Dragon Feelers

Okay. I’m nuts about this tea. Cough medicine never hits my stomach well, so I just wanted a nice, buttery sweet tea this morning. Didn’t take me long to pull out my bag of Dragon Feelers! Doh, I should of ordered more on my last Butiki order, I’m running a little low.

And since I’m still sick, I’m in a wacky mood. I did a blog review for this tea, and had some fun on photoshop. http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/dragon-feelers-by-butiki-teas-tea-review/
would you drink little steeped dragons (if they weren’t hurt in the process)?

I’m deliberately not reading the tasting notes on this one so I can draw my own conclusions! This tea is definitely gorgeous, and reminds me of small, newly formed pods on sweet pea plants in the summer.

First off, I was surprised that the brewing recommendations here called for boiling water. Green tea? Boiling water? Crazy! However, I followed the recommendations, and did so. The leaves had no real aroma to speak or, nor does the brewed cup. In fact…. the tea also has very little flavour as well. All I can taste is a very faint honey-sweetness, with a bit of a boiled veggie flavour. Maybe a bit of almost a mintiness? All very, very mild though. I thought that if anything, I had kind of overleafed the cup, but I very much doubt so now. The most noticeable thing about this tea is its mouthfeel: quite full and silky-smooth, contrasting with the other teas I have on the go this evening.

Clearly I should give some other brewing parameters a try, because as it stands, this tea is really not one I’d go for again. There’s just so little flavour! Hopefully I can manage to coax a bit more out of it next time.

First of all, I have to tell you…when I first saw the picture of this tea on the Butiki website I said “Ewww! this tea looks like fuzzy bugs!” (It had nothing to do with your lovely picture, Stacy! Your photos are always gorgeous on the website:) and then promptly added it to my list to order.
Why?
Because I am weird.
I think if it looked quirky then I was sure to love it.
Guess what?
I was right!
This tea is just so delicious.
It has this delicate buttery smell, then it tastes like the first fresh sweet peas of the season steamed with butter.
There are also notes of sun-warmed wheat (I know this smell well, my house is literally right next to a wheat field:)
This tea hits the ball right out of the park!
A very fine tea, indeed.
Brewed in my Bodum, this tea has a stunning champagne color.

Sipdown, 161.

Ugh, ate too much at lunch today and now I am stuffed. I wanted something light, so I decided a green or a white tea, and this only had a serving left so I decided to go ahead and sipdown.

This does remind me a bit of a white tea… I think it’s all the fuzz and the hay-ish, alfalfa-y flavor that accompanies the vegetal notes. Quite tasty, though it does give me a bit of tickle in the back of my throat.

Tea of the afternoon here…
I have not been doing as much green tea drinking lately but this is a nice one so I decided to indulge. :))

Call me crazy – and I have not yet taken a sip but this tea smells like chocolate when stepped! LOL yeah I know that seems odd.
I love the look of the leaf – reminds me of pea pods!
I also smell a creamy aroma. YUMMM can’t wait for it to cool enough to drink!
I should be sleeping – but I’m not.
So first sip – very light – light vegetal flavors, buttery, and rock mineral? What the??? Its not an oolong but yet there is this fresh rock mineral flavor I am getting. Interesting!
A little salty, and a cooling sensation yet not minty flavored.
Very interesting indeed.
I will play around with this one a bit to see what else I can get from it with resteeps and perhaps different brewing methods.
So far I am intrigued!

This tea really looks cool – it does indeed look like the scaly belly of a dragon. They almost look like they’ve been crimped with a hair crimping tool! The color is much more like the color of a silver needle tea – the leaves are a very pale, silvery green color. Lots of downy fuzz on the leaves.

I played around with this tea until I found just the right way to brew it. I wasn’t very satisfied with how it brewed up in my Breville, so I decided to slow things down a bit and brew it in my gaiwan. This produced a much better cup. The tea is very delicate, and I think it was too delicate when brewed in the Breville vs. brewing in the gaiwan. The gaiwan managed to get more flavor out of the tea and that was what I was after.

Very vegetative – almost like kelp and steamed, buttered vegetables, but, again the flavor is delicate, so it doesn’t taste too vegetative if that makes sense. The flavor is almost all vegetal … but because the overall flavor is delicate, the palate isn’t overwhelmed by the vegetative notes.

I love how smooth this tea is. Very soft, very soothing. Very nice.

I brought this tea to work along with a few other greens as I find them very refreshing and good for focus in the afternoon (unlike the stormy night tea I had prior..almost put me to sleep lol). The smell of this tea still throws me off, it’s so much like dark chocolate! But the flavor is fresh and delicious, very light, but so good. I should drink this more often, it is one that for some reason gets neglected in my cupboard :( now that it’s at work, I should have more of it, as it’s easier to clean out of my steeper too haha. See previous notes!

These leaves are so much fun to me. Dry, they look like little fuzzy caterpillars that just want hugs. Then once they’re steeped, the leaves smell and look like fresh cooked green beans.

This is such a buttery, tasty green tea! There’s no grassiness in flavor, or bitterness, or astringency. It’s all sweet steamed peas and some mild kelp notes. There’s also a delicious butteriness in flavor and feel. None of the flavors present are intensely strong, leaving this to be a slightly delicate cup with no overwhelming flavors. I like this a lot though.

I definitely get what other people are saying about cooling sensations as well, as I’m finding that feeling present in the back of my mouth. Definitely a late spring/summer order.

1st steep in the Gawain was 3 minutes as per directions, it brews up a nice clear yellow color with a slight green touch (according to Lance*), the taste was very delicate but quite pleasant slightly vegetal flavor that i just can’t place, tho the taste was delicate the flavor of the tea was above the line. No bitter or astringency just wonderful tea flavor.
2nd steep I added 25 seconds,it yielded the exact same pale color and that same wonderfully delicate tea flavor as before but of course slightly stronger and this time unknown pleasant vegetal flavor became kinda like sweet peas?? not sure, it was very delicious tho :)
~I’ll have a little blog post of this one soon with photos and a better review :)~