I chose this as my first Butiki tea to try (Thank you, Stacy!) because unlike the others, it came in little tin and hence balances precariously atop the rest of the pile of bagged-teas-to-try (No untried teas go in the cupboard! Rules are rules! Stand down, Cantaloupe & Cream!) but also because it’s one I …
black tea
Noël à Pékin – Dammann Freres
Interestingly, if you compare the English and French descriptions for this black-green blend, there is no mention of citrus (or, well, agrumi) oils in the translation – I picked this as the first to try from my Instant-Thé tea haul, as it smelled so strongly of blood orange – which I can never keep my hands …
Bailey Cream – A.C. Perch’s
So this is Bailey Cream, not Bailey’s Cream, and in the English description on the website they don’t even bother with the capital letter. So what exactly is a ‘bailey’? At least the Danish copy is a little more forthcoming: Cremet Bailey the. So silly – why not just call it Irish Cream instead of doing a half-assed attempt at …
Buttered Rum – David’s Tea
Oh, here we go. Last time around, I made this with boiling water and steeped for 4 minutes. This attempt, 90C and 5 minutes. The scent of the tea is completely different this time – yesterday I wondered why everyone was talking about coconut, when the body was all malt… but now it’s like getting into the …
Buttered Rum – David’s Tea
This poor tea. I got it in the mail today from my friend C, who is a very lovely and brilliant man, but with a fairly limited understanding of the reign of sheer violence and horror that is inter-European shipping. So like the nice, innocent Canadian he is, he put two David’s Tea (yes, I …
Pleine Lune – Mariage Frères
I opened a whole new tin of this today (a celebration in itself) to share with my new friend Y, who turned out to be exactly the person I needed to talk to about a specific thing. If there ever was a time and place for the serendipitea pun, trust me, this is it. Either way, I …
Hua Ki – Lupicia
This is another of the few bagged teas I own. Not only that, it’s also black and from Lupicia, an anomaly in itself – I generally only buy greens and oolongs from them. Not because I’ve had a bad experience, but their blacks always come off as so very lightly scented, and I tend to …
Pleine Lune – Mariage Frères
How to decide what tea would go best with the last ever episode of Breaking Bad? There was just no way. I chose the last of this sample purely for symbolic reasons – so the dregs of my first ever batch of Pleine Lune would go down with Mr. White. I have nothing left to …
Pleine Lune – Mariage Frères
Some post-party Pleine Lune. (The actual moon is probably just around 90% full, but close enough.) Boiling, 4 min
Marco Polo – Mariage Frères
I already wrote a tasting note for the green Marco Polo, which can be found here: http://gluttonette.com/?p=323. Just like I emphasized there, I tend to pick out teas going on scent alone. That, in its turn, means I rarely, if ever, read others’ reviews or tasting notes before logging my own impressions. This is yet another …