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I ordered this in case it was anything like Maple Pecan Oolong, and it isn’t exactly magic like that one to me but it’s pretty good and does have an echo of it about it at the end of some sips. The scent of the dry leaf is exactly like Maple Pecan Oolong – all maple syrup, toasty oolong and nutty nuttiness. The scent almost disappears completely when it starts to steep, which is both confusing and disappointing, but it still has a decent amount of flavour to it so I’m not going to complain too much about the lack of scent, no matter how long I stuck my nose in the bag for. The maple and waffle are the strongest flavours. I’ve never had the Doke Rolling Thunder on its own but in here at least I find it to be quite mild, and I do wish I could taste it more than I do because all I get from it is a general sweetness.It does admittedly go well with the flavours but I don’t necessarily feel like I’m drinking tea. The almond is a whisper in the background, not really identifiable specifically, just generally ‘nutty’ in a way that doesn’t come from the tea. With a tiny bit of sugar the flavours really do pop, and with sugar as it cools is when I get a nudge in the aftertaste that reminds me of Maple Pecan Oolong, because it becomes more nutty and maple-y with the waffle being less noticeable now.

I’m glad I bought it. It’s sweet and decadent, and I think it’ll be perfect for the times that I’m craving Maple Pecan Oolong but don’t want to break into my precious stash (for a little while anyway – I have 1/3 the amount of this that I do MPO). I would like to point out though that for all I’m comparing them, they’re not all that similar. It’s just that tasting Butiki’s maple syrup flavouring paired with a roasted oolong got me excited.

Nope. Nope nope nope. This tea was already at a disadvantage trying to please me today because I’ve been out all afternoon in the freezing cold, dreaming of coming home and making a lovely cup of Heaven’s Trash from resteeping my last ever leaves, only to find when I got home that my mam had thrown them out. If I’m honest, I took it a little to heart, partially because I was cold and grumpy and partially because I’d specifically explained to her why I wanted to keep the leaves (she has a tendency to throw things out and rearrange everything completely unnecessarily – I also came home to find that she’d inexplicably changed the bookmark in my book). So, I settled for this instead, and was already unimpressed just because it isn’t Heaven’s Trash. I’m not much of a green tea person, and first flush Darjeelings are often too reminiscent of green tea for my liking, but I tried to remain optimistic because it’s described as smooth with no astringency. Granted, I am more sensitive to astringency than a lot of people, but this is not astringency-free. The packaging says to steep it in boiling water, but I hope I remember to ignore that next time because I feel like a lot of the astringency could be avoided with a lower temperature. I would usually add milk to a black tea to get rid of astringency but this just seems so green to me that it would feel wrong. It has the usual citrus and floral notes that you’d expect from a Darjeeling, but also some fresh, light leafy vegetable notes which I’d associate with Japanese greens. For me, the redeeming feature of this tea is that after adding a small amount of sugar the tea becomes very juicy and has such a pronounced, unmistakable peach note that I’d almost think it had peach flavouring added to it. This calms down a bit when it cools, so I prefer this when it’s on the hotter side. Despite me not being able to get past the astringency and ‘greenness’, I can still tell that this is a high quality first flush, and even though I haven’t given it the best review it’s still probably one of the best first flushes I’ve tried, they’re just not really to my taste. I’m looking forward to trying it again at a lower temperature.

I ate a lot of salty food earlier and was desperately thirsty, so I iced this by using three bags in a cup of boiling water for 5 minutes, then slowly filtering the concentrated tea through an infuser filled with ice cubes into my iced tea bottle, which I then topped up with ice cold water. It’s just what I needed. The liquor is a beautiful clear red, and smells of sweet strawberries and cream. The flavour is subtle enough that I can gulp it down to quench my thirst whilst still tasting strawberries and a hint of woodsy rooibos, and the vanilla comes through in the aftertaste so that it reminds me almost exactly of strawberries and cream flavoured hard boiled sweets that I used to love when I was younger. I bought this because I love Whittard’s loose strawberry rooibos, but couldn’t find it on the website to replace mine when I ran out, so I thought these might work as a replacement. The flavour is quite noticeably different: it has a slightly artificial note which the strawberry rooibos doesn’t have, and the vanilla note is very pronounced, particularly in the aftertaste, but it’ll do for now. I definitely prefer the old one, though.

