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Here’s another one from the EU Travelling Teabox. This is a Take. I’ve been very much looking forward to tasting it. And also a little nervous. I very much fear I’m in for disappointment.

Rhubarb and custard? That’s a pretty classic mix! All we need here is some crumble and you’ve got one of my favourite desserts. Husband’s mum makes a better one than I do, although mind you, I’ve only ever made one. My crumble repertoire is far more apple-y than rhubarb-y. (I should make one soon. I find myself craving custard all of a sudden. I have to make my own custard from scratch though, since the proper stuff (Bird’s custard powder) is not available in Denmark. It’s not that hard to make custard, though. It’s just really boring because you have to heat it somewhat slowly and you can’t turn your back on the saucepan very much)

Anyway!

The first thing I notice is that this smells 95% like custard, 4% like rhubarb and only 1% like rooibos. As Husband so eloquently put it, “Bloody hell! How can you have a rooibos that smells like custard?” I cannot answer that question for him, but I can counter with one of my own,

How can something that smells SO MUCH like custard taste so little like it?

I have to admit there is a niggle of disappointment here, but this may entirely be due to the fact that I’ve really been working myself up for the custard at this point.

It’s not completely devoid of custard flavour, actually. It’s definitely there, the custard. When you sip, you first get some rooibos and some rhubarb flavour, more or less in equal measure. The rooibos and the rhubarb actually go very well together. It seems to be one of those universally eminent matches, like vanilla and assam or orange and puerh. The rooibos notes seem to really enhance the rhubarb notes and make it taste all juicy. The custard is there as a supplement, dotting the i, so to speak. The rooibos and rhubarb amalgamate seems to be sort of surrounded by sweet vanilla-y milk-y custard-y nuances, which is exactly like custard on a crumble should be like.

It’s easy, with custard, to succumb to greed and drown your dessert completely in the stuff, but I’ve found that it’s actually best if you manage to exert a bit of control over the custard compulsion so that you actually do end up having crumble with custard on it rather than custard with crumble in it. At the moment of pouring the custard this fact seems to be in direct defiance with logic, but it really is true!

And this is exactly what this blend has magically achieved. This is just fantastic. (And if I don’t get some real custard real soon I shall surely whither away entirely.)