So before walking home from my 30 min. work shift today, I stopped at Shoppers and picked up some ginger ale (because of the whole being sick thing) and downed that on the walk home. I absolutely hate ginger, but I think it’s actually working pretty well, so I thought I’d “reward” myself with another new Butiki tea.
Out of what’s left from my Black Friday order to try, this seemed like maybe the gentlest thing to try out – so I made this one next. Dry, this smells like very creamy pistachio, but in a super gentle and mild way. Kind of like the smell of pistachio pudding powder before you’ve done any of the mixing yet: gentle and kind of airy. Even the green tea in the smell doesn’t seem so bad.
I steeped up 1 tsp. (level) of leaf in about 80 degree water for two minutes, thirty seconds. The colour was a super pale green, and the smell was distinctly pistachio with a vegetal green tea undertone. Pretty nice smelling, but the vegetal green tea scent was a little bit of a deterrent.
Taste wise, this is pretty smooth with a thicker mouthfeel and fairly rich pistachio flavour. There’s a nice balance between creaminess like promised in the name (‘ice cream’) and a kind of roasted pistachio flavour. Unfortunately, the green tea has a pretty strong presence too and it’s just a bit too vegetal for my liking. Also, I found the cooler my mug got the more bitter this ended up tasting.
Ultimately, a decent enough cup which is definitely better if drank at a hotter temperature. I don’t think I’ll have problems finishing off what I have, but this is not something I see myself ordering again (only in part because of the green tea base). That’s ok – I’ve found many other Butiki teas I’m happy with (including another green tea, which did work for me): you can’t love them all.
Anyway, if I can keep this down I might move on to Christmas teas in a while. You know, ‘tis the season and all. A Gingerbread Latte sounds like a good idea. And yes, I know that I just complained about ginger being something I dislike; there’s always exceptions to the rule though, right?
EDIT: Mail just showed up! I got a swap package from Aimee Popovacki! Everything smells lovely, but I think I need to wait until I’m definitely feeling better before I go trying things out… Thank you!