This could be a favourite green tea of mine! Oh it’s so delicious. The raspberry was dominant in the scent of the dry leaf, so that’s what I expected from the flavour too. Holy cow. As soon as it starts to steep the butterscotch becomes impossibly, ridiculously thick and rich to the point where I could have been convinced I was sniffing an actual butterscotch sauce simmering away in a pan if I hadn’t known better. It’s absolutely mouthwatering. There’s a hint of tangy raspberry in the background but the butterscotch really is the life of the party. This is reflected in the flavour. There’s a light spring vegetable note from the green tea, but 90% of the initial sip is pure, unadulterated butterscotch. The raspberry is a tangy juxtaposition of a backnote, and it comes out more when I add sugar, but like others have mentioned I don’t really pick up on the hazelnut. From Stacy’s description though I’d guess that there’s not much of it in here, which makes sense. Sugar also intensifies the butterscotch and adds mouthfeel so that it’s thick and syrupy. It’s incredibly decadent. The whole way through there’s been a fresh, light vegetal note from the base tea, which usually I would dislike but it’s not overpowering and manages to cut through the syrupy sweetness perfectly, and it’s very smooth with no astringency. As the cup starts to cool it becomes a bit more pronounced, but still not dislikeable. The raspberry note gets stronger when the tea cools too, but it’s still more butterscotch than anything else.

Although I bought it because it sounded delicious (and I was trying to pick up everything Butiki I could), I did wonder what the hell ‘raspberries and hazelnut butterscotch sauce’ meant, because I for sure haven’t come across it before. I had my doubts, not helped by the green tea base, and I did wonder if Stacy was making something completely random just to use up whatever flavourings she had left as she was closing up shop. I should have had more faith in her genius in seeing flavour combinations where others wouldn’t, because this is totally inspired.

Resteeped my leaves in hope, and sadly this is not a great resteeper. I used boiling water and left it for a whole 7 minutes but it’s still pretty weak. Actually once you get used to the delicate flavour it’s still pretty tasty. I added sugar and the nuttiness came out a lot more, and the remaining flavour is actually (finally!) mostly pecans.

Unexpected sipdown #73/378!

I’m pretty sad about this one. It seems my tastes are changing and I’m craving unflavoured tea more and more frequently these days, and adding milk to my black teas, flavoured or not, far less frequently. This morning I decided to start my day with a cup of this, mostly because I wanted a straight black and this was the first one I came across. I didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about it before then, but it was so smooth and delicious that as soon as I finished my first cup I went to resteep the leaves, only to find that I’d thrown them out without really thinking. So I got it back out of my cupboard, measured out the leaf and found that my baggie was empty. Sad moment. I’m going to resteep the crap out of the leaves this time.

This was a beautiful blend. Each tea adds its own element and combined this is just the smoothest, most flavourful yet delicate house blend I’ve ever tried. I’m not at all surprised because as I’ve already said – probably multiple times – Stacy had a real gift for sourcing the best single origin teas, and this is basically a showcase of the best of the best. It’s malty, deep and chocolatey rich with bready notes, and some lighter citrus and floral notes, too. There’s a beautiful honey note which threads its way through the whole thing so that it glides across your tongue and dances on your palate. I’m not the best at describing natural notes from teas and I’m definitely not doing this one justice, but it was really a masterpiece and I’m going to miss it a heck tonne. Honestly I have three of the four elements in my collection and I might try to recreate it as best I can.

My tea from greenteafairy arrived! Woohooo! Apparently when your parents ask you who the mail’s from and you answer ‘green tea fairy’ you get some pretty strange looks.

I was going to leave this a day or so to settle but the scent through the packaging was just so heavenly I had to make a cup almost immediately (almost because I was still drinking my previous cup). Now I did ask for a sample of this because I’m trying to find a replacement (or as near to one as I can get) for my beloved Maple Pecan Oolong, and greenteafairy did warn me I’d be disappointed because she’s on the same mission, so I was a bit wary. She was right about me being disappointed as a replacement for Maple Pecan Oolong, but since I pretty much expected that already I wasn’t too disappointed with the tea overall. It’s pretty tasty! I’m a huge fan of nutty teas in general, and this is about as nutty as it gets. My issue lies with the name, and I have the same problem a lot of others seem to in that out of all the nuts in the tea, pecan is probably the least prominent and yet it’s the one they chose to name it after. If this was called ‘nut pie’ I have a feeling it would have a lot fewer disappointed customers. Aside from that it really is a very nice tea! The flavour is a little strong and perhaps slightly on the chemically-tasting side, but it’s not much and I can live with it. I brewed this at boiling, and was worried about astringency because the recommended temperature is 195, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it has no astringency whatsoever! I could happily drink this plain. I didn’t, though, because I wanted to try it with additives as I usually do the first time I drink a new tea before settling on how I like it best. With or without sugar, the almond flavour is most prominent, followed by the pistachio. I expected this from the scent, which was strongly marzipan-like. I added a splash of milk and the two flavours almost reversed, with the pistachio in the front of the sip and almond at the end. This became more pronounced as the tea cooled, too, and I’m thinking it might be to do with pistachio being a creamier flavour than almond. The pecan, which was nowhere to be found when I was drinking it black, peeks out a little at the very end of the sip with a pie crust sort of flavour that wasn’t there before either. It’s a really lovely, relaxing dessert tea, especially for a nut-lover, but it’s just not pecan pie. Thanks for the sample, greenteafairy!

