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After burning through nearly 50g of this one I’ve sorta fallen a little out of love. That’s why I’ve turned to cold brewing it: while it does taste better hot the cold brews are using the leaf up much faster. It’s sorta a fair trade off.

I had this at work yesterday, it was decent! It bordered on medical (the rooibos, not the cherry) but overall was pretty ok and thirst quenching. I’ll be fine with not having it around when it’s gone though: and besides it looks like I’ve just planned out another RiverTea order! I knew I had a few I wanted, but turns out it’s enough to feel justified in placing a (small) order and getting more fruit blends (and fruit samples) and also topping off my depleting Mulberry White!

Hooray!

Oh, and I bumped down the rating on this a touch.

This one has been moved down to the amassing collection of tins and bags of tea to sipdown too; I like it, but once I’m out I probably wont need to have it around again. At least, not for a while. Besides, it’s so easily available!

Anyway, it was my breakfast tea a few days ago and it was splendid! There were strong, non-competing notes of maple, walnut, and fudgey chocolate set alongside the black base and the faintest presence of sandalwood which I don’t think did much to add or detract. The was even a really light, “drying” feeling on the tongue in the aftertaste that I associate with eating a lot of nuts.

Mmm!

Mmm!

This was the end to my day of mostly white teas – and what an end! I needed a cup of this: after mostly just drinking things with the goal of sipping them down it felt so good to have this one just because I wanted it.

This was my first Butiki blend and it’ll always be precious to me! What a pure, amazing and juicy watermelon taste! I know C&C is often the Butiki melon favourite – but this is my go to melon tea! Num num num.

So still working through the backlog… Erg.

After my date on Tuesday I was still in a really good mood so I continued my day of whites and also continued to break my “only sipdown teas” policy so that I could have the two other favourite whites I’d set aside earlier in the day but hadn’t gotten to.

This was one of them: my beloved “all over the place but always delightful” Strawberry White! What I mean by that is, sometimes this tastes like tart, sour strawberries, and sometimes it’s Strawberry gummy candy, and other times it’s Strawberries and Cream! So many weird strawberry mixes but always delicious.

This cup in particular was creamy strawberry with a tart little “zip” on the finish. Yummy! I’m probably gonna cry when I run out of this, what with it being discontinued and all. I love it so much…

Sample from I’m pretty sure VariaTEA – but I have a hunch she may have first acquired it from MissB? I guess it doesn’t matter; I’ll just thank ’em both.

Thank you both.

I’ve been sitting on this sample for a while; figuratively, not literally – and I thought now was a decent enough time to break it open. So I cold brewed it for my date, and I drank it while I walked to the restaurant to meet him. I thought it was actually surprisingly good! The rooibos was almost unnoticeable and the mango was juicy in the same way I find the mango flavour in 52Teas’ Cucumber Mango Shou Mei to be.

The reason I put it off so long was definitely because of the mango; I’m kinda picky about that flavour – but I guess I didn’t need to fear! I only have a little left, so it’ll be prepared hot next time around . Which will probably be today; this note is backlogged from Tuesday.

I’m so backlogged; I need to push out a few tasting notes this morning before work or I’m going to feel crazy guilty for putting it off when I have time and am not doing anything better. Bleck. Here we go (I’m even less excited because Steepster just ate my first attempt at writing this long ass note)…

This isn’t really on the tea, because I’ve written a ton about it. More so this is a breakdown of how my date on Tuesday was! Because I said I’d spill about that, so I am…

I had a very fun time: we started the evening by having some fast food at this amazing sit down fast food-y type restaurant called Fuddruckers. It’s really hard to explain Fudds – but it’s one of those places that is just special. When I lived in Regina, it was always a really big deal when we got to go there. Now I live ten minutes away, heh…

So I had a milkshake because they’re the best. It was awesome because he’s pretty well just as nerdy as I am so we had an awesome conversation on Dystopian Fiction, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and our frustrations about the casting for the new movie), various Marvel comics, and the insane anger of having an online emulator fail and losing your save file.

