With Open Eyes

Delicious!
I haven’t drank this many flavored teas in one day in awhile. I forget how tasty some of these are, this one included! I feel happy!

I’m impressed at the resiliency of this tea – I’m not sure how long it steeped, but definitely longer than the intended 2 minutes, yet it still wasn’t astringent, and in fact, was quite delicious! Strawberry and ginger, not surprisingly, and the predominant flavours – the ginger isn’t in-your-face, but more there to add a bit of a zing. I actually couldn’t initially figure out where the zing was coming from, but it reminded me of one of 52teas’ blends that contained ginger, which just gave it a delightful zing instead of being GINGER TEA. Anyhow, this is tasty. Not in my top 5 or possibly even top 10 from Butiki, but it’s not one I’d ever refuse!

I’ve spent the past few days contemplating how Dammann Frères’ violet, ginger, rose and citrus are good, but just not the ones for me. And here I am again, but with Butiki.

This is a great, natural strawberry. In the bag, it smells so ripe, like those near-moldy strawberries you’ve kept around lust a little too long. Strawberry rot; dirty strawberry.

So definitely natural, but maybe too natural for me – I like a smooth, round and very inoffensive strawberry flavour, preferably mixed with something that sweetens it further, like vanilla. The ginger here, albeit mild, only kicks up that eerie little is this berry rot note for me.

I know this must be a dream come true strawberry tea for a lot of people, so any berryfan should definitely try it.

[From my Butiki order to Santa Clara, October 2013.]

Oh yum! This was a sample from Stacy on my last order that I had apparently forgotten about, and it resurfaced today, so I pretty much had to brew it up.

After a two and half minute steep, this is a pale green-yellow cup that smells at once warming, and of strawberries and brown sugar.

For taste, the tea is primarily strawberries on a buttery fresh base. The ginger offers a lovely warmth to the blend and there’s a subtle burnt sugar in the background and in the aftertaste. The overall cup is quite delicate, but immensely satisfying. This might be my new favorite strawberry tea!

Definitely another winner.

a hundred times a week (almost always coinciding with an excellent cup of tea) i wonder if there could ever be a way for me to work in tea…. and then i got this sample. and my unwavering answer became nope.

the contents of the sample bag looked a lot like salad and smelled a lot like strawberry. there was no warning. butiki teas should have a sticker with a tongue exploding and morphing into a stretched out paypal symbol. ‘warning: sipping may induce self justified tea budget destruction’.

i taste strawberry madeleines, i taste the meringues that i whip up to put on top of pavlova… it is light, it is airy and i have absolutely NO idea how ginger and strawberry and dragonwell (among other ingredients) could possibly yield this result. how do you plan something like this????

sigh. and as always, if i didn’t have bad timing i would have no timing…. because i placed my butiki order LAST night. i am going to go and hit the ‘add to shopping list button’, reflect on whether or it is possible to be a strategical tea pusher (and whether or not that would even be a bad thing!!!), and assuming that being a tea pusher is possible how much mindblowing skill was employed in the creation that went into my sample bag….

OMG! it’s the lychee oolong all over again!!! sheesh…

WOW this tea smells amazing! Out of my last order (of like $40 + of goodies) With Open Eyes smelled the best to me.

I’m thinking I’m not a big dragon well fan, but this blend is made very well. The butteryness is played up nicely, lots of real strawberry flavor with a hint of ginger.

Full review on my blog, the Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/2013/08/22/with-open-eyes-from-butiki-teas-tea-review/

Backlog:

A really awesome blend from Stacy. Of course, I’d expect no less – I’m continually surprised and impressed by Butiki Teas! I really loved this one: nutty Dragonwell combined with the flavors of strawberry, ginger, and toffee. YUM!

Here is my full-length review, please check it out to see how I gushed over this one! http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/11/11/open-eyes-green-tea-blend-butiki-teas/

This is really good for a green tea. Blah blah blah, you all know that green teas aren’t my “thang.” But this one is really good. The strawberry is natural tasting and juicy, probably because I had 3 large hunks in my scoop. The toffee is on the background and the ginger isn’t overpowering which I like.
This was just what I needed this afternoon.

Sipdown, 144. Thanks to Stacy for including a sample of this one with my order!

This one sounded interesting to me, but I was unsure about whether I would really dig all the flavors together. Toffee dragonwell sounds amazing, ginger is a plus, but strawberries I’m not huge on (actually it’s one of those things where I love fresh strawberries but not so much in other forms). Thankfully Stacy graceously sends out samples and I asked for this one.

I ended up steeping this for three minutes instead of 2min 30sec because I might have added a bit more than 8oz of water. As it is it it brewed up very pale but also with a good amount of aroma. It smells pretty much like dragonwell and strawberries. Those are the primary flavors I get, too; light buttery and slightly vegetal dragonwell, sweet strawberry, and perhaps the barest hint of a gingery note at the end. I don’t taste any distinct toffee notes, but perhaps they are blending in a bit. Overall a fairly tasty tea, especially if you love strawberries.

Thanks Cavovorax for sending some of this my way.

This tea is pretty tasty, although I don’t think I steeped it quite long enough. I feel that it could be more flavourful, but I’m sure that was my mistake. Thank goodness I put this one in my Butiki order :P

The strawberry is definitely there, along with a hint of ginger. I’m not quite sure I’m getting toffee, but it could be the improper steeping time. Once I’ve managed to steep this correctly, I’d also like to try it with the added brown crystal sugar. Stacy always has the best suggestions.