Butiki Teas

I’ve been on a bit of a Steepster hiatus since my past few days of tea drinking have been kind of boring—I was at my parents’ house so I went to my old standby bagged earl grey and lemon herbal, and other than that I’ve been playing around with the sample of my custom blend from Butiki. I’m sure everyone would have been enthralled by 5 tasting notes for the same tea in 2 days! Time for something different tonight, so I reached for one of the Butiki samples I got from the awesome Krystaleyn. I love apricot and am in the mood for something new!

This is my first experience with guayusa—I’ve been a bit nervous to try it after reading some tasting notes describing it as plant-y. Well… it is! But not in a bad way. It tastes like fresh-cut grass, and smells like maple tree leaves in the spring when they’re bright and green and new. It’s herbal without a specific herb taste, and is wonderfully new tasting. It’s less plant-y than it is bud-y. It evokes some kind of odd nostalgia in me—when I was younger I used to go out after the rain and pull up blades of grass so I could see the new, soft green part coated in dew… and then I’d munch on them. I know it’s pretty weird, but it was so fresh and sweet, like veggies straight from the ground. That’s what this tea reminds me of! The sweetness is from the apricot, which is so subtle and light. I think I’m going to have to order some of this asap… as soon as I get some more tea funds.

This is a sad sipdown because this is my last cuppa of Butiki Teas. Their tea was exceptional. I will miss their naturally flavoured tea, and the straight ones too.
This was a fabulous tea—-hot or cold brewed.

Drinking this iced today, from my leftover cup yesterday. Of course, this is amazing iced as well!

This is just a mini sipdown. I have finished my first bag of this beautiful tea that made me fall in love…..ah….
Good thing that I still have a large bag because I never want to run out of this tea.
Especially with a tiny bit of crystal sugar, it is amazing.

This is amazing iced as well. I made a very large mug to finish off the bag and the rest is chilling in the fridge.

This white never fails to be creamy and dreamy. One of my favs for sure. I think I finally have to up this to the 100 rating status because it never lets me down and is always delicious. A little bit of rock sugar really elevates this tea to the next level. LOVE!

I added a couple of pieces of rock candy (edit—rock sugar). Wow!! This enhances the sweetness of the cantaloupe and the cream!! I am so glad I ordered more of this tea.

On the weekends I like to indulge in some of my favourite teas.
Well, this is certainly up towards the top of my list. I might need to increase the rating even. Today it seemed extra creamy somehow. Deliciously refreshing as well. As much as I didn’t really enjoy this tea hot when I ordered it, I definitely enjoy it hot now!

This tea is so delicious, creamy and with that sweet cantaloupe juiciness. A tiny but of rock sugar really brings out the sweetness if the melon

So excited for this tea!! After so many raving reviews, I was concerned that it would let me down. I was curious about the creamy notes everyone was talking about. So here we go!

Colour: smooth light yellow

Aroma: amazingly creamy and pure cantaloupe

Taste: Wow! This is delicious. So creamy and sweet cantaloupe. A full mouth feel. This is so silky and smooth, I felt full after I drank it like I had just had a huge bowl of fresh cantaloupe. I am not sure if I have ever had such a creamy tea. This certainly does not let me down, it deserves raving reviews!

2nd steep: 90degrees, 4minutes, less creamy and more melon, still delicious!

I put the leaves in a mug to cold brew, I will see how that goes tomorrow!

Ehh. I never liked this one, though I wanted to because I love apricot flavours in tea. It tastes about how I remember, which is heavy on the vegetal guayusa and light on the apricot and cream (though I’m getting a bit of a creamy raisin aftertaste which is kind of nice). Lots of this one left as I wasn’t keen on it; we’ll see if it gets dumped or not.

Trying this with sugar today. I think I put a bit too much sugar in, though. Sadly, although it’s now quite palatable, I’m still really not tasting much apricot. I can taste the earthy guayusa, and maybe a suggestion of apricot, but it’s really barely there. Oh well, I did find a couple guayusas yesterday that I’ll happily drink again, so may just offload this one somewhere and enjoy the others (once I order them, that is)!

The smell reminds me of pu’erh, not that I’m terribly experienced with them however! I think it’s mostly an earthiness that I’m getting, along with a bit of fruitiness.

The flavour unfortunately just isn’t doing it for me. All I’m getting is an earthy sort of taste with a touch of sweetness and maybe a suggestion of fruit, which I’m not finding terribly appealing. Ok… a few more sips in and the sweet fruity flavour has intensified a bit and I’m finding it more pleasant, and less earthy. I should temper all this with the fact that I do have a cold and although I can still taste things, it’s entirely possibly that things are a little wonky.

