Premium Chai

My first experience with this tea company and it’s a good one. This is a pleasant chai blend that is strong and boldly spiced, but not overly spicy. The black tea base has a good strength that stands up well to the addition of milk (this one is definitely better as a latte!) Smooth and rich, this has a really nice flavor to it.

Hooray! My big box of Butiki arrived today! :) My sister asked me “How was your shift?” as I came into the door, already tearing into the box. My response was, “Who cares, look what I’ve got! :D” as I started pulling out the almost embarrassing amount of pouches of tea from the box and onto the counter.
(I did have a good shift though, mind you. But even if I didn’t, it’d be forgotten at this point anyway)

The only sad thing though is that by the time I had a quick shower, and a quick dinner, this’ll probably be the only tea I get to drink. It’s 7:50PM right now, and I have to get up at 4:30AM tomorrow for my early shift, so … yeah. Technically I probably shouldn’t be having any caffeinated ones at all, but … How can you tell yourself that when a huge beautiful box that contains 98% black tea that you have to wait until after 12:00PM tomorrow? You can’t.
(By the way Stacy, thanks for the little present! Such a nice surprise, and very pretty. :D)

Anyway, so here we are with the tea. This is one of the samples I requested with my order. At the scent of the dry leaves, I’m getting pretty excited. See I’m crazy picky with chai. In the sense that I have yet to find my ideal perfect chai. This smells pretty close to that. Mostly cinnamony+cardamomy, but still with a good kick.

I’m drinking it now with milk, and then added a bit of brown sugar. Afterall, what is a chai without milk and brown sugar? Anyway, this is very good! It’s mostly cinnamon which is fantastic, as I have a bit of a fixation on cinnamon… (it goes on oatmeal, red river cereal, pancakes, French toast, hot chocolate, cheerios, blueberry bagels, raisin toast, buttered toast, vanilla ice cream, apple crisp/crumble/pie … and I’m sure I’m forgetting something)

While it is mostly cinnamon, it’s more complex than say DavidsTea’s Pure Chai (which it should be, the whole point of that DT one was to be simple) I get a bit of cardamom taste and it has a pleasant burning spiciness, but in a the cranked up cinnamon way, rather than pepper and ginger that brings roast beef to mind.

I’m curious to see what this would taste like blended with Butiki’s Pumpkin Crème Brulee… I’ll be sure to pick up a bit of that along with this sometime in the future. That’s a combo worth exploring. :)

All in all, this is excellent! As of this note, so far this chai is the closest to my ideal, so I’m quite thrilled. Thanks for the chance to try this, Stacy! :)

I added this tea, but I wonder if it’s a duplicate… anyway, thanks to the wonderful Stacy for this sample. I’m a chai fiend and very picky, so she took a risk sending this to me. ;) However, it paid off. I let it steep for over 10 mins (work meeting) and the spicy concoction I was awarded with was worth it. In this delicious medley, I taste cinnamon, clove, ginger, allspice and even pepper. I won’t say it’s as good as my fave blend, but it’s a close second. More like 1a. ;) I love the spicy flavoring, plus the black tea base is bold and hearty. YUMS!

Tea of the morning backlog. I was looking for a chai, and we’re running ghastly low on my favorite chai, and plus, this chai had been on my shelf for a while. Apparently, it had been there too long, and I, having not stored it properly slaps self on wrist didn’t help.

So, long story short, it didn’t really end up tasting like chai. It didn’t even really taste like a decent quality black tea, sad to say. I noticed, as I was putting it in the infuser, that it was a CTC type black, so that probably had something to do with it. I more than half blame myself for this bad experience, firstly because I didn’t drink it as quickly as I probably should have, and secondly because I didn’t take care to store it properly. However, some small part of me thinks that it should still have tasted more like chai than it did. Like, the piece of king cake that I had this morning as part of my breakfast tasted more like cinnamon than this tea did. Anyway, meh. It served its function to a certain degree, in that it did keep me warm on the drive to school this morning. :)

This is an excellent chai. As many other tea drinkers will I’m sure admit, I am very picky about my chai and typically opt to brew my own with fresh spices and a full-flavored straight black leaf. But this is a wonderful alternative to mornings when I just don’t have the time or energy to make my own. I love the cinnamon flavor, and there is a nice note of cloves to it. I will say, I was surprised to see a CTC tea in this mix, but it really makes for a nice, rich flavor. I quite like!

Sipdown! (148)

This sample came from Nicole, and it made me laugh a little bit. First of all, I love the way that Nicole labels her little sample baggies. Instead of writing on the bag or using a sticky label, she writes the name of the tea (etc) on what looks like a piece of an index card (it has graph lines which makes it extra cute) and puts it directly into the bag with the tea. And her handwriting is lovely! This one in particular made me giggle a bit because it said something along the lines of “I think this is Butiki’s chai, it was in a tin with no label”. Thanks for the giggle, Nicole!

I used the recommended 1.5 tsp and brewed it in about 6 ounces of water so I would have room for milk. Added a little bit of sugar and tasted, it’s actually quite mild, which I didn’t expect! I still added the soy milk just to see how it would come out. I’m finding it a bit weak on spice flavor with the milk added. So I suppose next time I would use more tea if I’m going to add milk, or drink it without.

However, I do enjoy the blend of spices here. I can taste the ginger, but it’s not overpowering the cinnamon and clove. I’m definitely enjoying my cup, even if it is a bit mild. I’m not going to give this a rating because I feel it wouldn’t be fair since I added the milk. :P

num num! Chai is my favorite! And wow this is good. A nice strong black tea with spices. I could be wrong, but it seems there is some of the other Butiki tea I’ve tried in this one – their roasted yerba mate? It tastes like it a bit anyway. I loved that one too. And I must say that the pre-steeped leaves of this looked like the most delicious tea I’ve ever seen! I’ve tried a bunch of Butiki teas and all of them have been fantastic. You really can’t go wrong with Butiki! I really am thankful I’ve been able to try these.

Alas! This is my last sample from the lovely Butiki teas. This is one dark brew! It smells strongly of cinnamon. The flavor is quite nice. It reminds me vaguely of cinnamon and apple sauce. In a very nice, spicy way. I really enjoyed this sample and wish I had more! I drank this without milk and I think that it would make a great latte type drink.