Ruby Pie

Sample sipdown! Thanks to Stacy at Butiki Teas for including this with my last order.

This is a really lovely tea. Another home run for Stacy (and props to Sil too!). The dry leaves smell beautifully of strawberries, though a little fake. There are some nice big chunks of strawberry in the blend though! First sip – tastes just like real strawberries. Sweet, juicy, tangy. There’s a touch of graham cracker flavor too, which rounds out the sip nicely. The tea gets juicier as it cools, inspiring me to try this iced. Putting the rest of the mug in the freezer to see how it tastes cold.

So tasty cold! Very strawberry. Not as sweet as the DavidsTea Sweet Strawberry, but nice and tangy. Very juicy too. The graham cracker flavor is gone, though, so this tastes more like a straight strawberry tea. This is definitely better as an iced tea than the Davids. I’m reluctant to decide which one I like better hot, since the Butiki isn’t actually a straight strawberry tea. The Butiki is definitely more complex and interesting though.

I received 3 cups worth from BrewTEAlly ’s Sale. I don’t always like berry teas and only sometimes hibiscus when it is iced because of how tart they can be but I thought it would be fun just to say I tried it and the story behind it was neat.

1st cup a few weeks ago (memory of) – tart, strawberry and other stuff not sure but happy to have a few cups for when the mood strikes next.
2nd cup last night- busy doing something and not paying attention while drinking it, tart, and strawberry and cinnamon in the background . I did not realize cinnamon would work with strawberry.
3rd cup tonight- with a splash of milk, tart strawberry light cinnamon in the background and pastry.
What, this taste like a berry filled pastry I had a few days ago only better.

Found some of this hiding in the back of my cupboard this evening! When I put some in my steeper I spied half a bunny graham which I hadn’t spotted before. Once steeped I get a bit of the hibiscus tang at the front of the sip, followed by an almost candy like berry. The hibiscus is distracting me a little more in this cup than it has in previous ones. A little sugar mellows it out and brings out the graham. The berry is even more candy like now. I’m wondering what it would be like with a little cream added, but I’m wary of ruining the cup. The smell and taste of it is like strawberry gum or cherry chapstick… without the gross waxy part. Gah! I added 1 tsp worth of cream and it obliterated the flavors! I should have trusted my instinct, but curiosity got the better of me.

Hopefully a resteep will treat me well. There is now half a bloated bunny cracker in my steeper peering up at me.

Note to self: Resist the urge to add cream!!!

My first tasting of Ruby Pie and I did taste the strawberry and vanilla notes, but the rhubarb was not hitting me…this was based on just plain Ruby Pie…next I added some sugar and I did get a bit more rhubarb and more of a pie taste…in the end I added some almond milk and it really brought out the rhubarb…this is an interesting tea, with multiple layers, not bad.

I had a sample of the gluten-free version, kindly given to me by Stacy, after I’d bemoaned my inability to try the regular type! Don’t know if I should have added the GF version as a different tea or not. Obviously there’ll be some differences in taste!

Cara and I had had a flavoured green which was really bitter, the H&S Paris, which we both disliked, and I didn’t have much energy left for brewing or noting but knew we needed something good – this was a great choice! Strawberry and rhubarb is a delicious combination, and the small amount of hibiscus really was a good thing, even for the hibiscus-averse. The tea was tart and fruity, with a delicious touch of coconut, which made a happy pie crust flavour. We both drank it plain, and it was great, though if the GF is available when I put in next Butiki order, I will be eager to try it with a bit of sugar, with milk, with both… Well done to sil and Stacy!

This is one of the samples Shelley_Lorraine included in a recent swap. I’ve been wanting to try this one for a while, so here goes!

The dry leaf smells very, very sweet. Also fruity, in an over-the-top candy-ish way. Brewed, the taste is still rather sweet. However, it’s not as extreme as I’d feared it might be – I’m generally not a fan of sweet teas, and I never add sweetener. I’m not really getting anything that makes me think of strawberry pie – there is a certain fruitiness to the tea, but it’s vague and muted. After spending a bit longer with the tea, though, I’m recognizing this as the flavor not of baked strawberries but of dried (and also, I presume, of freeze-dried) ones.

