Nattie Send Message

500th TASTING NOTE!!!!

I’m celebrating with a cup of my favourite tea of all time. It needs a touch of sugar to nudge the flavours into shining now, but once it’s added it’s as amazing as it ever was.

Sipdown 201/398 – it’s gone up by one because I finally created an entry for a tea my brother and his girlfriend brought back for me when they went on holiday to Crete.

I steeped the leaf at boiling hoping to get more from this tea, and though there’s a little bit of astringency I think it definitely helped with adding more flavour to the liquor. It’s much more malty than it was the last time I had it, and there’s some woody notes present which I didn’t notice last time, but it’s still lacking the rich cocoa and honey notes which I (maybe unfairly) expected from this based on the scent of the leaf steeping. It’s less disjointed this time, but still not my favourite from the YS samples I’ve tried. Bumping the rating up from 52 because it’s definitely better this way.

I switched to this after realising my mam had, once again, thrown out the tea leaves I was planning to resteep. Sigh. It was a Butiki tea, too, so I feel cheated.

The base here can be quite astringent, and it was today as I forgot to set my timer while steeping. I added milk to counteract the astringency, and it does help but also muted the fruity flavours. I’ll have to remember to cold steep this some time, I think it would be an excellent candidate! The strawberry is more dominant than the bergamot, which creeps up behind it, and the papaya lingers last after the strawberry fades, and is the softest. I’d like it to be brought out more, even though I do enjoy the strawberry EG I’m getting for the most part, so I’ll have to play with the steeping parameters and see if I can get it to come out more. Maybe a little sugar would help.

The flavour of this is holding up really well, I don’t think it’s faded even a little bit. After finishing Pumpkin Milkshake 2.0 yesterday, I decided to brew this up today in comparison and shake up the bag like I should have done with that one. They are actually pretty similar in their flavourings, but I much prefer the base of this one.

The last time I drank this, I added milk to almost all of my ‘dark’ teas, and sugar to quite a few. Now, I only add milk (apart from lattes) if I’m in the mood for it with my first – typically bold – cup of the day, or if I overbrew a cup so badly that the astringency is unbearable. This is my first cup of the day, but I wasn’t feeling the need for milk. I still add a pinch of sugar on occasion when I’m curious about what it will do to alter the flavours of the tea, and I did so here out of curiosity more than any need for sweetness. I find that adding sugar, the smallest pinch possible, really brings out the pumpkin. There are strong notes of cinnamon and clove, some cardamom, which contribute to a ‘pumpkin spice’ feel overall, but there are actual pumpkin notes too which I find are often lacking in a pumpkin spice blend, a huge complaint I have with them usually. There’s a distinct cream note which hits the sides of your tongue, and a creamy mouthfeel from the suncha, alongside some sweet earthy and light smoke notes, which really add to the experience. My main complaint with this tea is the name. ‘Pumpkin Spice Milkshake’ would have been a great one for it. Even ‘Pumpkin Spice Cream’, just ‘Pumpkin Cream’ or ‘Pumpkin Milkshake 3.0’! However try as I might, and creamy as it is, there’s just nothing ‘Irish’ about it to me. From reading Stacy’s description, and other notes, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is no whisky flavouring added, but rather Stacy was trying to convey the impression through the use of the lightly smoky suncha base. I suppose that would make sense, but as a whisky drinker it doesn’t come across that way to me. Aside from that, though, this is a really tasty tea and I’m glad it hasn’t lost its sparkle. Upping my rating a lot from 72, because I appreciate it so much more now that I used to, and I think it might be my favourite of Butiki’s pumpkin blends.

I went through my tea box and found a couple of teas I’d counted as sipdowns already, and this was one of them. So I’m trying to get through those because I don’t want to have to add them back into my cupboard – I’ve just managed to get it under 300 for the first time in years (even though I was apparently cheating)! This was a lot milder than I remembered, I’ll have to use the last remaining two teabags for the same mug I think. A little sweeter than I would have liked, with a creamy citrus background. Hopefully I’ll have more to say next time, when I brew it a little stronger.

Sipdown 200 (!!!) of 397.

I had one amazing mouthful of this before it turned so, so bitter. I’ve never noticed that before with this tea, so I read through some notes and found that other people have experienced the same thing. I had high hopes for this cup, too, because it had all the little pumpkin flakes in it from the bottom of the bag. I added some toffee sauce, because I didn’t have any brown sugar, and I’m powering through the bitterness because the good bits are worth it. I’m drinking it in a glass mug, and I can see quite the pile of fannings at the bottom of it through the almost opaque liquid (seriously, it looks like actual milkshake!) which is probably where the bitterness is coming from. If I ignore that, though, the rest of the tea is pretty great. Creamy, authentic pumpkin flavour which for once isn’t overwhelmed with spices. There’s something a little bit floral, too, which I’m assuming is coming from the DRT base. It’s a shame about the bitterness, because this is otherwise a really good pumpkin tea, which lives up to its name. Despite the bitter taste which is puckering my tongue, I’m going to nudge the rating up one from 73, because the first mouthful I had before the bitterness kicked in was magical.

This tea cold steeps very successfully! I’ve drank it hot many times, and never found it anything to write home about, but cold brewed this is making me want to order another tin! It’s mostly vanilla and coconut, and the malty Assam base comes through enough to add to the blend but not enough to make it bitter or overpower the more delicate flavours. The apple comes through more hot than it does cold, but there is still a hint of apple pie in the cold brew. Eleven might not be my favourite doctor, but he’s a winner in cold-brewed tea form.

If anyone is wondering, my favourite of the new doctors is Nine. Yes I am aware I’m the only one. I also love Ten, but who doesn’t?

I’m going to preface this by saying that I’m not keen on genmaicha in general. Green tea isn’t something I’m in the mood for often, and the toasted rice reminds me of cereal I didn’t like when I was younger. My mam, on the other hand, who loved that cereal, really likes this. This isn’t a bad genmaicha. The base is very mild and unobtrusive, so the profile is mostly buttery toasted rice, with a very light vegetal note in the back of the sip. I’m drinking it today while studying so I’m not distracted by the tea, but I’ll probably give the rest of this to my mam. I’d rather it was enjoyed by somebody who appreciates it more than I do.

Picked this blend of all the chais to compensate for the lack of spice in the Spice Imperial I started off the day with. It is an overwhelming combination of spices, but that’s what I was looking for right now so I’m sipping away happily. At first, the Thai Chai was dominant and I got mostly coconut and lemongrass, but as my cup is cooling the rest of the spices come out more, mainly cardamom and ginger with some cinnamon too. I think I can even detect the chocolate and vanilla right at the end of the sip. Yeah, this is what I wanted. Spice overload.

This is another Whittard’s blend I picked to drink based on the name, without looking at the ingredients. I expected this to be a chai, and I wanted a bold, spicy tea for my breakfast tea this morning. I’d already tipped the leaf into the infuser when I read the ingredients and found that, apparently, the only spice in here is clove?! I say ‘apparently’ because the description here on Steepster lists other spices, and a few of the tasting notes describe a cinnamon-heavy tea (which I would have loved). I wonder if Whittard has changed the tea recently? More recent notes seem to be describing the same thing that’s in my tin – orange, vanilla and clove. It’s not bad, and I do taste all of those things, sort of in a dreamsicle way, but it’s not what I wanted right this moment. I’d probably enjoy it more if it was something I was in the mood for. I’ll have to pay more attention next time!