Strawberry Oolong

Mmm, first infusion smells light, fruity and delicious, and… are you kidding me. I just spilt it on my bed. :( I guess I got a bit overzealous in swirling it around. Luckily only spilled 1/4 of it.

The flavour is a light oolong with overtones of fruitiness. The fruit flavour here does strongly remind me of that in DavidsTea’s Blazing Strawberries, yet strangely also makes me think cherry blossom, like in Den’s Sakura Sencha. It’s pretty tasty though, and plenty strong enough.

The second infusion (4:30, 180F) is similar; definitely more oolong flavour and less fruitiness. Could probably get another few infusions, so might give that a shot tomorrow evening.

My one kind-of complaint is that the flavour is not so much of strawberry to me, and much more of cherry blossom. So more of a cherry blossom oolong. Don’t get me wrong – it’s delicious, but not quite what I was expecting, especially after the grape oolong.

ETA: Oh look! I finally remembered to mark a Tasting Note milestone!!! I’ve hit 400, woo! Missed every other landmark prior though, whoops. (And technically this tea shouldn’t even be #400, since I have two iced teas to log that I drank earlier, but oh well!)

ETA again: Third infusion (180F/4:30) is light and pretty tasty, with a floral-y, oolong aftertaste. Fourth infusion (180F/6ish min) is pretty similar. Basically tastes like a floral oolong now. Surprising amount of flavour left. I might try one more infusion, but I’ve had nearly enough of this one for the time being. Fifth infusion (180F/7min) tasted metallic and off; I threw it out as the leaves had probably sat too long, but I suspect it would have still been good.

Tea and a Movie
The downtime with Steepster today drove me to my Netflix and a Romance movie. A Foreign Romance movie with “Subtitles”. Ah…you do have to pay attention and read!
I’ve been reviewing such bold tea lately (Pu-erh’s especially) and wanted to turn a corner abruptly and review a tea to match my movie mood. I decided on a tea that I will discribe as romantic and sensual (Stacy at Butiki should like that discription Ha!).

The beauty of the green Oolong nuggets and the scent of the leaves when wet is so lovely. It is the flavor however, that is the crowne jewel. The Strawberry flavor does not hide the character of pure Organic Oolong tea. It enhances the natural flavor if anything, and layers naturally with it. The taste is soft and creamy, coating your tongue and when it cools a bit there is no horrid bitterness. I sweetened my tea, I like it that way. When you grow older and watch old romance movies (or the newer ones) your own memories of life and love are refreshed and come alive again. In your own mind you are young forever like the old woman in Titanic.
It’s fun to pick tea for an occasion. Pu-erh is for a mystery movie. Assam is nice for an old English Drama. You can find so many tea’s to match movies…so what are your favorites? The Pu-erh I had the other day…hum…something a little wild…or trippy…

What do you suggest as a tea movie pairing?

Stacy you did it again! A high quality finely blended tea that invokes the flavor of real fresh strawberries but the sweet ones, not the under ripe tart ones lol. This has NO artificial flavoring in the taste and the oolong still is allowed to come through. Thank you Stacy!

Sipdown!

Ok I only had enough for 2 cups but let me have it. I also got royally distracted from this cup but it is good cold!

This probably was well towards the end of its lifespan because the strawberry is very hard to pick up on now, but the oolong is still nice…just a hint of berry behind it.

I brought this tea with me to the rehearsal dinner – and man, I needed it.

Finding out wedding disasters (the fruit platter just vanished) and opinionated people nagging about non traditional wedding things happening plus self centered types driving me crazy. It’s impossible to have food to please everyone and their fad diets. I almost feel like I wanna do a wedding speech similar to Sookie Stackhouse (from True Blood TV series)’s speech at the funeral.

I steeped this one a couple times in a travel mug (Libre) and Strawberry Oolong held up and tasted amazing both times. Third time it got oolongy / weak – but I was also using a regular kettle and leaving the leaves in my glass. This tea kept me nice and calm too. The pink buds looked adorable in my tea glass and got lots of compliments on the appearance and smell of this tea.

This new Steepster setup has me feeling all disoriented. lol

As I said before, I don’t have any new teas to review, but sometimes its good to check in, say hello (I still exist!) and to confirm my like of a particular tea. And, yep, I still like this one. :)

I heard that Stacy will be gone for a couple weeks, so I had to get a Butiki order in this weekend. I have two new teas on the way so I’ll have something new to review. yay.

I really am quite set in my preferences now, and this is good for my budget. I’m hoping to spend half as much as I did last year on tea. I’m keeping track in the thread for tea spending here.

My new fun for this year is hanging out at Webkinztown.com because I love Webkinz! (yes Im a grown up, no I don’t have kids, don’t look at me like that! :p)

LOVE this!!!!

This has the lil pearls I have seen in some Cherry Blossom Green Teas and I think they are lovely! The aroma is excellent! The Oolong Leaves are screaming multiple infusions! I will put that to the test! For the first infusion this is a highly flavored oolong. The strawberry tastes are wonderful! They are sweet without ANY trace of sour or bitterness. Very sweet and very nice! This is awesome hot or cold!

I’m totally diggin’ Butiki Teas Flavored Oolongs! So far every tea/tisane I have had of theirs is wonderful! I really like this company!!!

Ah…refreshing!

I’ve been saving this sample from Butiki (thanks Stacy!) for the perfect day.

Today was the opposite of a perfect tea day. Not in a bad way! Just not ideal haha – I’ve been taking tea to work every day but it’s been a huge travel mug of various black teas. Every day for the past 2 weeks! This morning I had 4 minutes to make tea, and I know I didn’t have time to boil the water all the way to 212 AND wait for it to steep! I searched in my dwindling sample drawer and pulled this one out.

The reason it wasn’t ideal was that I wanted to sit and savour this tea, not throw it in a teasac and run! But throw it in a teasac and run I did! The water was around 170, because the bus ride is a half hour long and I didn’t want to torture the poor tea!

Well now I’m at work and the liquor is a pale gold. The smell is sweet strawberry and buttery green oolong – no mistaking it for anything else imo. The taste echoes that. Wow this is glorious – smooth and savoury, no additions needed. The quality of the oolong is so apparent with every sip – there is not even a hint of bitterness. The strawberry flavour is also expertly blended – it doesn’t overwhelm, instead the flavours mingle together like a perfect match. Instead of chocolate dipped strawberries, it’s strawberry dipped oolong.

I could drink this forever, and in fact – I will be making a Butiki order asap so I can drink it forever – as well as other flavoured oolongs and that watermelon dragonwell, hello!

This is a pretty great buttery oolong! I like how smooth this is! Unfortunately I’m not getting a lot of strawberry flavor in this. (I haven’t added any sweetener in it yet.) The strawberry peaks through every now and then if I’m really searching for it, but it’s not a consistent reminder that it’s a strawberry-flavored oolong.

Luckily I do have enough of this to try cold steeping some fresh leaves, so I’ll try that at another time.

For now I’ll try re-steeping the leaves I used for this mug in the fridge for a day and see if that does anything different.

Thank you to Butiki and Sil for passing along samples of this tea!

Made this one using a 3 minute steep time, instead of my usual 2 minutes. I wanted to see if it brought out more flavour.

This time I found it tasted like a nice, floral oolong. I didn’t really can any strawberry flavour this time but there was a gentle sweetness to it.

Even though there was no strawberry flavour it was still a nice tasting oolong. I used 1 tsp, but may try more leaf next time.