Stacy I hate you. No, I love you. Hate you. Love you. My wallet hates you…but that doesn’t count for anything so only love for you then!
Thank you so much for allowing me to try this oh! sooo very special and unique tea!
BUT! The consequence to that is that I will now have to brake my tea fast ( I « pretend» I’m fasting on tea orders until december, that gives me a false sense of self control, which is truly non sense and pure lie)
I don’t know much about this tea but I was immediately drawn to it when I last visited Butiki’s virtual shelves.
First the shape: surprisingly hard and rigid little green needles. They are shiny, which is odd for me, can’t think of another tea in my cupboard with shiny leaves… Can you?
They almost feel like plastic between my fingers, as if they have a carapace of some kind! The fact that they are so hard makes me wonder how they will ever soften up when brewed.
In the Gaiwan they go!
First steep renders a very light yellow colour. The smell is sweet, almost corn on a cub type of sweetness. The taste is buttery yummy… sweet corn indeed, but strangely, that sweetness collides with some tangling sparks of citrus juiciness. What a pleasant yet very strange feeling that creates in my mouth.
Not to be mistaken with bitterness, it’s more of a tang biting back at you, with refreshing notes, the sharpness of pink ruby red grapefruit comes to mind.
Saltiness emerges out of the second steep. Corn, snap peas, and that tang still very present.
4th steep was pretty much the same…
I forgot 5th steep, left it for more than 4 minutes… That seemed an awful lot considering my tiny gaiwan! Did someone mentioned PEAR? Yes, it’s in Stacy’s description. Well goodbye grapefruit, hello pear! After 4 minutes, of course it’s astringent (which I personaly don’t mind when the taste is so complex and delightful). But the pear is striking! More minerals have also emerged, that makes it «salty pear seaweed» like!
At this stage, the leaves are very soft and plump, they look exactly like Lilliputian snap peas or green beens, if I ever saw some! Could it be that Stacy really got this strange little tea from one of Gulliver’s travel, or did she go pick it up herself in Liliput? Let’s just keep the mystery alive…
You can have a look here: (yeah, that’s my new thing, experimenting with tea photos…As if my life is lacking of tea surroundings!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laafeevertee/8182813649/in/photostream/lightbox/
This morning, I fainted when I got up… no big deal, I have a history of that. But I banged my head a little and felt dizzy throughout the day. (Ahh!! I hear you say, that explains the Lilliputian hallucinations!)
It’s a little scary when this situation occurs while I’m alone in the house. But Doberman Dexter came to the rescue and helped me get back on my feet :-) To help me regain my equilibrium, I needed something with special energy, a positive boost that I often find in green teas. Having read some of the reviews (Bonnie’s comment about tea-buzz) I decided it was the right moment to try it.
It gave me just what I needed. It energized me and made the worries and fears go away… I self medicated in an all natural way!
I must order this in a hurry, tea fasting is officialy over! (It never really started anyway)
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Good luck with your self control! :)
Self what??? I don’t know the meaning of such words… :-)
You write with such a sense of delight and adventure, I love reading what’s next…except the fainting and bump. I’ve passed out now and then too. The scariest was alone in the middle of the Mexico City Airport. Nobody came to my rescue either. Fast forward about 40 years and I found out why. The migraines and environmental triggers. I hope you are ok.
thanks bonnie, I’m ok :-)
Love the picture! It really helped to see how unique this tea really is!
oh dear, I’ve fainted a few times before as well and it is not fun. So glad you had a faithful pet to help you and that you’re ok.
Ouch! I hope your head feels better.
I love your description of the Lilliputian snap peas or green beans.
Oh geez, the fainting business sounds scary. Love the picture! I love this tea. I like to put it in my tall skinny glass thermos and watch the needles hang down in the water and one by one sink slowly to the bottom. So fun to watch.
@Ashmanra, Canadianadia, Indigobloom, Butiki: : I took the picture cause I had only a sample of this wonderful tea and thought it looked like artwork in the white gaiwan, glad you liked it! (I know I have no skills in photo shooting, but it amuses me!)
I read Guliver’s Travel when I was only 8, obviously I was too young to fully understand all its subtleties, but Lilliputians made a great impression on me!
The fainting is something I’m used to…The only real danger is to hurt yourself by falling. I usually feel it coming and have time to sit, but sometimes it happens too fast! Somehow, most of the time my dog feels it before I do, that’s why he’s always next to me when I wake up:-)
what a good puppy!
Yes helena, he is!
Paul, Butiki is probably my favorite vendor at the moment. Stacy is very close to her clientele and as you may have noticed, she is very present on Steepster, interracting with us. Her teas might be a little pricey, but good example of quality over quantity. So many of them are unique, as if she’s on a constant quest to find unusual little treasures :-) And no, I’m not getting paid to say all this, I really mean it !
The dog is amazing, I’m lucky to have found such a protector…sorry you lost one of yours, judging by the name, Bubble must be a little sunshine, loving it :-)
Good luck with your self control! :)
Self what??? I don’t know the meaning of such words… :-)
You write with such a sense of delight and adventure, I love reading what’s next…except the fainting and bump. I’ve passed out now and then too. The scariest was alone in the middle of the Mexico City Airport. Nobody came to my rescue either. Fast forward about 40 years and I found out why. The migraines and environmental triggers. I hope you are ok.
thanks bonnie, I’m ok :-)
Love the picture! It really helped to see how unique this tea really is!
oh dear, I’ve fainted a few times before as well and it is not fun. So glad you had a faithful pet to help you and that you’re ok.
Ouch! I hope your head feels better.
I love your description of the Lilliputian snap peas or green beans.
Oh geez, the fainting business sounds scary. Love the picture! I love this tea. I like to put it in my tall skinny glass thermos and watch the needles hang down in the water and one by one sink slowly to the bottom. So fun to watch.
@Ashmanra, Canadianadia, Indigobloom, Butiki: : I took the picture cause I had only a sample of this wonderful tea and thought it looked like artwork in the white gaiwan, glad you liked it! (I know I have no skills in photo shooting, but it amuses me!)
I read Guliver’s Travel when I was only 8, obviously I was too young to fully understand all its subtleties, but Lilliputians made a great impression on me!
The fainting is something I’m used to…The only real danger is to hurt yourself by falling. I usually feel it coming and have time to sit, but sometimes it happens too fast! Somehow, most of the time my dog feels it before I do, that’s why he’s always next to me when I wake up:-)
what a good puppy!
Yes helena, he is!
Paul, Butiki is probably my favorite vendor at the moment. Stacy is very close to her clientele and as you may have noticed, she is very present on Steepster, interracting with us. Her teas might be a little pricey, but good example of quality over quantity. So many of them are unique, as if she’s on a constant quest to find unusual little treasures :-) And no, I’m not getting paid to say all this, I really mean it !
The dog is amazing, I’m lucky to have found such a protector…sorry you lost one of yours, judging by the name, Bubble must be a little sunshine, loving it :-)