As you may know, I am on the quest for the perfect grapefruit tea. There are a lot that I love, but many of them have other flavors added that while they do go well with grapefruit (like Zen’s Orange Grapefruit) prevents them from being the one. You know, the one tea I’ll give my heart to and we’ll run away and live happily ever after in a castle by the sea in France. Uhh I really like grapefruit. And I also love Butiki, so I have been eagerly awaiting this tea for months, as soon as Stacy announced she was working on it! Of course tragedy struck and I shipped my order to the wrong place so I was supposed to get it LAST Tuesday but had to wait until yesterday when I could take a trip up to my parent’s house. Stupid paypal, why do you default to my billing address! Depriving me of tea!
In any case, I was ridiculously excited to open this one up and made everyone around me smell it including… one of my cats. My little girl (well, she’s my mom’s cat, but we handraised a group of kittens from 10 days old so I consider the three of them “mine” haha) LOVES tea leaves and was very fond of this blend. She’s always trying to eat them but I think the citrus prevented her this time, though she did take a big whiff. The smell is delicious, like fresh grapefruit. It’s not as strong as I assumed it would be, very subtle and nice.
I cold brewed this one because, come on, I can’t drink grapefruit warm! It’s like… a travesty against all that is natural. Grapefruit must be ice-cold with just a teeny teeny splash of sugar. I can’t drink sweetened grapefruit juice to be honest, it has to be the regular stuff (which no one else in my family will drink haha), BUT I did put a pinch of sugar in as this was brewing, just to bring out all the flavors.
Oooh man, this is grapefruity heaven. Sweet, tart, citrusy. And nothing else is competing with it, so it’s all grapefruit all the way! Well, of course there’s a lovely dragonwell base which adds some interesting nuttiness and grassy freshness. It’s perfect, sweet grapefruit. Ruby grapefruit! The tartness is right on point, not overpowering but also still there. In my book, grapefruit teas need a little bite. They’re just not right without it! And this is perfection. Oh grapefruit tea, I’ve found you! Never leave me! Thanks so much to Stacy for coming up with this amazing concoction. If you like grapefruit you NEED to try it. But no I won’t put samples of this in a swap, it’s mine, all mine, bwahaha! One of those treasures you guard carefully and savor every last leaf.
