$ perl -wE'
use Encode;
use Devel::Peek;
my $string = decode_utf8("täst");
my $val = "$string";
Dump $val;'
SV = PV(0x186ad58) at 0x1889bc8
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (PADMY,POK,pPOK,UTF8)
  PV = 0x1956d50 "t\303\244st"\0 [UTF8 "t\x{e4}st"]
  CUR = 5
  LEN = 8