Anyways, I think I have one more guayasa in my stash to try (also from Butiki), but it may just be that guayasa is not for me. Perhaps a bit mixed into a different herbal tea would work better for me if this actually gives me a caffeine kick (kiiind of hoping not, since it’s 10:30pm), but I’ll try that later. I think I might prefer the flavouring in this one to the only other guayasa I’ve tried, DavidsTea’s Jungle Ju Ju, but neither is something I’m likely ever to crave.

ETA: I removed my rating from this, because it’s probably not fair to judge this tea since I appear to not be fond of guayasa itself. Personally, I’d give it a rating of 63, but for people who do enjoy guayasa I imagine that this is a fabulously flavoured version of it more deserving of a rating in the 80s.

Thanks again Stacy for this sample tea!

Last night I was so bad! I had such a sugar craving that I put cherry jam in my tea! It was verry good!
Naughty me!
This little sample packet from Butiki caught my eye this evening and I had a hunch that it would be luxurious and exotic enough to satisfy my sweet tooth!

After a 4 minute steep, I poured the pale yellow liquor into a tasting bowl and inhaled.
Ummmm, fruit like warm pears…..and smelled like paperwhites.
The flavor was sparkling and pearlike also, with plenty of floral sweetness and cream to make the taste fat in my mouth. The fat flavor rolled around over and over. It just would not quit until the tannin kicked in like a door stop!
I sweetened my cup a bit. I did like the dripping nectar, gooey flavor of Lychee fruit. It made me think of Kauai.
Most people go to Hawaii and lounge on the beach, drink, go to clubs.
I go to the beach, snorkle then find a local Farmers Market. I buy exotic fruit, veggies and seafood…go back to the condo and cook! Kauai was Lychee, Pineapple and Rambutan! Nice and juicy fruit! Yummy fruit ready to eat right away. No cold storage fruit from the store. Heavy with natural sugar fruit!

This Lychee Oolong takes you on a vacation! It’s so ripe with flavor and so juicy!

http://youtu.be/mlCiDEXuxxA You can’t get much more retro than Don Ho and Tiny Bubbles 1967

Sipdown
I really enjoyed this tea. This is a pretty combination so I will find a replacement someday.

Just what I needed this morning. This tea has actually aged fairly well, but it is really time to sip down ALL of my Butiki teas.
Chocolate and raspberry, what more could a girl ask for on a lazy Sunday!

I find the chocolate in this tea is a little more like dark chocolate than milk chocolate, which I enjoy. There is a touch of astringency which I assume comes from the black base. The raspberry is a delicious pairing with the chocolate.
I always try my teas without additions first, but I think I might add a little sweetener next time to see how this changes the tea.

This is my first Butiki order, I was so excited to receive this today in the mail that I tore into it immediately and started my kettle!

Thank you so much Stacy. I didn’t even ask for this sample, so I was surprised to find it in my package! It caught my eye right away, those chocolate chips with real raspberry chunks!

Colour: nice amber brown

Taste: creamy light dark chocolate with light raspberry. So delicious. This tastes really “natural” if that makes sense.

I can tell right now that I am really going to like Butiki teas!

I was rifling around in my teas this morning, unsure of which to choose when this tea just jumped out at me. It was a Creamsicle kind of morning.

Upon opening the sample that the lovely Bonnie sent me, I was faced with the bright inviting smell of orange zest which continued through the steeping and into my cup. This was definitely the tea for me!

The tea on it’s own is alive with citrus flavor! I added just a touch of honey and the smallest bit of milk and this tea just exploded with flavor. The creaminess came out and really brought out the creamsicle in this light and airy tea. A very happy tea to brighten up my morning :)

Through the Looking Glass..

Thank you Bonnie for this fragrant sample from Butiki!

I have been on a bit of an Oolong kick lately and decided to traipse down the path to the rose garden this weekend, inviting dubious glares from passers by. I cared nothing for their snide commentary and instead reveled in the aroma and texture that surrounded me. Yes, this cup is floral, fruity, sweet forget-me-nots awash with all the delicate nuances of a proper variety-hour garden show, but that’s not to say it wasn’t quite good in its own right. In point of fact, I’ve yet to try anything connected to Butiki that I wouldn’t gladly drink again in the future. While this one would certainly require an almost Mad Hatter sort of mood for me to fully appreciate, there’s clearly nothing wrong with that every now and again when you find you’re following the rabbit down the hole!

Thank you Stacy for this sample of a new tea soon to be available!

It seems that Stacy is busy gathering a large number of new tea’s to release very soon on the Butiki website. In her excitment to share with us Steepsters, some of the new tea’s have been leaking out early as samples. These are the kinds of leaks I like!

This morning I noticed the Dragon Tip among my recent sample stash and decided to skip my normal dark blends and jump to Green Tea.

