With Open Eyes

I am home today. Sick. Not working. Blah…i’ve been fighting this for a few weeks now and today my body decided to give up. Coincidentally it picked a good day since all my meetings are postponed for the day and the few pieces of work i HAD to get done today, i managed to do on sunday while testing. So for once, the work isn’t piling up..much.

I’m up for a bit to get some food before i go back to sleep and i opted for a few cups of non black teas. I tend to want things other than my usual black bold cups when i’m sick. So i pulled this one out and it was perfect for today. Delicious strawberry ginger…

My essay beverage (aka-stress management tea) of the semester.

It’s that time in November again where almost everything school related just sucks, sucks, sucks. This tea and Kuchar’s rendition of Shostakovich’s Gadfly Suite are helping me rationalize my existence as it stands right now, and help me forget that I must neglect Three-Day Road in order to finish this sad paper.

You know, I’ve listened to this so many times over the years without ever looking into the background of it. I’ll have to read The Gadfly someday when I have a life again. I want to read so many books that aren’t related to school right now, it’s not even funny.

My husband has been requesting tea syrup for tea sodas a lot lately, and this is the most recent one we’ve tried. I can’t really detect the tea itself in this soda, but it tastes like delicious strawberry butter toffee cream soda! Can’t complain!! Real tasty :)

I don’t know why I don’t drink this more often. I guess I forget it exists?

Whatever. This tea is awesome and I love it. Buttery, gingery, lovely strawberry flavours.

In fact, I ate the ginormous piece of strawberry that ended up in my steeping basket.

Yum.

(With a couple grains of rock sugar.)

This afternoon’s tea and a sipdown. Here’s another tea I never put in my virtual Steepster “cupboard” so something tells me I have more tea than what’s listed in there. I should try to get more organized perhaps?

It’s been a while since I’ve had this. The strawberry notes smell lovely here. My cup seems very refreshing, almost effervescent, perhaps because of the ginger. I’m feeling a bit under the weather this afternoon, but I think this will perk me right up. So many tasty blends from Butiki…

I seem to be one of the first few to try this one! Stacy kindly sent me some samples of a few Butiki teas I REALLY wanted to try, but this was a new one that was also included. thank you so much for the samples! I can’t say that enough since Butiki’s teas are the blends I love to try the most. Info isn’t even on the site yet, the blend is so new… I almost didn’t want to try this one until I heard the story behind it. (Like the name?! What’s that about?) But I wanted a green tea at the moment so this was the one I went for. There are some HUGE strawberries in this blend. One piece was about 1/3 of a big strawberry! The green tea is bright. After a two and a half minute steep, the color of the cup is almost clear — a very pale yellow. The dry blend strawberries sure scented the room with a nice sweet fragrance and the flavor is just the same. Very sweet strawberries on a buttery fresh base. I think the ginger gives it a bit of a tang… I’m not really a fan of ginger and I’m not sure why it is even here. There is also supposed to be some toffee pieces and if there is, I don’t see many in the blend. But I think more toffee here would be amazing with the strawberry and buttery green tea (though not so much the ginger.) I really like this one! I can’t wait to read the info about it and I’ll have some more of my sample to try.

Travelling Tea Box C

mmmmm… lovely!

This tea literally caused a squabble between two of my co-workers. I kid you not! I let Co-worker A smell it because she in interested in tea and she just fell in love with it and wanted to try it. She stepped away to rinse her mug and Co-worker B took the bag to get some for herself. Co-worker A got really jealous when she came back because she though there wouldn’t be enough for two.(There was plenty for both and more besides). Co-worker A snaps at Co-worker B and drama ensued. In the end both got tea, but both of them are still slightly sulky.

The dragonwell base is a little darker than a lot of the ones I’ve had, but still buttery. I get why the description would call it butterscotch The strawberry is lovely and fresh -nothing artificial about it! I only get the slightest warmth from the ginger. Overall, this is warm, light and spring-like.

I might have to keep this tea from the box in order to keep my co-workers from squabbling again! :-)

This is one of the many samples that came with my recent Butiki order with our recent co-op order. I only wish that there had been more, but I did get two good steeps, the first one cold steeped for work, the second hot steeped at home after work. Thanks for including it with the order, Stacy! I’ve been pretty pleased with all the Butiki Teas I have had so far.

This is soooo good! It really delivers all of the flavors listed. The strawberries are the juicy front note…it’s the first thing that I noticed. It was more prominent in the cold steep that it started out as. I find the ginger stands out a bit more with the hot re-steep than it did cold, but it was there, mingling with the buttery back note.

This is truly a wonderful green tea blend. I find it to be very warming and comforting. It’s going on my wishlist for a future order.

This smelled so fragrant but tastewise I am finding it surprisingly weak. The flavors are there but very, very muted and I find myself wanting more.

Thank you so much for the wonderful sample, Stacy! I’m so glad it’s raining today. I have my windows open letting in the fresh air and enjoying this tea. I just wish this place had window screens because I’m in a basement, so I keep glancing at the windows paranoid that a rat or squirrel is going to hop in.

At any rate, this is the second Dragon Well I am trying, and it is light years better than the last one I had. Tons more buttery, not nearly as astringent, and more delicate. I’m not really picking up on any strawberry here, but perhaps because my sample happened to have one tiny piece of it (which is cool, that’s the luck of the draw!) but I’m getting the nice warm glow from the ginger. It’s like sipping on a liquified Chimes ginger chew.

As this cools a bit, I’m tasting a bit more of a burnt sugar note which accompanies the ginger perfectly.

I would totally order some next time I make an order. Thanks again, Stacy!