Eggnog & Pralines

This will be interesting.

My migraine is mostly under control, so I’m going for green teas instead of more matcha, black tea, or coffee. I also had a really heavy dinner (roasted squash and yams, and ribs pasta), so something light yet really flavourful would be good.

Generally green teas aren’t a favourite of mine. However, this one is pretty darn good. It smells like toasted hazelnuts, nutmeg, cookies baking, and feels quite creamy.

Adding a little sugar and milk made it look REALLY awful in my new glass mug, but whatever. It tastes pretty good! I think the praline flavour is making it taste more like genmaicha to me, which is a green tea I generally like.

So, even though I probably wouldn’t rush out and buy more, I’m really glad I had a chance to try this one, and I’m going to savour the rest of the teensy bag. But maybe not in a clear mug. :)

Sad, sad, sipdown pouts

this is a slightly nuttier version of creamy eggnog, though it tastes much like i remember the other tasting. I’ll have to do a side by side comparison at some point just for fun.

Mostly, though…Dexter you’re awesome. that is all.

(edit: back up to 157, with a package still sitting in mail jail)

I don’t think this one is for me. It’s very well blended, but I’m personally not a huge fan of nutty teas or really grassy teas.

I was very skeptical about this one from the box, because I’m one of the few people who is not fond of eggnog. The actual drink makes me feel sick, and the flavour in things like lattes makes me think of drinking the real stuff and feeling sick.

Luckily, this blend is less nog and more nut, though it smelled more nog in the bag. I was hoping that the mellow and buttery green tea plus praline would make the eggnog more tolerable, and it did just that, so for me, this tea gets a higher rating than I would have initially thought, though others might rate it lower because it is light on the eggnog flavour.

I find that as a green, it has a medium body…not as light as some greens, but not super hearty and heavy either. I think the nuts and cream add a warmth to this that make it a cozy winter green tea.

I’m glad I tried this. Who knows, if it becomes permanent, I might get a bag of my own once my sample is up.

Oh how I have missed you Steepster. Went up to see my folks in New York for the holidays, the usual traumatic dramatic blow up and stress occurred, and I have never been so happy to return home to my friends and cats and tea and own relaxed way of doing things. I packed some Harney tea bags (Tower of London, I thought I liked you before but man, you REALLY came through for me up there despite the hard-as-rocks tap water…you have my eternal gratitude and appreciation) but it was a bit of a bummer having all these wonderful holiday-themed teas to try 1,000 miles away from me on Christmas eve and day. Ah well! Got another glorious week with the husband and friends; I predict a lot of catch up tea time. The night we arrived back there was a package waiting for us from a beautiful friend in Ohio full of homemade jams and salsas, and we stopped into Trader Joe’s on the way out of Chapel Hill a couple weeks ago, making these afternoons all the sweeter.

Stayed up ‘til after 3am (last night was fun, got to put on a nice dress and shoes and jewelry, roast chestnuts and mix up fancy drinks for a friend and myself, go out to dinner—got Chinese pork and cabbage stew leftovers today yum!—talk about lyric writing and bad music videos from the ’80s, and make plans for a pots de creme party next weekend…friends are the best), slept in and cuddled with the cats all morning. Now R’s over at a friend’s brushing up on code and music making, so I have a much-needed opportunity to decompress alone. Listening to my favorite albums of the year (Grouper’s on right now! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnejbIBLGTg ), puttering away at mini projects around the apartment, reading said dear friend’s awesome wry emotionally sharp fan fiction (here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1103265 ), making tea.

Man do I love the cream aroma of Butiki teas. This was unsurprisingly delicious (and very welcome as our uber favorite local glass bottle eggnog from Rock Springs dairy is AWOL for some reason this year). I love that you can really taste the praline too, not just the eggnog. I’m quite certain I prefer this to the much beloved Creamy Eggnog. I hope there’ll somehow be an affordable chance to restock these Amoda blends eventually. So good. Bonus, it resteeps well!

Lost my tasting note on this, oops. Anyhow, I enjoyed this quite a bit. Loved the pralines flavour, and I think the tea would have been even better if I hadn’t been so stupid as to dunk the infuser basket into a resteep of Two Friends for a couple seconds before realizing my error (my intent was to put the basket of Two Friends in for a bit longer, but the water was still cooling for this tea, hence the basket was still sitting out, and for some reason, I grabbed the wrong basket…). Anyhow, that resteep sure tasted delicious, and I expect that when I give this a second try, it will be even better. Would love to see this one offered for sale (and the elusive Nutmeg Cream, which I have not tried!)

Also, thank you to Sil etc. for passing this along :) My original tasting note led off with this, but I clearly forgot to retype it.

Unique tea! Really glad I grabbed the Amoda box for a few months to try this one out. Huge thanks to whomever gave me the heads up! Blanking out on who it was…

This smells very much like pralines, or at the very least, nuts. I can almost taste the nuts as I inhale, if that makes any sense at all. I’m fascinated and shocked by this blend – while it’s far from my favorite Butiki blend, it is superb, and Stacy has done an excellent job of blending two unique flavors into a green tea, well. I’ll likely be one of the folks who pass on this if it’s offered in the future, only because the flavors are a bit far from my favorite flavor profiles.

Sipdown!! (207)

Thank you so much Josie Jade!! I am actually LOVING our swap. The portions are the perfect size to taste everything and for the most part the teas have been awesome. This is no exception. It definitely captures “praline” beautifully and has an amazing vanilla creaminess to it thanks to the eggnog. I would definitely buy more of this and Nutmeg Cream in a second because they are sooo good. However, I will say that this was best hot as it has lost just a touch a flavor as it cooled.

naturally very light and sweet. visually striking and festive with the bits of red dotting the tea…. i get a smell of something sweet, but not eggnog or praline. i also get a distinct nori component…. also a touch of bamboo?

very distinct.
very original.
very decadent.
not quite my thing though.

while i would never turn down a cup my beloved butiki lychee politely drop kicks it =0)

thanks so much to MissB for sharing!