Then was the movie: Spider Man 2. I loved the movie! And he totally didn’t mind when I started getting really critical of the employees (having worked for the same company as a trainer for a year). We were supposed to be seeing it in 3D but the 3D failed (the first twenty minutes of the show looked like we were at a rave: the 3D was flickering that wildly) so they reset it in 2D and gave us all free passes to see another movie.

And then the night came to a close… With a kiss.

I have to admit though, his height really throws me off. I’ve never really dated anyone significantly taller that me (in fact, I once dated someone with dwarfism who was more than a foot shorter than me) and it freaks me out a little bit. Like, I’m 5’3’’ but he’s at least 6’4’’ and I definitely had to look up when I wanted to talk to him. So, urigdipugpdiugEWBT. Mixed feels about that…

Having this hot, and it’s a much needed reminder of how delicious this one can be after a string a mediocre cold brews. Much like many of the teas I’ve had today this is succulent and juicy and is really getting my mouth watering! I’m so happy I decided to make this afternoon one dedicated to white blends.

That said, I still am perfectly fine sipping it down and not restocking: I like Watermelon Xylophone a lot better and it seems kinda redundant keeping both Butiki melon blends around. I’d much rather give the tin space to another white Butiki blend like French Lemon Macaron, White Rhino or, apparently, Doke Silver Needle.

But yum; a much needed switch up from the way I’ve been preparing this lately. Seriously, the contrast is jarring.

I’m cheating a bit today with my campaign to only drink teas that I wish to sipdown immediately/soon and I’ve set aside some whites that I just want to have including this one, Sweet Strawberry, and Watermelon Xylophone. I don’t know how many I’ll get to because I am still trying to find a balance between whites in the sipdown drawer and whites in my closet/cupboard but I made sure to take the time for this one!

Mmm! Sweet Jasmine! I love the graceful simpleness of this one; there’s beauty in it. Delicious! It’s a nice switch up from the Cucumber Mango but not in a jarringly drastic way.

After how divine Butiki’s Doke Silver Needle was I was a little nervous this blend would be drastically out shined this morning/early afternoon – but I should have feared not because it’s holding its own next to the DSN.

It’s like a super refreshing, light cup of Spring Morning. It’s vegetal from the coconut but in a really crisp, mouth watering way – and then the “punch” of mango just makes everything pop. This is one of my favourite 52Teas blend and I’ll be so sad when I’m out; and that’s gonna be pretty soon, too…

Sipdown impending.

Sample comes from 221Tea who kindly sent me a very generous sample after I requested trying it in our large swap. I’ve wanted to try pretty much all Stacy’s Silver Needle blends for ages now – but haven’t been willing to blindly buy them for fear I wont like them for whatever reason. It’s semi foolish because I know already that I adore Silver Needle tea in general, but getting to try a sample first is just really reassuring…

So this is part of my breakfast tea line up: I haven’t had a lot of hot white teas in a while (just cold brews) because I don’t want to take the time in the mornings before work to make a hot cup, and after work I’m still too impatient to wait for the water to cool – I want the instant gratification of white tea! So, today is gonna be a white tea day, at least up until I leave for my date.

Dry, this smells so… Fresh. I feel like, already, I know I’m gonna be in love and I’m already feeling validated in wanting to buy a few ounces of it. Yum!

Steeped up: I was so right! There’s so much flavour in such a small amount of leaf! And it’s rich, and thick, and delightfully creamy! I for sure get sweet milky/creamy notes (almost like condensed milk) first and foremost, and then some gentle hay and malt notes and a cherry/marzipan like sweetness to finish off and round out the cup. It’s one of, if not the best straight Silver Needle I’ve ever had.

I don’t typically resteep but I’m confidant that I’ll be resteeping this one.

And…

On that note this will be added to my wishlist/shopping list because I am quite literally drooling. My mouth is watering that much.

EDIT: So I did resteep it and I’m very impressed! The creaminess, hay notes and marzipan flavours held up really well to the second steep. I did lose a lot of the maltiness but some more fruity notes emerged that I hadn’t picked up before.

And I’m still drooling… Mmm!