681 Tasting Notes
I don’t know how, but this is still just as delicious as always. My little brother is home for the holidays and he sniffed it, said it smelled nice, then actually deigned to try it! He said ‘mm’ and nodded approvingly, which is high praise from him. Man, I’m going to miss this when I run out.
Preparation
This has always been more on the delicately-flavoured side, but now it’s getting on a bit the flavouring is more of a suggestion than an actual presence. It’s hard to tell where the Darjeeling ends and the bergamot begins. I do get some natural floral tones from the base, as well as some citric tones, but there’s also a surprising peppery note I don’t think I’ve noticed before, and a mild astringency which doesn’t really interfere with the experience. The bergamot is more noticeable after the sip than it is while drinking. Bumping the rating ever so slightly from 56, because I do think it’s well-blended.
Preparation
I saw rooibos and cinnamon and thought this would make a good tea latte, so that’s what I did. Alas, I didn’t see the lemon and hibiscus listed until it was too late, and now I have a delicious, evening-appropriate apple and cinnamon tea latte with a weird curdled sourness lingering at the end of the sip. Oops. Up until the weird sourness though, it’s tasty! Definitely cinnamon heavy, but the apple is noticeable too and I could be imagining it but I’m getting a sort of brown sugar note as well which really helps it lean into the whole strudel vibe. The rooibos base works well with the flavour profile, too. It’s not too woodsy, but it adds a nice honeyed sweetness which helps to create the ‘pastry’ image. I’m kicking myself for making it into a latte, though. It is nice, but I bet it would be even more delicious without that darn sourness which just won’t leave me alone.
Preparation
Caramelised tangerine. Tangerine tanghulu! I forget what the other flavours were for this one, but that’s what I get from this. I think it works better with only one or two of the flavourings coming across, it was a bit muddled as a concept before when the flavourings were strong. Upping my rating yet again, this time from 66, because while it’s still not a favourite, I seem to enjoy it more every time.
Preparation
That’s a sad tea name!
It’s too bad Butiki closed down. Wish I’d ordered back when I had the opportunity.
Yep, I miss Butiki something rotten. I’m following Mastress Alita ‘s prompts for the year (I started in November but I’m doing as many as I can from the whole year), and I chose this for the prompt of a discontinued/unavailable tea. I thought the name was appropriate.
I remember I won the ‘guess the flavors’ competition for this one back in the day. Looking at my tasting note, directly from Stacy, the official flavors are:
1. Base Tea-Fu Shou Shan
2. Waffle flavoring
3. Tangerine Flavoring
4. Cashew Flavoring
5. Strawberry Flavoring
6. Maple Flavoring
Thank you tea-sipper , you’re a gem! Funny, I don’t think I ever knew there was cashew flavouring in this. I don’t get that or the strawberry at all now. I’d say it’s mostly tangerine and maple at this point, maybe with some waffle in there too.
Do you remember how close you were with your guess?
Needless to say, all these flavors were much more noticeable years ago! I had to look at my note again… I got a couple flavors wrong on my guess. I said “sugar” but that was probably really the “maple” and “waffle” I was tasting. I guessed “raspberry” when it was really “strawberry”. And I knew there was a nut in there somewhere. But I did get the base of Fu Shou Shan oolong exactly right! Somehow I was still the closest guesser in the contest. haha.
That’s much better than I did, I got the Fu Shou Shan too (one of my favourites), but then didn’t get anything else XD I think I might have said strawberry, but I said orange instead of tangerine and don’t think I ever picked up on the nut, even new.
I love the notion of a guess-the-flavors contest! I would fail miserably, but it sounds like fun.
It was a lot of fun, but I was mostly too sad to enjoy it because Butiki was closing. If another company was to do that now, I’d be all over it!
The Steepster database lists this as a Shou Mei, but I have a White Peony version. There’s no listing for that, so I’m just leaving my note here, which is what VariaTEA (who I got this from – thanks!) has done. I wonder if Anne changed the base when she took over 52teas from Frank?
