95

One of my favourite Butiki teas, I think. The flavour is so perfectly ingrained in my memory that every time somebody drinks or mentions it I immediately have to brew myself a cup. The flavour is still going strong, much to my relief! It’s making me a bit angsty though because I’ve had to recently change my tea storage setup and I’m worried the new way won’t preserve the teas as well. I’m thinking about having a Butiki drink-a-thon in January to appreciate as much as I can while it’s still good.

Honestly this tea is a little bit genius. The dry leaf is beautiful and deliciously scented, and the whole time it’s steeping I can’t help sticking my head in the cup and inhaling. It’s almost as if something is baking! The initial sip reminds me of a lemon drizzle cake – lemon and butter notes are most prominent, and the lemon is a little more ‘zingy’ but there’s still that cakiness in the background that suggests this isn’t just another lemon tea (not that anything Butiki could be ‘just’ anything). The cream notes become more pronounced mid-sip and the flavour transforms into something more akin to lemon cupcake frosting. Finally, in the aftertaste the almond and vanilla notes become more prominent and meld perfectly into the buttery lemon to create a stunning lemon french macaron flavour which lingers for the longest time. My favourite way to drink this is plain, but with a hint of sugar the lemon flavour becomes more pronounced and it tastes more like I’d imagine a macaron with lemon curd would taste. Stacy recommends drinking it at lower temperatures, and incredibly the flavour gets even better as it cools. I’m going to be a very unhappy Nattie when the day comes that I run out of this. Luckily VariaTEA is coming to the rescue and sending me a couple of potential replacements!

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 3 min, 0 sec 2 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
VariaTEA

I don’t know if I would call them replacements since this is pretty irreplaceable but they are creamy and lemon and hopefully tasty.

Nattie

Sadly I don’t think any of my Butiki favourites could be called ‘replaceable’. Gah, the wound is still so fresh ):

Nattie

Tasty creamy lemon sounds good to me!!

greenteafairy

If you do find anything approaching a replacement for this one, I’d love to know about it!

Nattie

greenteafairy If that happens I will let you know!

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VariaTEA

I don’t know if I would call them replacements since this is pretty irreplaceable but they are creamy and lemon and hopefully tasty.

Nattie

Sadly I don’t think any of my Butiki favourites could be called ‘replaceable’. Gah, the wound is still so fresh ):

Nattie

Tasty creamy lemon sounds good to me!!

greenteafairy

If you do find anything approaching a replacement for this one, I’d love to know about it!

Nattie

greenteafairy If that happens I will let you know!

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Bio

I first got into loose leaf teas when a friend of mine showed me Cara McGee’s Sherlock fandom blends on Adagio a good few years back, but they weren’t on sale in the UK so I started trying other kinds instead and have been hooked for almost three years (and have purchased several fandom tea sets including the Sherlock one I lusted over for so long).

Flavoured teas make up the majority of my collection, but I’m growing increasingly fond of unflavoured teas too. I usually reach for a black, oolong or white tea base over a pu’erh or green tea, though I do have my exceptions. I will update my likes and dislikes as I discover more about my palate, but for now:

Tea-likes: I’m generally easily pleased and will enjoy most flavours, but my absolute favourites are maple, caramel, chestnut, pecan, raspberry, coconut, blueberry, lemon, pumpkin, rose, hazelnut and peach

Tea-dislikes: vanilla (on its own), ginger, coriander/cilantro, cardamom, liquorice, pineapple and chocolate

I am a 25 year old bartender, English Literature sort-of-graduate and current student working towards finishing my degree. I am hoping to one day complete a masters degree in Mental Health Social Work and get a job working in care. Other than drinking, hoarding and reviewing tea, my hobbies include reading, doing quizzes and puzzles, TV watching, football/soccer (Sunderland AFC supporter and employee of my local football club), music, artsy weird makeup, and learning new things (currently British Sign Language).

I should probably also mention my tea-rating system, which seems to be much harsher than others I’ve seen on here. It’s not always concrete, but I’ll try to define it:

• 50 is the base-line which all teas start at. A normal, nothing-special industrial-type black teabag of regular old fannings would be a 50.

• 0 – 49 is bad, and varying degrees of bad. This is probably the least concrete as I hardly ever find something I don’t like.

• I have never given below a 20, and will not unless that tea is SO bad that I have to wash my mouth out after one sip. Any teas rated as such are unquestionably awful.

• This means most teas I don’t enjoy will be in the 30 – 50 range. This might just mean the tea is not to my own personal taste.

• 51+ are teas I enjoy. A good cup of tea will be in the 50 – 70 range.

• If I rate a tea at 70+, it means I really, really like it. Here’s where the system gets a little more concrete, and I can probably define this part, as it’s rarer for a tea to get there.

• 71- 80: I really enjoyed this tea, enough to tell somebody about, and will probably hang onto it for a little longer than I perhaps should because I don’t want to lose it.

• 81 – 90: I will power through this tea before I even know it’s gone, and will re-order the next time the mood takes me.

• 91 – 100: This is one of the best teas I’ve ever tasted, and I will re-order while I still have a good few cups left, so that I never have to run out. This is the crème de la crème, the Ivy League of teas.

I never rate a tea down, and my ratings are always based on my best experience of a tea if I drink it multiple times. I feel that this is fairest as many factors could affect the experience of one particular cup.

I am always happy to trade and share my teas with others, so feel free to look through my cupboard and message me if you’re interested in doing a swap. I keep it up-to-date, although this doesn’t mean I will definitely have enough to swap, as I also include my small samples.
Currently unable to swap as I’ve returned after a long hiatus to a cupboard of mostly-stale teas I’m trying to work through before I let myself purchase anything fresh

I also tend to ramble on a bit.

Location

South Shields, UK

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