Almond Indulgence (Formerly Almond Cookie)

Thanks jessiwrites for this tea :)

Yet another great tea from Butiki. I can see why it isn’t called Almond Cookie, as it tastes nothing like a cookie. The almond and cinnamon are most pronounced. Perhaps even the cinnamon more so than the almond. Overall a lovely tea.

I am really liking this! Dominant flavor I pick up on besides the tea is almond. It reminds me of these almond crescent cookies I used to make along time ago when I could eat dozens of home made cookies at a time and not gain weight. I no longer make those cookies, because I can never control myself with good cookies right out of the oven. I lightly sweetened as recommended and brewed it for 4 minutes-didn’t pick up any astringency. A most delicious tea and highly recommended.

The last of my great samples Stacy packed for me, thanks! This smelled really good and comforting this afternoon. I can’t really go into detail about it except to say it was good and what I needed—I had just put the cup together when I got some very bad news about an old friend who’d moved away (he was only my age, 31, and passed away this week), and in my shock and sadness it was soothing. Still not really processing the news though when my husband came home (he knew him too) we had afternoon tea and sandwiches and talked about him and it helped. I have this hang up about people not being forgotten when they pass away, especially people who had a hard life but always made the best of it and tried to stay positive and were kind to everybody, which he always was. It meant a lot to me to be able to talk about what a good person he was with someone else who knew him.

1 tbsp (a little scant) in 16 oz

Really glad I picked up some of this. I’m not usually one for flavored tea, but based on reviews and the flavors I like, I decided to try this and Butiki’s Maple Pecan Oolong.

The flavoring in this is sooooo pleasant! Subtle but very present. For me, it needed a tsp of sugar (for the 16oz) to complement the flavoring but not because the tea was bitter or astringent at all.

I will have this when I want a comforting cup that’s not too fancy. :)

I believe that the tea that I am drinking at the moment (courtesy of TeaEqualsBliss, thank you!) is the Almond Cookie rendition, rather than the Almond Indulgence.

Quite yummy! Sweet and nutty, tastes quite a bit like an almond cookie. Although it’s been quite a while since I’ve had it, this one reminds me of Almond Cookie from SpecialTeas. It has been quite a while though, so I can’t properly compare them, all I can say is that I taste almond and cinnamon and that sweet cookie like taste. It’s yummy!

Thanks again to my SororiTea Sister!

this is a bittersweet tea for me. i say in my profile that tea is a many splendoured, multi layered thing. tea is where tangible ingredients and steeping instructions connect with intangibles: memory, inspiration, imagination.

many teas that i love have elements of vanilla and almond, there’s a reason for that. thank you stacy for this gateway to memory. i will greedily journey back with every cup.

Butiki Sample sipdown! Normally I’d try to sort of prolong having my samples – but right now I feel rushed to chug back (but not really – I want to enjoy the cup) as many of my new teas as possible so I can determine what I want to order larger quantities of in my Black Friday orders (I’m limiting myself to a Della Terra and a Butiki order, even though I’d love to be placing orders with other companies too).

Earlier today I had Grape Oolong, and while it was good it was a miss in terms of “OH MY GOD I NEED TO HAVE YOU STOCKED ALWAYS”. This is one that I picked a sample of in my last order, mostly because I have a fair amount of teas with almonds in them (I love almonds) so I wanted to more so focus on trying teas that I didn’t have similar(ish) counterparts to.

Dry, I couldn’t really smell anything. If I stuck my nose straight in the bag and took a big whiff (I may have inhaled some tea – not gonna lie) I SORTA got cinnamon and very faint almond, but that’s kinda a stretch to say.

For preparation, I stuck to the info. on my prepackaged sample: pre measured sample size in 8 oz. of boiling water for 4 min. (admittedly I think this was closer to five, though). In the aroma, I’m getting notes of black tea (yum), a light cinnamon sort of like powdered cinnamon sugar, and almonds.