Anyway, this is a nice raspberry white tea. I don’t get much pastry from it, or sweetness either for that matter, but there’s a chance that has faded with time. The raspberry is very much fresh – or even frozen – raspberry to me rather than a sweet and jammy raspberry. It has a tanginess about it which is giving me that impression. There’s something almost vegetal and broth-like about the base tea, which again is giving me more of a natural, fresh raspberry impression than a dessert one. Nevertheless, I am a fan of raspberry and enjoyed my cup. Normally I would add a touch of sugar to see if that helps to bring out the dessert elements of the tea, but I’m all out at the moment. I will do that with my next cup.
Preparation
I’ve been putting off drinking this sample from Hapatite for a really long time, based on the reviews here on Steepster. To my great surprise, I loved it! Lovely fig and cinnamon flavours, followed up by delicious burdock which lingers at the end of the sip. If this was still around, and I had access to DAVIDsTEA (c’mon, give us international shipping!!) I would definitely consider picking this up! The only issue, which didn’t really bother me too much, was that there was an odd sourness at the end of the sip, which I couldn’t quite place. I wanted to try resteeping my leaf, but sadly it wasn’t to be – my mam threw it out, again. It’s a shame, but I’m glad I got to enjoy what I had. Now to search for a cinnamon, fig and burdock tea in the UK! I’m sure it will be easy…
Sipdown 247/405
Preparation
I really like caramel/toffee style rooibos blends, they’re possibly my favourite way to drink rooibos and a good staple to keep around for an evening when I’m craving something sweet. This is a really good one, and I finished off the last of it as a tea latte a couple of nights ago. I actually think I prefer this regular western steeped, without additives. That way, it’s delicious nutty toffee with a mild woodsiness from the rooibos. Drank as a latte, though, the base was a little overpowering of the gentle toffee and dessert flavours, which only really came out in the aftertaste. I think a touch of sweetener would have helped to coax them out more, but I didn’t have any maple syrup or brown sugar left so I drank it without. That being said, I did let it steep for a full 10 minutes, so it might be my fault that the rooibos was so prominent this time around. I still enjoyed it, but not necessarily quite as much as usual. I’ve added this back onto my wishlist, because when I eventually get through my old teas I might make a Tea Desire order, and if I do, this will be the first thing on my list.
Thanks for sharing MissB ! Sipdown 246/405.
Preparation
62 is a very low rating for this tea, so I’m bumping it up. I must have been in a bad mood that day. This is a really nice, soothing tea for me. I love jasmine, and the blend of green and white teas makes for a lovely mellow, smooth backbone for it with very little astringency, which I appreciate. The jasmine is sweet and natural tasting, not overly floral or perfumey, and it doesn’t remotely overpower the natural notes of the base teas, I think possibly because it comes from jasmine flowers instead of flavouring. It blends really well with the grapey and hay-like notes I’m getting from the base, which doesn’t sound like it would, but it does! Overall though it’s not exactly the most ‘exciting’ blend of flavours, it’s a really good iteration of a classic combination, and it it doing the trick to relax me and make me happy, which is what tea is for, right?
Preparation
Lavender go woooo.
That’s my review. I’m very tired.
I’m not as much a fan of this any more. It was never my favourite, but I liked it better than I do now. Anyway, I submitted my essay. So that’s cool. Only four more weeks until the next one is due… and I haven’t started the reading yet…
Preparation
Last tea of the advent calendar! Woohoo!
This is described on the box as ‘organic rooibos herbal tea with ginger, cocoa, star anise and mace’, but honestly all I taste is the rooibos. There’s maybe a slight hint of cocoa melding with the woody rooibos, and a bit of a spicy kick at the end though I can’t actually taste the ginger. I think I detect a very slight whisper of star anise if I go searching for it, but really that’s just because I’m looking, and that goes for all of the flavours I’ve mentioned. I think if somebody gave me this and told me it was a straight-up rooibos, I would believe them.
It’s a shame to end the calendar on such a womp womp , but to be honest it pretty much summarises my overall experience with it. Aside from the Chai Charge which was a rooibos and garlic mess, nothing has been too offensive, but nothing has stood out either. In a way, this ‘rooibos with a hundred additives that results in a cup that tastes like a plain rooibos’ is a fitting way for the advent to fizzle out.
