464 Tasting Notes
I think I need to use more leaf next time and be a little more careful about steep time. (A variable temperature kettle will defintitely be put on my Christmas list this year) The flavor of both the tea and plum was very light. I was kind of expecting more spice too.
What I did get from the plum was nice a natural- a little bit tart, but nothing a little brown sugar couldn’t fix! Reserving judgement on this tea until I try different steep parameters.
A variable kettle makes it so much easier to brew correct temp tea! I was always incorrectly brewing my tea before I got mine!
i loved the idea of this tea, but i could not make it work. hot, cold, in between…. nope!
Well I’m hoping I’ll find the. Magic steep parameters on this. I’ve had a couple of really good plum teas lately, so I was looking forward to trying Butiki’s take on plum tea.
Sample #4
Powder Color: Bright green
Powder Smell: Seaweed
Powder Texture: Fine, slightly clumpy
Liquor Color: Olive green, froths up well
Tasting Notes: Few to no clumps. Darkly vegetal & not overly bitter, but has a sight metallic taste. After milk & honey added, it’s exceptionally smooth & creamy.
Sample#5
Powder Color: Light olive
Powder Smell: Vegetal
Powder Texture: Fine, not too clumpy
Liquor Color: dark green
Tasting Notes: Not so frothy, but mixed well. Tastes of bitter dark greens- Bitter even after milk & honey added, but metallic taste is gone. Slight chalkiness, but unpleasant.
Sample #6:
Powder color: Similar to 4, light olive
Powder texture: Very fine, not clumpy
Powder smell: light seaweed
Liquor color: Dark camo green, mixes well
Tasting Notes: Dark bitter greens, but surprisngly very little metallic bite. Chalky to the taste. With milk added- pleasantly vegetal- like pea soup! No chalk after adding more milk & honey, however I can see the Matcha starting to separate.
Sample #7:
Powder Color: Bright electric green
Powder texture: Super fine, slightly clumpy
Powder smell: Hay w/a little seaweed
Liquor color: Dark Green, but not olive. Took longer to mix in.
Tasting Notes: Bright, fresh, spring greens with just a touch of bitterness. Coppery Bright aftertaste w/a bit Of sweetness. Lovely fresh quality to it once milk & honey added. Slight chalkiness is the only distractor.
Sample #8
Powder Color: Similiar to #7, even brighter
Powder Texture: Similar to #7
Powder smell: hay & spring greens
Liquor color: A lovely emerald, a very fine froth- the teensiest bubbles! Very pretty matcha & I admit I’m having fun whisking this one.
Tasting Notes: Powerfully bitter on the first taste, But not metallic. After milk & honey, a pleasant Collared greens taste. Not as chalky as I would have thought- it stays mixed in. Might need to play around with the proportions when preparing this one. This one has some potential!
you’ve been very busy!
Yeah and I’m now falling asleep from all the caffeine!
lol, it does that to me at night too…. or have you had a crash? (in which case there’s a great excuse for puerh) =0D
Too much caffeine at once always makes me sleepy!
most people just don’t sleep…. i’m a serial contrarian so that rule doesn’t apply to me, lol!
When you have it all ready please use this link to fill out the form:
https://www.redleaftea.com/index.php?dispatch=pages.view&page_id=43
I brewed up a bunch of iced teas for a friend’s birthday bbq today. This ice tea was just ok. The base was nice, bright, and even malty, bit I didn’t love the flavors. I did taste chocolate and strawberry, but the chocolate was not the kind I like and the strawberry was a little week.
Steep 1: Roasted squash and cloves, sweet and slightly buttery.
Steep 2: Less like squash, a little more like bread. Less buttery, but a really bright honey note comes into play.
Steep 3: Sweet, dark bread and honey. Stewed Walnuts. Sweet aftertaste that reminds me a little of celery.
Steep 4: Sweet, light greens- celery and still some cloves. Slightly, slightly vreamy, not buttery.
Overall Impression: I’m glad I fiinally got a chance to try this tea that everyone has been talking abut! It reminds me a little of Verdant’s Laoshan Roasted Oolong on the first steep, but quickly it becomes its own tea. This one is more bready, not as potato-ey and there are more vegetal qualities to this one. The process of drinking this reminds me of eating all the chunks out of a vegetable stew and then having the broth remain.
so excited to get mine in…. see how it difers from what i remember!
I had to try mine right away. It pretty much lives up to last year’s batch in my opinion. I was a bit skeptical at first smell but then the hot water hit the leaves and…ah, yes. There it was!
oh lord I’m happy to read this Nicole, I ordered 4 oz and await now the delivery and was hopping it was as sweet as last year as Stacy warned me it would be slightly different
Since this is my first year having it, I can’t compare. I liked the taste, but I’m not getting waffles like everyone keeps talking about. I enjoyed it though.
I didn’t get waffles neither but hot bread only ;) but like you I really enjoyed it
From the very first inhalation of the dryleaf this tea enchanted me. If fairies wanted to capture me and whisk me away they would brew up this tea, I would taste it, and they could capture me without fuss. It’s that magical!
It starts out with the taste of warm, fresh vanilla cake straight out of the oven, but with notes of something richer and more wild than white flour- This cake captures the souls of wild dandelions and tea and and fuses them with vanilla- The kind of creamy vanilla that a person can only dream about. The kind of vanilla that so soft that it can only be infused with milky moonlight.
After this I taste the spices that could only taste the way they do if they were combined with fairy dust. Cinnamon, ginger, and citrus and dance their way across my tongue, weaving spells that work to warm and sweeten.
And the spell lingers…
It’s been over a half hour since I finished my cup and the scent haunts me like a melody calling me from fairyland. I still feel it’s warmth on my like it breathed all its warmness and delight into me.
I am glad someone reviewed this tea. I have been looking at it on the website since it came out.
I want to try this one so bad. :) Thank you for the lovely review!
Ahh I wanted to try this tea as soon as I saw it on the site and this review might push me over the edge, it sounds amazing!!
I woke up this morning asking myself if I dreamed this tea up!
Yay! I have a sample of this, waiting to be tried. :)
I just re-steeped the leaves 3 times this morning. I can’t seem to move on to another tea just yet.
What an amazing review!!! Thank you so much- this absolutely made our morning. We are definitely making this our Sunday morning sample for the teahouse XD
Such a fantastic review!
Lily- You make me wish I lived near the tea house! And I just have to say I love that you included dandelions in this. I love dandelion greens! My grandmother used to make them for us when we were younger and they have such a warmth! She used to make them because they reminded her of her youth in Greece. She was stuck on a Greek island during WWII. They didn’t always have food, but she and her sister would forage for dandelions and mushrooms. Didn’t expect to taste the dandelions so much in this tea with everything else going on, but I did and it played so well with everything else!
Nicole- Thanks! I was coming off of a runner’s high when I wrote this. Lol!
Such a beautiful review! There is no doubt I will have to try this sometime!
Sip down of my sample from Laurent an Sophie!
I like this even better with a really, really short steep. I steeped it less than a minute. It pairs really well with these caramel sea salt coconut macaroons I’m eating because it’s nice and plain in contrast to the sweet.
I had just enough of this at work for one cup. It’s a good thing my Butiki order came in the mail yesterday and I have another package waiting for me at home. This is springtime in a cup. I love this!
