringency in here, which is AWESOME for a black tea. This is one black tea that I wound’t mind having around. =)
Yum! Thumbs way up on this. This may actually have created an appreciation for black tea that I’ve not had before.

Another rainy day… which means oolong or black tea for me! This one smells just lovely! It smells fruity, bakey, sweet, leathery… so delightful! Sipping… the scent actually translates very well to the taste! It’s sweet, fruity and a little bit bakey. There are so many layers, it’s hard to pick all of them out! Fruity, leathery… darker and more bitter the more I sip. I love the finish on the tongue — it’s sweet and begs to be sipped again! At times, this tea seems like a much lighter black tea and at others, it becomes almost a bit brisk.
I’m really enjoying this cup because it’s so unique. I don’t think I have anything like this in my collection. A great cup to have this afternoon!