The leaves were half inch spears ready for a 2 minute steep. Wet the leaves are grass green and surprisingly whole, smelling gently vegital.
The liquor was lightest green and faintly fragrant.

When I poured my first cup and took a drink (I did not sip, I drank) my mouth was filled with more creaminess than usual followed by a remarkably soft pea/bean puree taste. The flavor was smooth. Delicate. There was an astringency for a second in my cheeks…way in the lower back then a burst of juice right at the finish. What a fantastic gulp!
The creaminess is what impressed me the most. Such silkiness right from the beginning.
This was the reverse of many other tea tastings. Cream-flavor-astringency-juice!

I can understand why Stacy is adding this Dragon Tip to her offerings. It does stand on it’s own as a very tasty tea.

After a long night of being woken up multiple times by Danny (3) who climbed into bed with us late last night, and muscle soreness from my exercise yesterday I woke up feeling pretty lethargic. But it’s Friday which means it’s time to clean the apartment, so I made myself some of this- the name just called out to me! Good Morning Sunshine!

Throughout the steeping process the tea smelled crisp, fresh, and lemony. Danny said it smelled “sunny” which I thought was a very accurate description! The flavor of this tea was just as lovely as the aroma. Delicate, lemony, refreshing! Plus it’s caffeinated so it had me perked up in no time!

The second steeping was light and even more delicate than the first- but just as flavorful.

The perfect pick me up for a sluggish morning :)

Second review

After a tasting disaster with an icky puerh..(yuck)…I ran to the cupboard for a completely opposite kind of tea to cleanse my palate.
Organic Spring Twist is THE perfect clean and fresh tasting tea!!!

This was delicious! I don’t have many green tea’s in my cupboard other than samples that I’ve been sent. I’m learning little by little which ones appeal to me. It appears that the creamy, less astringent ones and the nutty greens are my favorites…so far.
Drinking Spring Twist was all about creamed corn with sweet peas so fresh just the way I love my green tea. And there was no astringency. I could have sipped this juicy tea all day. It was so, so, good! Yum!

Thanks Stacy for this fantastic Sample!

This is a new tea! Stacy is coming out with a whole slew of tea’s soon and I can’t wait to find out what’s in store for all of us who know just how good her tea’s are!

At first, I was expecting an organic, naturally flavored tea…a nice afternoon pick-ME-up before heading off to pick up the 3 granddaughters who are treking from their ranch into town (about 5 miles). I’ll do a run to get them and we’ll have tea at my place, then I take them home.

To my surprise, this tea wasn’t flavored (the name Spring Twist tricked me).
My steep time was 2 minutes at 175F.
I was greated with the most fragrant salty spinach scented vapor raising from vibrant green leaves in my brew basket. Yum!

I’ve learned that all things spinachy in a basket don’t necessarily taste like spinach when poured… any more than wet Pu-erh leaves smelling like kerosene and leather taste that way as well.

The first sip… oh my, was like baby white corn on the cob. Sweet, young corn as juicy as if you had just picked it off the stalk. The kind of kernals that ‘pop’ with juice when you bite into them…and buttery.
This tea was thick with creaminess. There was no astringency or hint of tannin…no daggers of bitterness. Just a little salt, some fresh butter sweet cream.

I thought a bit before pouring another cup.

What if the corn was even a little sweeter? Not really sweet, but like the best of the Summer sweet white corn?
So I did it!
I added about a half teaspoon sweetening to just see if I could replicate that much loved flavor…and it was perfect.
(The saltiness of the tea is usually how I judge if sweetening will enhance a tea or not.)
I couldn’t taste any sugary addition but I could taste more sweet corn.

Since this tea has not been listed on the Butiki Website as yet, I’ll transfer my review or update the information when it becomes available… but I couldn’t wait.
I wanted to let Stacy know how much I enjoyed this tea. It is really good!

Thanks Stacy! Looking forward to all the new tea’s!!!

NUMMY! I am not big on chocolate teas but Stacy of Butiki won my heart with this one!
So huge chunks of berries which means once the tea has lived out its life I have a SNACK!! Haha.
Then these wonderful vegan chocolate nibs which you just have to be NOT tempted to eat before brewing so they can melt into the steep!
A WONDERFUL base that DOES show through the flavorings which are quite well balanced!
I was sitting there sipping then making this obnoxious sound with my mouth doing this smackedy smackedy tap tap sound motion in order to get all the flavor out of the chocolate which also enhanced the base flavor – I know its SO not necessary but I was trying to REALLY get ALL the flavors as I am considering this base for a blend Stacy and I are working on together (run on sentence? Perhaps!)
AN E WAY …. my daughter thought I was insane – but then I am. So what?
Its great.
I love it and that is coming from someone NOT big on chocolate teas!