There’s a pronounced – though not overwhelming, fortunately (and unusually!) – hibiscus note. This goes some way toward counterbalancing the sweetness, and it does suggest the tartness of rhubarb. However, this is as close as the tea gets to true rhubarb flavor.

I’m not getting any pastry notes or, surprisingly, much in the way of cinnamon. I’m also struggling to taste the tea base through the layers of fruit and hibiscus, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I can tell that it exists and that it is black, but I don’t think I would’ve been able to identify it as an Assam without looking at the ingredients list.

This isn’t a tea I’ll go out of my way to have around, but I’d be very happy to drink it again should the opportunity arise. My mom enjoyed it too. Thanks again for letting me sample this one, Shelley_Lorraine!

cheers to you Sil for sending me this taste!

this second cup i just brewed had a big chunk of something in it, i suspect it was a Bunny Graham. at least i hope it was a Bunny Graham and not a mutant hatchling of some type.

the description of this tea is very accurate! the crust is light and the berries are a balance of sweet and tart. the tea is dry but still fruity and bright. very nice.

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Thank you Janelle for sending this my way! I’m getting through my Butiki samples pretty well, I think.

I’m glad I have another cup’s worth to play with, because this was totally not what I was expecting at all. Definitely going to change up the steeping parameters next time. My first sip was plain and I was taken aback by the flavour, not necessarily in a good way. What I got was mostly astringency and a pretty potent sour note, followed by some weird metallic fruitiness, possibly due to the hibiscus, and then something stale (my own fault, probably, since this is around a year and a half old now and it has real biscuits in it – a whole one in my sample). The wet leaf smelled amazingly sweet and of strawberries so I had high hopes, but it didn’t really translate well into the flavour, which was mostly rhubarb in the fruity aspect. I immediately added a whole sugar, which brought out more of the strawberry note but didn’t help the astringency, then added milk which finally did. This way it’s a lot more like what I expected – jammy and tart in a rhubarb intentional way rather than a weird off-putting sour way, with the strawberry note being most prominent in the sip. The aftertaste brings out a crumbly pastry sort of vibe, followed by a much more enjoyable rhubarb note. I took the bunny graham out of my scoop so that I could have it in my second and last cup instead, so I’m hoping the pastry will be more prominent next time around. I think I’ll steep it for longer too, to see if that helps bring out more of the intended flavours, and just resign myself to the knowledge that I’ll have to add milk. Overall I do like the idea, and it’s the first tea I’ve tried that accurately gets across the ‘pie’ idea, but I think it’s probably past its best and I don’t think I’m a big fan of the base it uses. Sorry, Stacy and Sil!

I finally got to try this from a sample someone sent… so sorry, it’s been ages, it’s just been sitting in my cupboard and I can’t remember who sent it. BUT I APPRECIATE YOU!

It was a “must try” for me for a long time, yet for some reason I never ordered it. I always meant to, but then Butiki ended, as did my chances.

I must be honest, the little sample I tried didn’t blow my mind. I might not be the biggest fan of strawberry flavoured tea, maybe that’s why. I didn’t find it super flavorful, not as much graham or pie notes that I hoped.

Always hard to tell by a little baggie sample, maybe I underleafed (or, overwatered).

At least i don’t WANT WANT WANT it, because i wouldn’t be able to get it anyway!

Backlog from yesterday/day before:

I’ve had this for over a year now, and visually it hasn’t aged very well – the strawberry pieces are almost black, and I worried that the graham cracker pieces might have gone soggy and started growing mold from our damp climate. Fortunately it seems to just be cosmetic, as it still has a cheerful flavor of summer fruits. Sweet enough to drink on its own, though I liked it better after adding a little agave. I found it a bit weak having followed the suggested 1 tsp (which isn’t that much, given the chunky graham and strawberry pieces), so I’ll probably increase it to 1 1/2 next time.