Ruby Pie is a khongea golden tippy assam black with vegan chocolate chip bunny grahams, cinnamon chips, freeze dried strawberries, and hibiscus. This fun, strawberry rhubarb pie tea blend is sold by Butiki Teas, an Oolong Owl favorite US online tea seller.
Shout out to Sarah for winning – this blend was a custom blend concept that won Butiki Teas‘ Custom Blend contest back in 2012. Man, I wish my blend won, but hey, all the ideas looked really good so really whatever won and was up for sale on the site was going be good no matter what!
To my surprise, my local supermarket had amazing looking rhubarb. Best rhubarb I’ve seen in years! Oddly, they shouldn’t be in season yet the rhubarb looks model perfect. What sorcery is this?!
Dry Leaf
Mmmm, this tea smells amazing! Super fragrant candy strawberry scent! I’m excited to what is to come! Checking out the dry leaf… wow! Those are some big chunky strawberries in there!
I didn’t read the ingredients list before looking at the dry leaf.. are those cookies? They are cookies! Shaped like bunnies!
My bunny Benson would.. not approve. Well, he doesn’t approve of anything really. Ah, I remember when I was trying to take pictures of him with a star shaped tea from Butiki Teas and he ran off with it. That bugger!
Steeping Instructions
The tea package states to steep the tea at 212f for 3 minutes. Easy enough. I wonder how those vegan bunny cookies are going to work in the blend?
The tea steeps up a pale brown ruby tint, with a touch of debris on the bottom. Ruby Pie, steeped up, smells like fresh strawberries!
Tasting of Ruby Pie from Butiki Teas
Ruby Pie sips in a fresh lightly tart strawberry – very delicious! After the strawberry, the tea develops an interesting depth to it. There’s a hint of light spice, the cinnamon, bit of a graham /cake flavor and a tart finish, similar to undercooked rhubarb. The black base is quite nice and smooth. The entire blend is on the light side for a black tea blend.
Sweetened: I added a bit of german rock sugar and Ruby Pie’s strawberry taste got amplified, as if I’m eating a sugary strawberry rhubarb pie! The sugar also enhanced the pie crust flavor, and I love how the light spice add some extra dimension.
Comments
An important point I want to highlight with this blend – the strawberry in Ruby Pie tastes very natural! Actually, its a running theme in all the Butiki Teas blends I’ve had. I do enjoy some teas that taste on the artificial side from time to time, but having this tea really shifts gears showing off you can have really good, crisp, natural tasting fruity tea.
Ruby Pie would be a great tea blend for the fruity lover or someone who likes a lighter tea than the heavier black blends. I’d say, this is another “Must Try” blend from Butiki Teas as it’s uniquely made (omg bunny cookies) and the most natural strawberry rhubarb tea I’ve had so far.
