Strawberry Daiquiri Honeybush

Once upon a time, I tried the strawberry daquiri flavor at Teavana, and it was so good that I bought like a pound of it. When I made it at home, it tasted so gross that I sold and swapped the rest of it. After smelling the delicious scent of this tea, I was excited for daquiri redemption. I’m sad to say that the brewed flavor really isn’t good. It tastes mostly like alcohol, and I mean, a daquiri is alcoholic, but I don’t like the flavor of alcohol at all, so it just doesn’t work for me. At the very end of the sip there may be a touch of strawberry, but the rest is all alcohol. It’s way too strong. Oh well!

Teabox Tuesday! I got a sampler of this tea from the Discovery Teabox, so thank you to Skysamurai for organizing and all participants of the box! This blend is from 2013, so I’m not sure how much flavor will be left after six years… that said, when I get the chance to try old 52Teas blends, I usually take them, since I never know when (or if!) those blends will reappear, and they are always such unique/interesting flavors.

Hmm. The aroma smells quite strawberry-banana-like, which is very off-putting to me, but there is no banana listed in the ingredients, so I’m willing to try it. It smells quite sweet and I can pick out a bit of lime from the aroma as well.

It is a bit weak, but not terribly so. It’s fairly sweet from the honeybush, and I’m getting a strawberry flavor, and it’s sort of that sweeter, candied sort of strawberry note, rather than particularly fruity or juicy. There is a citrus note as well, with the lime having a bit more prominence. Apparently there is rum flavoring, but I’m not really picking out anything that has a dry/alcoholic sort of taste, though the citrus is a bit brisk, which may be some of the lingering remains of the rum… it does remind me a bit of a note from a different lime cocktail tea I have, come to think of it. It’s a slightly sour sort of citrus taste, but fades quickly because the base tea and strawberry note are so sweet.

For the age, this has actually held up much better than I was expecting, with quite a bit of strawberry and lime flavor still present. I imagine it was quite potent in its prime, and the flavor combo is quite pleasant.

Discovery TTB #8

I finished off the last little bit of this one and sadly I wasn’t impressed. I didn’t get a specific strawberry flavor…more of a vague, artificially fruity flavor with an unpleasantly sour aftertaste. Maybe it was the age of the sample? Not going to rate this because I’m not sure I had it at its best.

I think this was Frank’s blend, so not entirely new, but I haven’t has this particular blend yet. Somehow there is still a TON of strawberry flavor here. I’m sure the flavor was more nuanced before… but I’m not disappointed with it now. The flavor is mostly strawberry that you might find in a daiquiri with maybe a hint of champagne flavor. I’ve not actually had a daiquiri so who knows. The second steep went way too long and somehow tasted terrible. I didn’t know honeybush could be oversteeped! If you offered me tea in one hand or alcohol in the other, I’d pick the tea. I do like seeing the 52Teas blends with honeybush because I feel like no one else really has honeybush blends!

This is actually surprisingly delicious. Yes, it has an aura of fakeness around it, but really, since when are strawberry daiquiris not made with syrups and other manufactured products, even if they toss in a few mashed berries for extra flavour? So, I’m unbothered by that. Tastes to me like there’s lime in there too, but it’s kept to a very low level so it blends instead of overpowers. Really beautifully done, actually. I had thought I didn’t much care for this one, but if every cup tastes like this, I want more.

Side note: I’ve been brewing basically everything at no hotter than 205F lately, mostly because it seems that using 212F water might be detrimental at times. It might be making a difference for the honeybush/rooibos, at least.

This is from the Great Canadian Travelling Tea Box round 1! I had this beautiful summery tea on April 30/2014:)

Dry Leaf: Brown leaves that give off a sweet scent.
Steeped: The water is dark and has a sweet and sour scent to it. It has a nice sweet taste and is light in body. I rather enjoyed this tea and found it delicious both hot and iced.

Sipdown. This makes a phenomenal iced tea both by itself and blended with other teas. I mixed this half and half with DT’s Kiwi’s Big Adventure and it made a wonderful strawberry kiwi flavoured drink.