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Mmm. Strawberry and cream in equal measure, but light. The base tea is smooth and grassy, with the strawberry and cream flavors serving more to complement than overwhelm it. Like!

Thank you to Sophie and Laurent from Nina’s Paris for the sample!

This is a nice, juicy strawberry tea. Tart and sweet. Somehow I’m still not picking up on the creaminess though. Maybe I brewed it wrong? I used 1 rounded tsp for 8 oz, boiling water, for 5 minutes. I have enough left for another cup so I can play around with it again.

Nom nom nom. I wanted something tropical for dessert and this really hit the spot. The pretty dry leaves smell of mango, as does the brewed tea. The taste is very natural. For whatever reason I’m getting mango rather than guava, but that’s just fine by me! There’s also the faintest hint of ginger here to keep it from being too sweet. The tea even holds up nicely to a second steep. Thanks to Stephanie for the sample!

The spices are nicely blended, but it’s just missing something… it’s like the bottom just falls out towards the end of the sip. I fear the rooibos isn’t a strong enough base, leaving the chai feeling kind of thin. It gets better as it cools, though. The ginger comes out to play and there’s a touch of sweetness to compensate for the weak base.

Overall – meh. There must be a better non-black-tea chai out there. I wouldn’t refuse this if offered, but there are a lot of bagged teas I would choose first.

sipdown

Ok… still more caramel apple than caramel corn. And artificial tasting. I tried using more leaf and steeping longer, but that didn’t really improve the flavor. Ugh. Not a fan.

Bleeegh. I’ve been on the search for a nice chocolate tea. This is not it. I bought this a few months ago and hated it then, but I decided to give it another shot before reviewing it. Oh the regret. At least it gave me a little energy boost, I suppose.

This tastes like diluted spiced hot cocoa. Not even high quality hot cocoa. Just watery chocolate with a little bit of kick. And a dry, powdery aftertaste. I tried salvaging it with some rice milk, but that somehow just made it worse. I imagine it might work well brewed in cow’s milk. I can’t drink that so someone else will have to run the experiment.

Speaking of which – first person to PM me gets the rest of the bag!

UPDATE: Claimed!

This brews up nice and light. The first steep is very delicate and vegetal, maybe a touch grassy. I didn’t think of it as seaweed-y until I read some of the other notes for this tea. Now that’s all I can taste! Funny how suggestible people can be sometimes…

This holds up to a resteep nicely, though the seaweed flavor is definitely stronger in the second steep. There’s also a buttery quality mid-sip.

Overall, not bad, but I’ve had better.

Probably my last Butiki for the night. This one is just awesome. Who knew warm watermelon could work? It’s just juicy and soothing and not at all artificial tasting. And most importantly, I still have a bit left. Yay!

Thanks again to Stephanie for the swap.

Sssssipdown! This time, I tried adding rice milk right after I was done brewing the tea rather than halfway through drinking it. It’s much better this way – presumably something to do with the tea being hotter when I added the rice milk? Anyway, this is nice and creamy and spicy. Good while it lasted!

I’m glad to have the empty tin now so I can put some samples in it, but I can’t get the chai smell out…

This smells like autumn, spicy with a hint of pumpkin. The dry leaves smell creamier than the brewed tea. The brew is a lovely deep orange color matching the falling leaves outside. It’s got kind of a chai vibe because of the spices, but the pumpkin holds its own. This didn’t seem very creamy at first, but it gets creamier as I keep drinking. There’s also maybe a hint of caramel flavor? Am I imagining that? This is one of those teas that makes me sad that I can’t/shouldn’t have black tea. I’m super glad to have tried it though. Many thanks to Stephanie for the swap!