Coconut Cream Pie

Hmm. I think I may have left my sample of this a little too long. Neither the dry nor brewed tea have much aroma at all, even though there was quite a generous-seeming amount of tea in my little sample baggie (thanks Stacy!)

Luckily, the flavour is a bit better than the aroma – I can taste quite a bit of coconut, which lingers nicely after the sip. Unfortunately… coconut is about all I can taste, along with hints of the rooibos base, which imparts almost a sourness. It does remind me quite a bit of coconut pouchong with a different base, though, coconut-flavour-wise!

I can’t say that I’ve yet found a coconut rooibos that I like, and I don’t think this will be the one either! Ah well!!

Third Butiki sample. I saved this one until evening, as I like to have a caffeine-free drink at this time of day. Coconut has been a bit of a love/hate ingerdient for me in the past, but if any company can pull it off, I know Butiki can.

The dry mix features long, thin strips of dried coconut, along with red rooibos. I brewed as per the recommended parameters, and added a splash of milk.

As coconut teas go, this is a really, really nice one. It’s smooth and creamy, with a slight oiliness, and a subtle but natural coconut flavour. The rooibos base is slightly nutty, and helps to create a pastry-like flavour. I’m not sure what else is helping to build this aspect, but the pie crust flavour really is there. When all of the elements come together (which happens best after a few sips) the flavour really is reminiscent of coconut creme pie. The coconut, cream and pastry flavours are all easily detectable, and it’s sweet and ridiculously soothing to drink. Perfect for a cold evening!

Thank you to Queen of Tarts for swapping this one.

I like rooibos, I like coconut, and I like Butiki. So what’s not to like? It’s delicious!

Delicious. I love how Butiki took that characteristic rooibos smell and taste and made it an advantage, not a distraction or thing to be merely tolerated when you want a flavored hot drink past 6pm (personally I don’t mind it but I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed its qualities for their own sake before either). I had never thought about how rooibos has the capacity to smell kind of graham cracker-y, and then I noticed it while it was steeping and thought “brilliant!” The coconut and cream flavors come out in the middle and end of the experience. This is one of those “so eerily accurate” Butikis. It’s all gone now but I keep running my tongue over my mouth and it feels like there’s a layer of creamy, coconutty flavor and texture still coating it, like fresh whipped cream. Yum!

I’ve had a long day—we did a (for us) super hurried mini-trip to a friend’s wedding in San Diego (I’d never been to CA before!), left after work Friday night, taco hunting and poking around thrift shops and the fantastic wedding (at the nature center full of creatures like the coconut crab, zillions of sharks, rays, eels, an alligator tortoise, etc., and wonderful music and decorations and homemade vows and delicious food like empanadas and proper tacos and grilled scallions and Pimm’s cups, a photobooth with goofy props…and nicest of all, great people to meet and converse with over dinner) Saturday, headed to the airport today at 5am for the flight back (nearly missing it due to a lot of snowballed mishaps big and small…we ran past gates like the Home Alone mom, pretty embarassing), got in and have spent the rest of the afternoon and evening catching up with the weekend’s normal chores and duties. Memphis greeted us with truly fall-like weather (the heater turned on, oh happy day for this ex-Northeasterner), which has me pleased but my husband worryingly sniffly, hrm. Finally sitting down and relaxing now—still got to finish doing dishes and then I can take a nice hot shower and go to bed. This was just the surprise treat I needed.

Trying out my sample of this tea in my new tea pot, yeah! Ehhh, might be too small of a tea pot, 5oz, but whatever! I threw in some rock sugar with my cup.

Very creamy and fleshy coconut taste with a bit of spice of crust! The rooibos is played up very well with the flavoring.

I really need to get some more caffeine free teas…

Mmm…this is some BOLD, In Your Face FRESH Coconut
It does have a vanilla creme flavor that you taste more as it is cooling down.
The cool down is also about the time I start tasting the crust.
DO NOT USE HONEY to flavor this….I tried it with the first cup & it was a mistake.
This tea can hold its own, but can be easily overpowered by honey.
I like it with just a touch of stevia. :-)

Delicious coconut…one of my favourite flavours in a tea.

The dry leaf smell reminds me of coconut rum with a bit woody scent from the rooibos. Generous shreds of coconut are mixed in with the rooibos.

I had a couple of sips of this without and creamer or sugar, and it was quite tasty and sweet on its own. I decided to add almond milk to bump up the creaminess and now I’m in creamy coconut, nutty almond heaven. Yeah, this is good. No added sugar. Not required here.

Thanks goes out to Dexter3657 for this yummy surprise sample!

For a rooibos, this is delicious!

I had two steeps of this tonight, with no sweetener or anything added. The coconut was delicious and sweet and creamy, and I really wasn’t bothered by the medicinal rooibos flavor that usually drives me completely insane. I actually really enjoyed both cups of this!

I’m still not rating it, because I don’t feel that I would give it the rating it deserves simply because of my own preferences. I know that even though I don’t care for rooibos, this is really fucking good.

Thanks, Courtney! :D

Thanks to KittyLovesTea for this one!

Hopefully the coconut will redeem the rooibos. I can still taste that bizarre flavour but the other ingredients are definitely toning it down :) This is one I can survive!

Perhaps the 5 minute steep time is the trick to these rooibos teas. Hmm. I’ll have to conduct an experiment.

I love coconut anything, so I this definitely made it into my first order with Stacy.

Dry, it smells very coconutty. There’s a generous amount of coconut pieces in the tea. And I’m a big fan of rooibos so this should be awesome. Brewed, it smells almost caramelly? I drank it with some sugar and soy milk because, well, that’s the way I felt like having tea tonight.

I’m not actually getting the amount of coconut flavour that I would expect from the dry scent. It’s there, but far in the background. Not much creaminess either. Actually, it tastes and feels “watery” if that makes any sense. I put the recommended amount of tea in my steeper. Maybe I have to put more? Or steep it a bit longer? It’s still a pleasant tea, but not quite what I had in mind.

I’m not going to rate this until I give it another chance.