Rhubarb and Custard - Bluebird Tea Co.

Let me talk for a minute about rooibos tea. These days, it seems to have always been around and is everyone’s favourite hydrating, non-caffeinated beverage, but I remember when it was first introduced. Eager to find a tea I could drink without milk because of the diet I was on at the time, I latched onto it and forced myself to drink it, even though I honestly couldn’t stand the taste of it.

Shortly afterwards a vanilla flavoured version came out, which was marginally better but still only drinkable when I was really desperate. I did find some caramel flavour and some orange flavour tea bags in one of the cheap supermarkets but they weren’t a regular visitor, and while the caramel one was just about bearable, the orange was as bad as all the others.

Once I finally decided to own up to the fact that I didn’t like Rooibos my life was much improved and I never once felt the urge to go back to trying it. Until now.

The Bluebird Tea Company use a lot of rooibos in their teas and the first I tried, the gingerbread chai, tasted so good that I had no hesitation in getting further rooibos-based teas to sample.

As it is Easter weekend, I have been drinking a lot of tea, and most of it has been Easter-related thanks to special blends by Bluebird (I shall review them another time). For some reason, I thought they were all black tea-based, but having checked two of them are also rooibos-based (Hot Cross Bun and Carrot Cake), although my favourite (Vegan Easter Egg Nests) is a black tea.

Today, I fancied a change from the Easter taste – a move away from the chocolate and fruit cake and decided that I would try one of Bluebird’s older teas, the Rhubarb and Custard.

Ingredients: Rooibos, rhubarb pieces, calendula, flavour.

They describe it thus:

'Hardy British super fruit, much loved vintage cartoon characters, top boiled sweet and crumble of the gods...Our Rhubarb and Custard Tea really is a pairing made in heaven. This naturally caffeine free rhubarb tea is made from antioxidant rich rooibos tea that will satisfy your sweet tooth with less than 1 calorie p/cup! Sounds like a super sweet deal to us!'

And it won an award at the 2016 Great Taste Awards.

As soon as the water was poured on the leaves the smell of rhubarb and custard sweets assailed my nostrils. Honestly, it smells exactly like them. Bluebird says to steep for about 4 minutes but I think I doubled that, or maybe even tripled it. I was impressed to discover that not only does the tea smell like rhubarb and custard sweets but it tastes like them too.       

This tea is quite sweet so I probably could drink it without sugar quite happily. However, to my mind a teaspoon of demerara released the flavour further, as if you really were eating one of the sweets rather than eating the fruit and some custard (although then it's no longer calorie-free, obviously). Better still, it tastes good when it’s cold (which is always good when I forget to drink) and I think it would make a nice chilled summer drink.

I’ll be honest, I was so impressed at how good it tasted that I actually tweeted Bluebird about it, which is how I discovered that it is one of their oldest tea varieties. Checking their website, I see the tea has a serious following, and several people mention how good it tastes with milk (or almond milk), which makes it creamier and brings out the custard flavour.

Rest assured, I will be trying it with some milk and will report back with the results, but I’m hopeful it will be a pleasant outcome.