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I was in the mood for a Kenyan tea this morning, but didn’t want to deal with astringency….dang this is one smooth mouthful of flavor for a CTC. Again, although the packaging says to steep for 4-5 minutes, DON’T!! A 1 minutes steep seems impossible for a kenyan tea, but since this is a CTC, 1 minute is perfect. Malty, bready goodness in my cup with milk and sugar. NOM!!

Another Butiki sample, so out comes the pyrex beaker for accurate measurements! I’m so haphazard with my tea prep sometimes that this is truly the only way for me to guarantee to TASTE the tea samples the way they are meant to be tasted. I have kind of a “buckshot” approach to life, so this is a great exercise in restraint for me! So I went forth and accurately steeped.

Ooooh, this is really nice. At first sniff, I got primarily a sweet tobacco scent…. I was concerned about the tobacco note, as don’t care for it in perfume (BPAL uses lots of strange notes in their fragrances, so I’ve learned what to avoid for me perfume-wise), but apparently the combination of the breadiness and the wee bit of chocolate and astringency with the tobacco works for me, because on first sip, that complex wonder of Butiki teas rose up to meet me and it was gooooooood. I couldn’t quite get to the citrus note, but maybe it becomes more apparent when doing comparisons with the regular PTA. Either way, this tea was great way to start the day!

This is my flat-out “Dudley Do-Right” never fail me tea. It is familiar to my tongue, as I was raised on “80 bags a box” tea….but this tea is what THAT tea SHOULD have been. It is earthy, malty, whole-mouth goodness. When it’s a chilly, rainy morning, and I’ve got scones baking in the oven, I know which tea I will reach for to make a simple great cup of tea to have with breakfast. I’m still sampling all sorts of assams and other black teas that take milk and sugar well, but for now, this is my standard cup. Well played, Harney. You’re in the lead so far!

ok, this will be one of the weirder reviews on steepster. Yesterday i posted to see how I should steep this tea using a teaspoon, a finum and a timer (I don’t know how to use anything but a teapot at this point in my tea education). I didn’t want to ruin this “legendary” tea for myself with a stupid steep (which i do lots of)….. so this morning I took the plunge and steeped 3 tsp in 16 oz of water for 3 minutes….I couldn’t wait to smell this wet (as dry is was a lovely deep chocolate smelling tea)… so I steep it and what do I smell?

HASHISH OR POT!!??!! I dunno which one of those things it was that I smell at concerts. Seriously. I was transported straight back to the California Music Festival with REO Speedwagon, Aerosmith and Ted Nugent headlining…. I tried again. BAM! Same thing!!! Hash or Pot!!! Did anyone else get the same note off of this? Now that I’m drinking it, (with milk and sugar of course) I’m getting some of the other notes… wood, barley, bread, rolling papers (seriously, I’m getting a bit of paper-ish thing….maybe that’s the wood note). This is a tea with a ton of depth, even on first steeping by a rookie. I can see why many have made a fuss over this…. firstly, you get a flashback for free (if you went to concerts in the 70s and 80s…hahaha), secondly, this is a wonderfully complex tea that I can detect NO astringency from whatsoever. Because I take milk and sugar in all my tea, I can taste “through” them to the subtleties that each tea brings. I would not hesitate to recommend this tea to an avid tea drinker….or a pothead. Fabulous.

I’ve had exactly one keemun. And it tasted like the earth under a dark forest….super….well, earthy. Like the dirt you accidentally get in your mouth when eating a just-picked tomato. So that’s what I was expecting from this keemun. I was flat-out corrected by this tea.

Congou keemun seems wonderfully complex to me. My mom is a wine drinker, and although I don’t drink alcohol (never have), I do taste what she’s drinking as I’m always eternally curious as to how a thing called “wine” can taste like so many different things….especially all at once! This keemun immediately made me think of wine. And that is good.

I had one sample from Butiki (oh oh), but I’ve finally figured out how to work the “sample size”….haphazardness does NOT work! So with the accuracy of an alchemist, I get out my pyrex beaker, pour 8 oz of water into it, and steep there. When I sniffed the beaker, I thought “where’s the dirt??” I checked the package…yep, keemun. Hmmmmm! There was some earthiness, but not MIDDLE earth earthiness. First taste brought a light earthiness with a strange sweet mushroomy kind of taste….then came flowers. Not bright summer flowers, but subtle flowers…a bit rose-ish, but subtle like a violet would be. Interesting. I hate herbal teas because they remind me of drinking vase water…. but the layering of the flavors in this tea were so mutually complimentary that it was impossible to focus on one note by itself for too long. Which is good, because really, who wants to say their tea smells and tastes like mushrooms and earth and grandma’s flowers?? :) Well, apparently I do, because this tea was wonderful. No astringency, no “hit you in the face” earthiness…. just balanced notes that lead to a wonderful simply complex cup of tea. Try this…. it’s a wonderful journey.

This is the same Royal Kenya tea that Butiki sells…. I purchased it from Gather! via Amazon, because Butiki was out of it and it is just a NICE lovely cup of smooth Kenyan tea to have around the house. When I got the package from Gather!, something wasn’t right….did I order the wrong tea? The Gather! packaging told me to steep this tea for 4-5 minutes….now I KNOW that’s not right for a ctc, so I checked Butiki’s website….yep, if I’da done what Gather! told me to, I’d be drinking tea/tar! Instead, steeped at 1 minute, I’m drinking a smooth, malty, tasty cup of brown joy. Stacy and Butiki, you have trained me well!

Being that I “fubar”-ed the steeping of this tea twice before, I finally put my thinking cap on when steeping today… .8 finum, 3 min 30 seconds, 2 rounded teaspoons of leaves…. it’s wonderful. Bottom notes of walnuts, malt and raisins…top note of baking bread…and best of all, not much astringency to upset my tummy. This will be a standard in my cup. Lovely.

D&B states that this tea will stand up to most Frisian blends, so let’s see! In the cup there is definitely a malty aroma a bit of chocolate, but mostly the notes that accompany a decent breakfast blend. There is assam here as well as Sumatra…there is some astringency that is doing battle with my milk and sugar. But the tea is winning. It is a dark copper cup of morning strength. If you like strong morning blends, you will like this tea.

I’m bottoming out on my Butiki tea stash, and had just enough of the Black Lotus to brew some up in my .8 finum tea control pot, which by the way, I LOVE. I am currently struggling with this tea because of the Darjeeling…. but I know it’s me and not the blend. By looking at the fabulous review of this blend, there are many folks out there that love the notes that the Darjeeling brings. I inspire to be one of them in the near future,… but my limited tea palate struggles with anything but assams, some ceylons and a few keemuns. It’s the “green” in this tea that gets me every time. I can certainly taste the almond maltiness, a bit of earthiness, and some citrus notes, but because I struggle with the “brightness” of the Darjeeling, that’s what comes to the top of the “sip” for me. If I wasn’t such a caveman with my tea taste, I believe this would be in a top rotation for me. I’ve already come to realize that Butiki has ruined my palate for everyday teas ( “80 bags in a box” teas), so I know it’s just a matter of time before Stacey’s blends win me over to darjeelings. There is such a refined taste to this tea that I can’t wait!