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So for my before-breakfast tea this morning I decided to drink the penultimate cup of my maple-pecan oolong tea, and therefore almost the last there ever will be, for me at least, as Butiki tea is closing down. It is a mournful occasion. My wife is angry now, because she doesn’t want me to finish it, she wants to frame it and worship it, make a shrine to this maple-pecan tea; it’s that good. I don’t think Butiki teas has any commandments against graven images.

I brewed this tea according to the instructions. What can I say that already has been said in a much more eloquent manner? It tastes exactly like it should, nutty, maple, creamy and delicious. Probably my favourite tea from Butiki teas. Unfortunately for us we only found out about this company as she was going out of business. I see a pattern emerging in my life; all my favourite musicians are dead, and now my favourite tea company is on its way out too!

I’m just happy that I got to enjoy this tea before the supply became extinct. I’m sad that others will not.

This is a strange looking brown, with some slightly silvery tip, oolong from Teenjure Cooperative in Nepal.

No real scent from the dried leaf other than generic floral. I followed the directions on Tealet’s site for the brewing and amount and the infused liquor smells divine. There is a scent of raisin and almost earl grey-ish. Honestly, if someone put this in front of me and asked me to guess, blind, what kind of tea it was I’d have put my foot in my mouth and said “earl grey”. But the taste is delicate, a subtle earl grey. It’s fantastic, and I dislike earl greys. With subsequent sips, there are hints of lemon zest and raisins too. The Tealet website states that there would be notes of daikon radish. I didn’t notice it right away but it is there. Raisin, lemony earl grey with a hint of radish! Awesome! If I could compare it to anything it would not be an oolong, but a floral darjeeling.

I might have to just get a whole bunch of this and see what I can create from it.

I drink an awful lot of tea. Starting to review teas online has made me realize that. Oh well …

I had some left overs of our ‘Not so vanilla’ tea and decided to brew it up. The smell of the loose tea is chocolatey vanilla. The taste is delicious, spicy, creamy, smooth, wonderful vanilla. I decided to brew this at a temperature lower than what we recommended to see what difference it would make to flavour, and it does not alter it too much.

I cannot wait for my Whispering pines order to be delivered, because if this is what I can create with my ham-fists then I’m sure their tea is going to blow me away.

I don’t taste the pumpkin spice. I taste the creaminess and I get a lot of cinnamon and cloves. It will make an awesome latte. The base tea is quite good, and you can taste that through the flavouring. Like almost every tea that I’ve drunk from Butiki tea I’m very impressed at her ability to flavour tea. It’s not easy to get the balance of flavours right, and is not quite what I was looking for, but it is damn close!

EDIT: Just tried it with some milk and the tea has cooled down a lot. I get much more pumpkin now! Tastes like liquid pumpkin pie, awesome! It was delicious without milk and with the addition of a little milk, and a tiny bit of sugar you have one wonderful tea guys!

I don’t know how I can write this review and sound objective at the same time because I adore this tea! So this an Imperial golden monkey that we sourced direct from China. The leaves are, as one reviewer put it, ‘tiger striped’. It’s a black tea with lots of very fuzzy orange tips. The dry leaves smell chocolatey and malty.

I infused approximately 5 grams of this tea in 240 ml of water for 4 minutes. The infused liquor is a deep amber brown colour with little to no turbidity. The smell from the liquor fills your nostrils with scents of sweet bread and chocolate. It’s chocolate tea!

First sip fills your mouth with a smooth and creamy liquid. The taste is a slight bitterness with a very dominant cocoa flavour. There is also a lot of maltiness. That dark chocolate flavour lingers on long after you have swallowed the tea.

I’m trying to be as brief as possible, without extolling the virtues of this tea too much. It’s really nice, probably one of the finest examples of this tea that I have tasted. Honestly though I’m biased as hell, since I do sell this particular tea. Hopefully when others receive their orders they can review it and either tell me that I’m full of it, love it as much as I do, or say ‘meh I’ve had better’.

Just got done from shovelling snow with my son and my sister, oh Canada sometimes I ask myself why I left my native Ireland and all that rain! My wife being the wonderful human being that she is had made a pot of North pole estate tea, as a latte. I think I prefer to drink this tea in this manner, the milk and small amount of sugar really highlight the spiciness, whilst the sugar mutes the astringency of the assam ever so slightly. The malty keemun adds a milk-chocolate element when combined with sugar. As my wife just said “it tastes like liquid cookie.” And I agree.

This is a high mountain Taiwanese oolong. High mountain teas are grown at altitude, usually above 1 000 m. This stresses the plants and as a result alters the taste of the tea produced from this plant. This tea is another from Goe Tea.

The uninfused leaves are dark, almost black, wirey. There is very little scent from the uninfused leaves.

The infused tea smells floral, and almost like tropical fruit.

Taste-wise this tea is splendid. I steeped 100 ml for 6 minutes and it tasted wonderful. Strong tropical fruit flavours dominate, with mango being the most distinguishing flavour. As it cools you do get a little bitterness, but I am attributing this to my ‘trial by fire’ brewing method for this kind of tea. I figure an infusion for 2 to 3 minutes with 250 ml of water would give a very smooth and tasty liquor.

I’m looking forward to trying further infusions of this tea. It’s a pretty complex brew. Very tasty.

Another sample from the wonderful folks at Tealet. This one is a dark green coloured classical looking oolong. There is a slight floral scent from the dried leaves, nice and subtle.

Creamy, very creamy and smooth tea, slightly floral. I don’t get any toffee. the flavours are oh so subtle. Not in your face like some oolongs that I have enjoyed in the past. There is a tiny amount of bitterness but it works in the tea’s favour as it cuts through the rich creamyness. Very silky mouth-feel.

For the second infusion I steeped the leaves with less water, 120 ml, and for longer duration of time, 5 minutes. Really silky mouth-feel. Almost a sea-weed, nori-like taste from the tea this time around. Still very little bitterness, yet more of a floral aspect for the second round with a hint of toffee.

You can tell when great care and love has went into the production of a tea and with the quality of this tea you know that the people at Goe tea give a damn. A fine oolong this is.

This tea is Doke rolling thunder from Dolly Lochan in Bihar, India. The tea is an amber colour, with no turbidity. The brewed liquor has a dominant scent of jasmine, with some floral/rose overtones. The first infusion was smooth, creamy, and tasted just as it smelled; jasmine. There was some subtle notes of pepto bismol, which was odd. The astringency was strong in this one, and the first infusion was also quite bitter even though I followed the instructions to a ‘t’. Luckily I don’t mind bitterness, and quite enjoy it occasionally, if it is meant to be a part of the profile.

Second infusion the bitterness mellowed out and the tea tasted much, much better. Jasmine was stronger, less pepto bismol, and a slight smokiness lingered. The astringency was still pretty strong.

Overall, a decent tea. Not something I would personally drink on a regular basis but I did enjoy it. A little bit of sugar brings more of the creaminess to the fore.

Packing up a few orders to ship out and sipping on some raspberry cocoa left over. I really like this tea. Delicious, almost like eating a chocolate covered raspberry; dark chocolate that is. It has gotten a little cold, but still tastes great. Makes me think that it will work really well as an iced tea. I’m two infusions in and the flavour has not let up. This is probably one of my favourite creations thus far.