Birthday Cake

After Stacy shared earlier today that we can order more from her in larger quantities, I decided to break out the hoarded stash of this tonight. Just as delicious as before! Even more so, perhaps.

So I can see where this blend is going, trying to be all mild and vanill-y and delicate, but it’s too delicate for me. At the end of the night I want something stronger before bed.

I’m not too upset though. There are plenty of Butiki teas that I adore and I cannot afford them all anyway!

So final verdict on this one? I don’t want it. Not, i don’t like it because i DO like the flavouring but to me this is really just creamy eggnog without the bits that make it creamy eggnog. IE. it’s a delicious tea…but it’s not really birthday cake to me (except in how pretty it is). I love that it’s a herbal…love that it’s light and refreshing but it’s not cake. Do i think it’s an enjoyable cup that wouldn’t disappoint people? Sure! but i’d rather stock creamy eggnog in my cupboard than this one and save my “herbal” slots for teas like stacy’s peppermint patty and rootbeerfloat! :)

Om nom nom. Tea. And it’s my birthday, happy birthday to me.

The other teas I had today were matcha macaron with white chocolate too-soft-ganache at breakfast, and a green tea latte at sbux.

Yep.

I am so stressed about this whole moving thing. So after I got a (ridiculous photo and) drivers license update, I came home and chilled before painting my nails and remembering about tea.

Nails are a dark navy shimmer with gold and black glitter on top. Yeah! Go me! I really like them but the polishes aren’t playing nice and it’s still not set. Hopefully it doesn’t get too messy while I sleep.

Tea is delicious as always. Very gentle, vanilla and sweet. Yum yum.

Tonight I met the amazing Sil and it was just for a moment but it is clear she is awesome. Plus, we were able to do what my family refers to as the most innocent drug deal they ever witnessed seeing as I handed her a couple of boxes of teas, she handed me a couple of bags, we hugged, and then parted ways. As a result of this exchange, I now have a giant bag of tea back in my cupboard which is so excited that I decided to forgo trying swap teas and instead making a big cup of this. Happily, it is as delicious as I remember. Creamy, light, and with the perfect amount of vanilla marshmallow sweetness. Yum!!! Thank you Sil for ordering!!

Thank you for the lovely test samples, Stacy! It felt like it my birthday yesterday, after I received my individually wrapped sample parcel, and it seemed fitting to drink this one first.

The name of this herbal should’ve clued me in, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so sweet and honeyed. It tastes like sweet sponge cake- light and fluffy, with an alluded cream filling. Marshmallow flavour lingers as an aftertaste, and is veined with vanilla notes, a light vegetal tone, and a gentle saltiness. The now empty cup smells strongly of marshmallows.

Despite the lightness of the flavours, I find this cup to be rich and filling. This is enough cake for me to step into the role of “dessert”. That it’s herbal makes it a perfect substitute for a late night treat.

Also, add this onto the list of teas and tisanes that taste amazing once they’ve cooled down a bit. It’s up there with the Pistachio Ice Cream tea I polished off yesterday.

Isn’t it funny how different perceptions between people can be? I vaguely remembered other Steepsters saying this wasn’t bad, but that it lacked flavor and had no cake element. It’s one of the reasons I put off trying it immediately when my big ol’ box of new Butiki came in. But I made a cup tonight and was totally bowled over by how accurate and powerful this smelled of really good fine crumbed white cake and delicious true-vanilla icing dry and steeping. Granted, it doesn’t taste as cake-y as it smells—but there’s no way any tea could, I think, as the aroma was just so overwhelmingly cakey and delicious, like better than smelling the real thing—but that vanilla crumb flavor is there, lightly, and seems to accumulate as I drink until by the end it really does feel like I’ve had the liquid equivalent of a piece of simple classic yummy vanilla cake. Beautiful stuff, and feels in line with how I don’t like garishly sweet supermarket bakery department cake but do like the kind of cake they often serve at weddings (the old fashioned kind, not the fondant stuff)—subtle in its way (regarding pointed sweetness mostly), but powerfully full of vanilla, heady but elegant feeling (it really is a lovely tea to look at, both the dry leaves and the liquor in the cup). I almost feel that coating on your teeth too after eating a piece of cake. The fact something this delicious and festive-occasion-tasting is herbal is just icing on the cake (har). After I finished my cup, I noticed the strong aroma of marshmallows and vanilla cake stayed in the empty cup for a long time—I kept dipping my nose back into it. Heavenly. I’m a huge sucker for sweet damp tight-crumbed white wedding cake though, so.

Yeah, I like this more than Creamy Eggnog, by far (don’t get me wrong, I like Creamy Eggnog but I think this has way more flavor). Again, I find it amusing (and wonderful) how different opinions can be!

Well this is a sipdown but I somehow didn’t add this one to my cupboard, so my number remains at 142. I asked Stacy for a sample of this one with my last order because a marshmallow-leaf herbal sounded intriguing.

This was really tasty! Creamy, with a nice smooth texture, very dessert-y. I’ve never had Butiki’s Creamy Eggnog, so I can’t compare it to that, but I am happy with this one for sure. I don’t know that it screams ‘cake’ to me, but that’s fine really, it’s still tasty. Once it gets cold and I want to have an herbal tea every night in the evening I may have to pick some of this up… I’m always on the lookout for tasty herbals without rooibos (yuck) or hibiscus (only on occasion). This one certainly fit the bill.

I just had a thought… I wonder how the marshmallow leaf would do with cacao nibs for a kind of cocoa-marshmallow herbal? Mmm.

This starts as a whipped buttery vanilla frosting, or a glaze flavor and feeling. As I work down the cup and the buttery-type flavor builds on my tongue, there’s more of a cakey crumb kind of flavor. The whole cup and mouthfeel, while very smooth feels really delicate and airy to me. It’s absolutely more angel food cake than birthday cake to me.

I see a lot of comparison with the Creamy Eggnog for this one, but I really only see it myself in that they are both very smooth on the tongue and have a lingering vanilla flavor.

If nothing else, this definitely makes me want a big bowl of strawberries.

Thanks Short Sorceress!

Finishing off the last of this that Sil sent me. I’m liking it better tonight than I have in the past. The dry leaf has a vanilla frosting scent, the brewed tea smells like cake batter, and the brew itself is much improved with the addition of some agave syrup. The sweetness helps bring out the vanilla frosting flavor (though I’m still not getting any cake). The syrup also gives this a smoother mouthfeel than the sugar did, so the frosting doesn’t taste quite so from-the-can. There’s still a weird frosting-flavored after-texture, like a film on the roof of my mouth. It’s not as coarse as it was before, though. Still not a huge fan, but bumping my rating a bit.

Aaaaand sipdown!