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Backlog:

OK, so I have a bunch of huge tins for tea storage. Not your typical 2 or 4 ounce tins. I’ve got a lot of those too, but what I’m talking about are tins that hold a kilo of tea. Big. These are left over from my previous tea blending days. When I closed the business and started tea reviewing, I turned those big tins into my tea storage for my smaller teas, I’d keep the teas in their original packaging and I’d separate the teas into tea types: Black Teas, White Teas, Green Teas … etc. You get the picture. Well, when I received this tea way back when from Butiki, I stashed it into my Pu-erh tin and forgot about it.

(Confession Time) Because that’s what I typically do with Pu-erh tea. My earliest experiences with pu-erh have left me very scarred and it takes a lot for me to find the courage to brew a pu-erh. Even though now I’ve learned how to best brew pu-erh for my palate’s liking, and I actually LIKE pu-erh tea now. Those memories of my earliest experiences have left me scarred and so when I think ‘pu-erh’ – I think EWW!

Yes, I actually like pu-erh.

(insert laughter)

Anyway, when I heard that Butiki was planning to leave the tea world, after pouting a while, I decided to search through my teas and see if I had any teas from them that I had not yet reviewed and came across this pu-erh.

I wasn’t planning on buying more tea from them because … I’m a tea reviewer. My purpose (or it was until I decided that after March 31st I wasn’t going to be a tea reviewer any more) is to help promote teas that actually exist. I want to help the world of tea … I want to help the tea companies out there promote their product (or if I don’t like the tea, I want to help them see the error of their ways and fix it.)

But I needed a tea to say goodbye with to Butiki because they have been one of my very favorite tea companies for several years. I could always count on them for yummy teas. I felt confident buying from Stacy because she seemed to embrace what I was about as a tea blender back when I started. She tasted the teas before she sent them out there into the world. She believed in the product she offered. If she didn’t like it, she wouldn’t sell it. I dug that. I really did. Because that was what I was about when I was selling tea. If I didn’t like a tea that I created, I wouldn’t sell it. I would start over with the tea until it was something I was proud of. I wouldn’t put my label (my name) on a tea if I wasn’t happy with what I created.

Wow, this is a long intro to a tea review, isn’t it? My review of this tea isn’t even this long. http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/11/12/organic-ancient-phoenix-pu-erh-tea-from-butiki-teas/

Anyway … this tea review was to serve as my goodbye to Butiki Teas. That is, before she went off to create teas like “Lime Marshmallow” and “Boomstick” and “Chocolate Chili Truffle” and how the heck do I resist those flavors?

Answer: I don’t.

Anyway … so this tea. Let me talk about this tea a moment: Sweet! A sugary sweetness. The sweetness is stronger than the earthiness, especially in the earliest infusions. Hints of spice. Later infusions had deeper flavors, sweetness with notes of leather and cacao and wood. A very pleasant and complex tea.

I didn’t like the third infusion though. I don’t know why. It was like … nope. And then it got dumped. The fourth infusion was better than the third. Mushroom earthiness, molasses-y sweetness, smooth, mellow and really nice.

A really good pu-erh. All except infusion 3. Don’t do the three. Infusion three can be like a mid-rinse. Yeah. That’s the ticket.