When Butiki announced what was in the two mystery teas, I read it. That was probably almost two years ago now and I can’t remember squat, so I decided to try it again without looking it up to see how I did. I remember the first time being appalling, and I think only getting one flavour plus the base right for each tea.
The dry leaf smells of raspberry. It’s clearly Crimson Horizon for the base, pretty hard to muck that up since it has a very distinctive look. Brewing, it smells like malty black tea and raspberry. I took it out after the recommended 1 minute, but the CTC base is just too much for me without milk. I love it as a breakfast tea, but I’m English; if you’re a malty black tea I’m gonna feel the need to add milk to you. It’s just the way I was brought up. For this tea I’m torn, though, because when I tried it plain the strongest flavour past the tea was the raspberry, which isn’t a flavour I generally like with milk. I added a little sugar, which brought out the raspberry but my taste buds are proving to be just as poor as last time and I can’t tell what else is in there. It’s pretty obviously not just raspberry – if it even is raspberry – but that’s the only note I can pick out pretty distinctly. I’m not totally sure but I’m feeling pretty confident on the raspberry front. I’ve said ‘raspberry’ too many times now and it’s starting to sound weird. Conflicted Natalie decided that she just couldn’t take the astringency from the Crimson Horizon, and maybe it would bring out some of the other flavours, so added milk. It still tastes like raspberry. Eventually, as the cup starts to cool I can pick up on something else. It’s reminding me of raspberry ice cream cake now, or a waffle with ice cream and raspberry sauce (which as a kid I called “monkeys’ blood” and never found that worrying). I know that Butiki had a waffle flavour in some of their teas, so I’m going to guess at Crimson Horizon base, with raspberry, waffle and vanilla flavours. It works pretty well together and tastes like dessert, but I do have an issue in general with raspberry (or really anything that I wouldn’t eat with cream) being paired with a base that I instinctively want to add milk to. Maybe next time I’ll try with a lower temperature to see if that helps with the astringency so that I can drink it plain.
Edit: apparently the ice-creaminess was from marshmallow flavouring, not vanilla or waffle, and I missed pistachio completely. I drank this straight after a tea which had a really prominent pistachio note though, and I got the raspberry, so I’m okay with it! I basically did exactly the same as last time haha.