That’s better! I brewed this properly this time and the rest of the flavours come out way more. The mango is most prominent in the initial sip, and I can actually taste a boozy rum element that I didn’t expect. The aftertaste is mostly lime but it’s much less overwhelming than the last time I tried to brew this and the lime started to sting my tongue by the end of the cup. I added a little sugar and the mango becomes really juicy and delicious. I can’t detect the orange note, but maybe it’s hiding with the lime as a general citrus blur that I’m picking out as lime. As it cools the lime does become more dominant, and even though I really love the flavour, and Butiki’s lime in particular, I’m getting kinda sick of it because I’ve had it in quite a few teas recently. I definitely prefer this hot. Bumping my rating up from 65 because this was so much better than last time, which I knew was just user error on my part.

When Butiki announced what was in the two mystery teas, I read it. That was probably almost two years ago now and I can’t remember squat, so I decided to try it again without looking it up to see how I did. I remember the first time being appalling, and I think only getting one flavour plus the base right for each tea.

The dry leaf smells of raspberry. It’s clearly Crimson Horizon for the base, pretty hard to muck that up since it has a very distinctive look. Brewing, it smells like malty black tea and raspberry. I took it out after the recommended 1 minute, but the CTC base is just too much for me without milk. I love it as a breakfast tea, but I’m English; if you’re a malty black tea I’m gonna feel the need to add milk to you. It’s just the way I was brought up. For this tea I’m torn, though, because when I tried it plain the strongest flavour past the tea was the raspberry, which isn’t a flavour I generally like with milk. I added a little sugar, which brought out the raspberry but my taste buds are proving to be just as poor as last time and I can’t tell what else is in there. It’s pretty obviously not just raspberry – if it even is raspberry – but that’s the only note I can pick out pretty distinctly. I’m not totally sure but I’m feeling pretty confident on the raspberry front. I’ve said ‘raspberry’ too many times now and it’s starting to sound weird. Conflicted Natalie decided that she just couldn’t take the astringency from the Crimson Horizon, and maybe it would bring out some of the other flavours, so added milk. It still tastes like raspberry. Eventually, as the cup starts to cool I can pick up on something else. It’s reminding me of raspberry ice cream cake now, or a waffle with ice cream and raspberry sauce (which as a kid I called “monkeys’ blood” and never found that worrying). I know that Butiki had a waffle flavour in some of their teas, so I’m going to guess at Crimson Horizon base, with raspberry, waffle and vanilla flavours. It works pretty well together and tastes like dessert, but I do have an issue in general with raspberry (or really anything that I wouldn’t eat with cream) being paired with a base that I instinctively want to add milk to. Maybe next time I’ll try with a lower temperature to see if that helps with the astringency so that I can drink it plain.

Edit: apparently the ice-creaminess was from marshmallow flavouring, not vanilla or waffle, and I missed pistachio completely. I drank this straight after a tea which had a really prominent pistachio note though, and I got the raspberry, so I’m okay with it! I basically did exactly the same as last time haha.

First tea of the day, and this has grown on me since I first got it. Either I’m getting more used to the earthy guayusa or it’s mellowed out over time. I wouldn’t really call this a ‘vanilla’ tea, because I find the mint more prominent a flavour in the blend, but it is still definitely present in a creamy candy mint sort of way. It actually reminds me a little of Santa’s Secret with the way that flavour is done. The earthiness and almost savoury note of the guayusa makes this much more of a breakfast-time tea than a dessert tea, though. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed much of the lavender except in a general floral note occasionally, but maybe all the little pieces of lavender have fell to the bottom of my bag and I’ll get a really lavender-based last couple of cups. I added a pinch of sugar and it did bring out the vanilla more but not to the point where I’d say it’s the strongest flavour. Then again, mint is a much stronger flavour in general or at least it is to me. As always, I’m not complaining, because I’m not a huge fan of vanilla. I enjoyed this a lot more than I used to, but it’s not one of my Butiki favourites.