Ruby Pie

1.5 tbsp for 375 ml

Straw-like black tea taste in forefront. Strawberry and graham cracker flavours mingle at end the sip. A bit bitter at the end of the cup.

Thanks Sil for sharing with me!

Yes! This was the tea I was looking for this afternoon! Buttery, slightly fruity, and even a bit floral- This tasted very much a like the tea version of a flaky-crusted pie!
The scent of the dry leaf is mostly of strawberries and rhubarb- very sweet and enticing.
The butteriness hits me first and just feels great in the mouth. The strawberry mixed with something flowery comes into play next. Rhubarb and cinnamon come through in the aftertaste.

Thanks for the sample of this, Stacy! I think I might have to order this next time. So delicious!

This came to me in a swap from Sil.
When I first smelled this brewed tea, it reminded me of apple crisp. There was a tart smell with cinnamon. It reminded me of apple, but it could have been rhubarb. The brewed tea tastes like strawberry and rhubarb. But again it could be strawberry and apple. You can also taste a pastry flavor, almost like pie crust. There is also a peppery taste that I would associate with rhubarb. Delicous. Thanks to Sil and Butiki for this wonderful blend.

I sprinkled a bit of raw sugar in this one.

This smells amazing dry and brewing, heady sweet strawberry. I rarely like strawberry flavored teas it seems, but With Open Eyes made a believer of me, and I love rhubarb, so…and come on, Bunny Grahams! So cute.

The first flavors here are sweet-tart berry that turns lush and jammy as it lingers in the mouth. The hibiscus is very well balanced—not too tart, but keeping the strawberry and pastry in check enough to really evoke the cooked filling of a rhubarb strawberry pie. There’s a magical fruit-floral combination (kind of like how really good fresh berries, the small wild ones you pick, smell like flowers, not just fruit) in the smell that also becomes the taste as it cools (and I couldn’t resist scooping some Bunny Graham mush out of the infuser basket for a taste, and it’s pumped full of that perfumed fruity flavor in a major way). I’m not getting tons of pastry or cinnamon/bakery spices here, a little as it cools (and what cinnamon I do taste does a good job of supporting and playing foil to the fruit flavor more than starring in itself…it lends a warming slight bitterness that really makes the fruit taste like cooked filling). And while that would just put it over the top, even without lots of it this tea is still gorgeous because of that heady floral perfectly balanced sweet-tart jamminess. I wish my rhubarb pie filling tasted this good. Also, and this might not sound like a plus but is in my case, the black tea base is so light as to be entirely in the wings. Normally I want to be able to taste the tea more, even with dessert flavored blends, but experience has taught me generally I don’t like the way black tea tastes with fruit, so this works just fine for me. Yummy!

EDIT: Actually, the crust comes out a lot more at the end of the cup, either through flavor build up or cooling, not sure. It’s light but sugary and lovely, a bit like a sugar cookie. Again, yummy!

Surprised to discover this resteeps ok too (with flavored blacks I often don’t even bother trying honestly, but hibiscus seems to do well resteeped so I went for it). Bonus!

Thanks for sharing this with me Sil!! This smells SO good. It kind of has a nice baked aroma to it. Oh my goodness. The flavor is awesome. There is a slight bitterness to it but as it cools it fades. It’s sweet and just a tad tart. The strawberry flavor is juicy and natural tasting. It even has kind of a pie crust taste going on. I reaalllyyy enjoyed this one! Thank you so much Sil!!

I love strawberry and rhubarb. It’s one of the only pies I like. I was delighted when Sil included this tea in with the other samples she sent me. I have been searching for a good strawberry tea that did not taste like Crystal Lite or chapstick and I think I have found it.

This was the most pleasant and natural tasting strawberry tea I have ever had. It tasted like a really ripe and juicy strawberry. I was also really surprised how much I loved the hibiscus in this one. It wasn’t overpowering at all and added a nice bite to it like rhubarb. I am also getting a bit of spice maybe cinnamon or clove. It’s bringing out a pie crust feel.

I think this may be the first strawberry tea that worked for me. I’m pretty picky when it comes to fruity teas but this was just perfect. I would buy pounds of this tea fairly comfortably without any guilt or panic. I will definitely be ordering a bunch of teas from Butiki because this one was just delicious.

Thanks to Sil for this sample.

One of my favorite pies has always been strawberry rhubarb, I grew up with my grandfather making it for us every Friday throughout the summer, so I knew that I had to try this tea. It smelled absolutely delicious steeping, although it was more sweet than I expected. I think the bunny grahams were a great addition, they add a real pie crust aspect to this tea and I wouldn’t have enjoyed it nearly as much without them. Although, I should have known better than to make this in my ingenuiTEA, they’re going to be a pain in the rear to clean out of it. I just wasn’t thinking this morning when I made this. I’m home with a sick toddler and was crossing my fingers that I’d have enough time to make some more tea before he puked on my bed again. That was not how I wanted to wake up this morning, it looks like today is just going to be one of those days.