I know I’m going to fail at explaining this – but I always loved almonds growing up (especially in baking) because strongly concentrated almonds didn’t taste the same as regular almonds to me. When my mom baked around Christmas time she’s make almond cookies with almond extract and I used to sit at the table where she was mixing things, with the bottle clutched in my grubby little hands sniffing at it. I used to say the smell reminded me of sweet candied cherries (like marachinos) but I know now that’s not what the smell was. Still, it’s very distinct to me and separate from an almond you’d eat straight (those are still good too). I’ve been skimming other people’s reviews to see if someone else has figured out the words for the flavour I want to describe, but no luck.

Anyway, that’s what I’m hoping this will taste like: Mom’s almond cookies with that indescribable almond extract sweetness.

First few sips… It’s good, but I’m not really totally blown away. Maybe that’s because there’s a little bit of astringency here that I really wasn’t expecting at all: but that’s probably my fault for nearly letting this steep way longer than the 4 recommended minutes (I have that problem of setting things up to steep and then getting distracted and losing sight of the clock). My tongue feels kind of peppered with cinnamon and there is a cookieness to this tea.

If I let the liquor sit in my mouth for a while I start to really pick up on the almond sweetness and I ALMOST get the flavour I’m looking for – but sadly this is a bit more “actual almond” nutty and less “almond extract” sweet. Again, apologies for the wording but I really am having issues figuring out how to say what I’m thinking of/looking for.

I think I probably can get away with not adding this into my Black Friday order without being heartbroken. Really, this isn’t a bad tea by a long shot – it’s just not something I’m in love with. I think that’s probably because I was expecting different and had built up my expectation to a point where anything else would be next to impossible to live up to it. Because of that, I am grateful I just got this as a sample and didn’t go for 1 oz. size…

Anyway, because of all that I’m not gonna rate this because I feel like it wouldn’t be fair to the tea or to Stacy.

Stacy was so smart to send free samples to everyone….the reviews on this one got me, and made me order. Her service on a regular order is very quick, in case you are curious! I love places that make it easy to order small amounts of tea as I have a cupboard full of it…..until one of those teas makes it necessary to order a whole bunch!

I really enjoyed this one. Light on the vanilla and lemon notes wich makes the cookie, and the almond is light, but maybe slightly more intense than the cookie part. I am so glad I ordered.

Another great tea that JustJames sent me during our swap.

I’ve been drinking this off and on over the last few day, but held off on doing a review because I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about it. This isn’t my favorite Butiki tea, but I don’t dislike it exactly. I just don’t have any strong feelings for it either way, and that is odd for me.

I thought particular blend went slightly past subtle and straight into weak and it was a little weak for my tastes. It has very lightly done cinnamon and vanilla flavors which lets the almond poke through just a little. What I love is how well done the almond flavoring is, a lot of them come across as completely artificial and taste like pure almond extract, but not this one.

I did try adding brown sugar to one of my cups and it really added to the flavor, turning this into a nice dessert tea. However, something in this blend is really messing with my taste buds, at room temp the tea comes across slightly fruity, and I can’t tell why. Perhaps it is the almond flavoring, but it’s really bugging me.

This is another of my free samples from Butiki! Almond is one of my favorite flavors, so I of course had to try this one. I accidentally steeped it for a touch longer than the steeping time on the package, but it didn’t seem to hurt the tea. The color is a nice medium orangey-red. The first smell that hits me is sugar cookies, followed by cinnamon, the earthy aromas of the black tea base, and a bright hint of citrus. Taken all together, the smell once again really reminds me of the candy-encrusted roasted almonds you find at fairs (same as the almond cookie from Joy’s Teaspoon). I get very similar notes from the taste; this one does a pretty good job of actually tasting like those sugar-cinnamon coated almonds too. However, I’m more getting a feeling of almond than an actual taste; I’m sure the almond pieces and flavoring is contributing to the overall experience, but this tea just doesn’t have what I consider to be strong, pure almond notes. I get a slight bitterness from the tea, but it actually works well because it melds just right with the flavor. I think I lose some of the bakery-cookie notes in the taste, but that’s ok with me. I must have a somewhat different idea of what an almond cookie tastes like, because to an almond cookie basically just tastes like almond—no cinnamon, or spices, just plain, delicious almond. In any case in the “almond cookie” genre of teas, this one is quite good, if a bit less almondy than I’d like.