Birthday Cake

Got this as a surprise sample in my last butiki teas order. This tea was so pretty in the sample packet I almost didn’t want to drink it. It reminds me of really good vanilla icing

With my newly discovered caffeine sensitivity, I need to round out the late afternoon/evening with herbal teas and I have so very few of those, so this one makes an appearance again.

Still tasty and sweet. A bit more flowery this time, I think. Enjoyable.

Sipdown! I’ve been waiting for my birthday to finish this off, and now it’s a double (edit: triple!) celebration because it’s Martin ’s birthday too! Edit: And Teatotaler ’s!

This was never really a favourite of mine because it’s essentially vanilla, but this time around I overleafed slightly to finish off my sample and it actually made quite a difference to my enjoyment level. It’s still not something I’m sad about losing, but I could actually taste something cake-like and not just herbal vanilla, which is what I normally get from this. Unfortunately I overdosed on cake today so I wasn’t really in the mood for more, haha! My aunty, who used to work in a bakery and makes all our birthday cakes, gave me a gorgeous light chocolate sponge filled with fresh cream and strawberries. I had a giant slab of it, and I’m not exaggerating. My mam also made a slow cooker self-saucing chocolate pudding, just as an experiment, and I was of course obliged to have a bowl of that with plenty of cream. To top it off, my partner’s parents turned up with my present from them at lunch time – afternoon tea! A huge tray full of sandwiches, quiche, sausage rolls, a scone, and various dessert treats. It was so thoughtful of them and I of course had to sample everything, before sharing the rest with my parents and grandparents. As a result I am all caked out! And possibly won’t eat again for the rest of the week. Totally worth it though. I’m having a much better birthday in quarantine than I expected! Bumping my rating ever so slightly from 60 to reflect the cakiness.

238/400

Thank you VariaTEA for this sample!

I’ve been avoiding trying this because I thought it was mate based. As it turns out, what I thought was yerba mate leaves was actually delicious, delicious mallow leaf. Mallow leaf is my new tea love. I need to find a bulk store that stock it so I can make marshmallow leaf/root tea.

Anyway, as for the actual looseleaf, I really like the orange/red and blue petals, they are colourful like sprinkles. When brewed, there is a strong flavour that starts out vegetal, like dried leaves steeped in hot water.

Then, the magic happens. Hints of vanilla blossom into marshmallow and icing flavours. I wouldn’t describe it as cake, but it definitely reminds me of the marshmallow fluff icing my cousin makes her cakes with. Next time I make a Butiki buy, I’m stocking up on this wonderful herbal blend.

I tried this as a cold brew just to see what would happen to the flavour.
It was actually really good this way. Sweet, light, and airy. I don’t think it was really “birthday cake like” but this tea is a year and a half old, so it has probably lost some flavour.
I found this to be an interesting tisane with the marshmallow leaf. It was something that I hadn’t really tried before (that I remember).

I’ve been meaning to try this tea for a long time. Today is the day! The brewed tea aroma is herbal. I can definitely smell the marshmallow root, which I believe is the base for this tea. First sip is a little lackluster. It just tastes like sweet marshmallow root. I’m going to add a bit of Truvia to see if I can coax out more cake flavor, although I suppose that risks making it too sweet.

It is very sweet now. I can imagine this tastes like white cake, but let’s be honest. I don’t think tea can taste like cake. A lot of what makes cake, well, cake is the airy fluffy buttery texture. Tea simply can’t replicate that. This is probably as close as it gets. The more I sip it, the more I notice resemblances to cake. This is good but not remarkably good. I have to say after all the rave reviews, I’m a little underwhelmed. I think my expectations were too high.

If I moderate my expectations, this is an enjoyable tea. I love that it’s caffeine free. It will satisfy my sweet tooth cravings on those days when all I want to do is stuff my face with cake. In that respect, this is a great alternative to the real deal. Now I’m off to celebrate because today is a big day! It’s my baby’s 4 month birthday!

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sings a la Jeremih
It’s my birthday so you know I want to try-y-y-y-y
This tea unlike any other ki-i-i-i-i-ind
Sip it good, and you can tell it’s fi-i-i-i-i-i-ine
The one that you can no longer buy-y-y-y-y-y

Birthday Cake
Birthday Cake (it’s that Butiki, girl)
Birthday Cake
Birthday Cake (if it’s hot, then I got, just give me that Butiki, girl)

I was so excited to try this Butiki classic, thanks to The Cookie Lady! This is another winner: light and sweet with a lovely buttery vanilla flavor. As an added bonus, the dry leaf is GORGEOUS with lots of fluffy green leaves and colorful flower petals. One more reason to miss Butiki…

This may have been the most colorful tea I have ever had!
I really enjoyed it’s taste; for me it was more of a creamy flower taste, whatever that means…
I had high expectations because this tea sold out a few times based off of my observation of Butiki’s store but when I ended up trying it I realized that it wasn’t my kind of tea. This tea was still nice, but it didn’t provide the taste I was looking for when I looked at it or smelled it

I know the recommendation was to add sugar, but I like to try most of my teas plain first to get a good baseline – don’t worry, I’m not going to rate it yet.

As it stands I’m definitely not getting anything like birthday cake from it, though the tea has a mildly sweet, slightly buttery flavour that is quite nice. I’m not getting an overwhelmingly ‘herbal’ flavour than accompanies many tisanes and it goes down quite smoothly without drying out my mouth. I bet this blend would be great with my homemade orange/vanilla simple syrup, I’ll have to test that theory soon.