Anyway, enough discussion about gross things and back to the tea

The strawberry tastes almost candy-like to me, even with the hibiscus added to give it a tart rhubarb like note. While most companies go overboard with the hibiscus, this is a great example of how to do it right. Thanks for including this in my order Stacy, I’m really glad I got to try it and it has certainly made my day a little brighter.

So, I know this is supposed to be pie. But Fiance and I used to help his grandma grow her rhubarb every year and she’d give us two pans of strawberry rhubarb sponge pudding in turn. The animal cracker bits and big chunks of strawberry really evoke that image to me. (The post steeped leaf even more so. Like. I want to get a spoon and eat it.)

The smell here is like sticking my nose in some warm strawberry jam. Where it smells sticky and sweet and you just want to sit there. I can pick up the hibiscus, but I’m not afraid of it.

The same jammy smell comes off the steeped leaf.

Can I just say? This was the best natural strawberry flavor I’ve ever had in a tea. It was sweet, but not cloying or candy-like. Just really juicy ripe strawberry sweet.

I’m also picking up a little floral with the strawberry. Then cinnamon which really pushed the feeling of pie crust into the next level for me. The end notes are where the tart notes come in and they really do remind me of rhubarb.

Stacy, your use of hibiscus is masterful here and adds a lot. I’m surprised to find, I don’t think I actually hate hibiscus…just lots of hibiscus.

Another great blend!

Argh, I’ve been having a bit of an awkward week. Fairly busy, and the way my work schedule’s been, I only have time to have one cup of tea before work and then I pretty much only have time for one after work because by the time I’ve had dinner and my shower, I need to go to bed in two hours which is my cut-off for tea.

So despite all of my lovely teas that newly arrived, I haven’t had time to write many tasting notes.

Generally if I have such a limited amount of teas in a day, I won’t have any flavored ones. They’re just a low priority for me generally. (excluding Earl Grey. I treat Earl Greys the same as unflavored tea.) Today though is different. Today was the last day for my favorite co-worker, who feels like a close friend to me. I took her leaving very, very hard. Some people on here might remember me mentioning having a crummy day a couple weeks ago. That was when she told me she was quitting.
So hence the desserty teas today (I had Banana Walnut Treat earlier today, which was even tastier than I remembered) for cheer-ups. Anyway, onward to Ruby Pie!

The leaf amuses me. All the red bits from the strawberries, and cute chocolate-chip graham character pieces mixed in. It’s both pretty and cute at the same time! The scent has a bit of a lip gloss-ness to it — which is weird since there are actual strawberries in here — but you can’t go by smell alone, so still looking to trying this!

Anyway, since this is a fruity black tea, I was a bit apprehensive about adding milk to this. Adding milk is my habit for black teas, but I don’t like fruit+milk as a combo. So I poured some of this into another cup in case milk ruined it, in which case I’d still have some left. Turns out this was a good decision. With milk, it kills all the hibiscus which even though that’s normally an improvement, in the case of this tea it’s not. The amount of hibiscus in here isn’t enough to take over, but instead gives the rhubarb a more realistic flavor by giving it a slightly tart taste. It gives it a slight fakey taste when the hibiscus is lost. HOWEVER, with milk, the pie crust notes are far more detectable.

Without milk the fruit flavor is better. It doesn’t taste like lipgloss, and the hibiscus adds a pleasantly tart flavor without making you pucker. The black tea base isn’t bitter, so you don’t suffer without milk in that regard either. However, without milk, I don’t really taste the pie-crust notes so much.

So while this tea wasn’t perfect in that it appears you sort of have to pick rather than getting the best of both worlds (maybe milk+sugar is the magic combo? I should try that at some point), overall it is quite good! :) I LOVE the pie-crust notes the milk provides, and the fruit flavor without milk is wonderful! Now if I could just merge both together, this would be perfect, haha xD

Overall I like this with milk better. I really like having the pie crust notes. :)

I’m really enjoying the soft strawberry scent of this tea. I can’t really smell anything else, but I’m quite happy with the strawberry! Sipping… this tea bursts with flavor.. wow! I can taste the strawberry, vanilla and something like a pastry or shortbread. It all comes together nicely & the name “ruby pie” seems very appropriate!

I’m not enjoying the aftertaste, though. It’s a bit like there is an artificial film that remains. I usually enjoy Butiki’s flavoring and it’s never tasted artificial to me which is why I like so many of these blends. I’m happy to have sampled this tea, but I can’t really get beyond the aftertaste.