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So It’s 6:30am and by reaching deep into my tea cupboard I realized I’ve made a big mistake…..

I’ve been on Steepster for a little over a year. It was this website that helped me find the teas I’ve used to expand my tastes “beyond the teabag”. I ordered PTA from Butiki fairly on in my tea explorations. Being that my tastebuds were used to Indian assams, this threw my palate for a loop. I remember thinking that the leaves were like SPIDER LEGS and how in blazes could you measure 2 teaspoons of this when every time you pushed the leaves into the spoon to get a measurement, some would POIIIIIING out of the spoon…. I think it was just all a bit too much for me. So the tea was relegated to the back of the cupboard. Until today….

There’s a depth to the dry leaf fragrance that is similar to a Fujian black, but once water goes into the cup, the malty assam note comes forward to meet my nose. Unlike most assams, the malt note doesn’t take center stage in this cup….this one is a true chorus of notes: It is fruity, with notes of deep plum, raisin and fig. There is cocoa and yam skin, which bring an earthiness to this tea that assams don’t usually present. Then there is a toasted malt note. This is lovely. I have to say that this is probably my favorite cup of tea for where my palate is these days. At a 3 minute steep there is a touch of astringency, which is the only reason I can say I’m not sitting here crying in my mug over not drinking this before Butiki closed it’s doors. Astringency, you just might be my friend today for that reason alone…..

I try to live life with no regrets…it’s a mantra of mine. SO, I will look at the small tea tin as being a quarter full of bouncy spider leggy leaves as opposed to being 3/4 empty. And in the meantime, I’ll ask anyone if they’ve found anything close to this tea anywhere else besides Butiki….because dang, it’s goooooooood.