The dry tea carries elegant, perfumed notes of lychee and oolong. I overleafed slightly, and I swear the little Butiki anole on the bag looked at me disapprovingly. Steeped, this smells mostly of really gorgeous oolong. Flavour wise, the balance is absolutely perfect – the lychee is tartripe and ripesweet and sweettart all at once, …
Year
Showing: 11 - 20 of 114 RESULTS
2013
Lychee Oolong – Lupicia
Lychee isn’t really my thing – except for that lychee martini at Doraku, but even then I can only have one. But when it comes to tea, things can really go either way, so I decided to attempt some lychee oolongs. This one from Lupicia is exactly as expected in the bag – a dirty-ripe, …
Cantaloupe and Cream – Butiki Teas
So time for round two of this melon tea extravaganza. This has a subtle cantaloupe/honeydew scent dry. I will admit to cheating a little with the amount of leaf used, going by my previous two instances of following the brewing instructions to a T (again, major punface) with Butiki teas. In the cup, the melon …
L’Oriental – Dammann Frères
Okay, second try, now with boiling water and a 2-minute steep. Much better this time around, but still too subtle in flavour to really convince me it has a personality. But there has to be a way to make the flavours in this one pop. Has to. This is beginning to feel like a So …
Melon Oolong – Lupicia
Lupicia, seriously; how do you even do this? Who flavors these teas? Are they wizards? In the bag, this has that very Lupicia-esque filthy ripe-fruit oolong smell to it that I love so much in, among other teas, Ripe Mango Oolong. It’s an earthy, muddy scent with a hint of fruit rot, intermingling with a very potent …
L’Oriental – Dammann Frères
In the bag, this is perfection – the most elegant, sumptuous fruitiness, ripe with peach and passionfruit. But steeped, it’s so subtle it’s silly – I’m going to refrain from rating this, and will henceforth follow some Steepster advice and steep these DF teas much hotter. Seriously, peach, where did you go? We had a date. …
Maple Pecan Oolong – Butiki Teas
This is insane. I’m drinking a sticker. And I mean that as a good thing. See, when I was a tiny Gluttonette with braids and glasses and knee socks, we used to trade stickers during our breaks in school. This was a huge deal; I carried something like five albums on any given day. Some …
Cookie – Lupicia
When I received the kind gift of Gluttonette time for tea shopping before leaving the US plus a ride to my favorite mall in Santa Clara, I obviously went straight to Lupicia. The very nice person working the store was helpful and patient with my many demands and inquiries and I found almost everything I wanted. One …
Perfectea Filter (Perfect Paper Tea Filters) – Teavana
So I dropped by the Water Tower Place Teavana in Chicago to pick up some teaware. I’ll just be honest – I’ve never tried a Teavana tea that I’ve loved; I find them mostly plain and bland and poorly executed, and it’s vile how much sugar they put in the brewed samples they offer in-store. …
Apricot Houji – Lupicia
When I first reviewed this here: http://gluttonette.com/?p=396, I know I found it on Lupicia’s website, but as I executed my attack on the WVF Lupicia earlier this week, the very nice and patient man helping me told me it had been discontinued. Definitely a sad day, because this tea really gives me massive travel nostalgia, and it manages …