Super Starling! Send Message

This is a super-great tea, but I’m starting to realize I don’t care for blueberry much.

This is NOT a reflection on the tea, which is accurate and tasty. It’s very rich and doesn’t taste weird or fake at all.

I just thought I liked blueberries more than it turns out I do. I’m more of a raspberry/strawberry/blackberry kind of person. AND THAT IS OKAY. Unsettling (I THOUGHT I KNEW MYSELF) but okay.

HELLO YOU SWEET ENCHANTMENT-SPUN CONFECTION.

This ridiculously tasty sweet tea was made by sugar-dusted, giggling elves. Their shoes are always upturned. Their smiles are permanent upon their faces. It’s kind of creepy, actually.

Their glistening chocolate mansion is ensconced in a forest that’s magical in the worst possible way. There are centaurs out there with flaming bow-and-arrow sets. And Voldemort eating unicorns.

Your best bet is to stay in the moonlit tea-mixing factory, listening to Aqua CDs on repeat.

What I’m trying to say is, this is tasty.

I read an article that was like “etiquette tips for tea with the Queen.”

It said, among other things, not to put your pinkie out.

It also advised against putting milk into anything but black tea.

Well, Eliz 2, I just put some vanilla cashew milk into this and I liked it. Sorry. Please let me still pet your Corgis. They look so friendly and soft.

This tea was just the thing I needed today. I was overwhelmed and sick. My digestive system told me off. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get all my tasks done in time.

I’d been drinking black tea to ramp myself up to get my job done, but that just made my body’s symptoms worse. So I switched over to decaf (this is honeybush). Not as much energy, but I feel much more soothed. I’ll just fall asleep early today.

This tea is “a black tea made from an oolong varietal tea plant.” (What does that mean? I need an adult.)

I ordered this sample in addition to the other things I was ordering because I decided to “treat yo’self.” I decided I wanted to try something that was expensive. I sifted through all the $100+ items, then chose the one in stock that sounded best ($133/pound, sample $4).

What are classy, high-end people drinking? When people make tea in movies, is this it?

When I stuck my face in the mug, it smelled amazing. It had a smell I’d classify more as “apricot” than “peach,” with maybe a tinge of vanilla and/or cinnamon. Sniff sniff. I felt like my beagle.

The taste is definitely black tea. There’s a slight maltiness and maybe a dash of metallic taste here. I wrote down the phrase “werewolf blood,” so take that as you will. There are, as I swallow, a bunch of mild fruity and creamy tastes. I get the peach, but that might be because I was primed to think of the peach from the site’s description.

This would be, unfortunately, a great daily drinker. It’s delicious, but not attention-grabbing. I say “unfortunately” because I am obviously not going to be buying $133 of this little number. I have a mortgage.

But this is super-tasty, and I recommend, should something like this come your way, you try it.

This tastes like melted Neapolitan Ice Cream. It hits you in the face with aggressive, cloying sweetness. Which is normally what I live for.

Am I growing up? That can’t possibly be it. I hope.

Oh god. What if I start putting kale in my smoothies? Filing my own taxes? Remembering to put the registration sticker on my car in a timely fashion? Being interested in material possessions or the stock market? Watching Oscar-worthy heavy films?

Is this the end?

This tea is tasty. Double-tasty with a little vanilla cashew milk.

I’m so sad that I never got to experience Butiki teas. I miss this tea company like I miss the Library of Alexandra: I never got to experience it firsthand. But I wish I had. (Can you imagine a library like that? OMG. Also, the Maesters’ library in Game of Thrones. Why isn’t it real? Sign a sister up).

I would pour a little of this tea out for my homies, but it shouldn’t be wasted. Sorry, homies.

The smell of the dry leaves of this is super-unimpressive. I don’t know if it’s the sample, or how the tea always is, but it smells like it was left in a grandmother’s attic for years.

Sometimes grandparents’ attics are treasures. Like the time I found a 1950s Ouija board in my grandmother-in-law’s. Or the beaded white bowler cap my mother-in-law got married in. (Yes. Exquisite. Like this, but worse: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/87/d8/f5/87d8f5154c298a5ae0c4de5a2d2ffa81.jpg )

Once steeped, the tea smells like dust. With, if you breathe really deep and concentrate really hard, some maybe vanilla/cream in there? The attic-feeling remains.

And the taste is crazy. It’s like drinking a slightly moldy cardboard box.

But the aftertaste, once the cardboard is down your throat, is so good.

But, guys, one cannot survive on aftertaste alone. I must say adios to this tea.

It is not “bae.” As the kids say. Did you know that bae means “before anyone else”? That seems like a thing you all might not happen to know. I work with people much younger than I am. They inform me of slang.

Just typing the above paragraph makes me feel like… someone who would have an attic that would produce this tea.