Brownie Batter Honeybush

Sampler Sipdown September! I got this sample from the last Here’s Hoping Teabox! Thank you so much to tea-sipper for organizing and everyone who added to the teabox! This is a blend from the older era of 52Teas, but I’m still happy to get a chance to try it.

The dry leaf has a pretty strong honeybush aroma — sweet, with a slight berry-like fruity note, slightly peppery, and just a little woody — but the brewed tea has some cocoa aroma coming through. The taste of the tea is mostly the honeybush base; it’s a very floral-honey sweetness, with a berry jam flavor. A soft, chocolate note comes out on the tongue right at the finish of the sip; I have a feeling that perhaps the chocolate notes were stronger back when this tea was fresh, but even the subtle note that remains is a pleasant compliment to the flavor of the honeybush base.

I think I would have to prepare this as a tea latte with my chocolate almond milk to try to coax out more of a chocolatey note at this point, but it was a pleasant enough cup for what I got out of it.

Thanks to KiwiDelight for sending me a sample of this! I like the chocolate flavor of this blend (and that it’s caffeine-free), but mostly it makes me want to eat real chocolate. Seriously, that’s what I did. I drank half a cup of this and then reached for a chocolate bar. Rice milk does add a nice creaminess that makes for a more enjoyable cup. Overall, it’s ok but not exceptional. Sipdown!

This tasted like a run-of-the-mill chocolate tea. Nothing stood out as brownie batter. It was alright.

It’s disappointing to say that this just tastes like honeybush. Though it should be the most chocolately of chocolateness: brownie batter! There were even two GIANT chocolate chips in my infuser and still not much chocolate flavor. But with cocoa nibs and additional flavor, there really should have been more chocolate! Of course, if there had been cocoa SHELLS in the blend I think all three of the other ingredients wouldn’t have even been necessary. The second steep was even less chocolate. Such a shame!
Steep #1 // 1 heaping tsp // few minutes after boiling // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // few min a.b. // few minute steep

I may have steeped this too long for the flavors to come through in the way that they were meant to, so I will hold off rating it until I can do it the way it was intended. Hubby and I have been steeping honeybush lately for much longer times, because we’d read that it generally tastes better the longer you steep it. We’d found that steeping it for 10 minutes produced a flavor we really like, but when we did that with this blend, the chocolate and other flavors all but disappeared. I was quite disappointed, understandably, so we’ll try again, with the measly leaf we have left (one of the reasons I wasn’t in favor of Frank’s decision not to offer the 2 oz. packages anymore), to get the correct flavor out of it.

I am drinking this tea right now. And i’d like to start off by saying the reason I say More chocolate, more, more, more … is because more chocolate = better.

My first couple of sips were a little muddied because the tea was still a wee bit too hot. So I let it cool (it’s really difficult to be patient and wait for the tea to cool when it’s chocolate, you know?) After letting it cool to a drinkable temperature I started sipping again.

A really yummy, chocolate-y tea. I still think that cacao shells would make this better. I just really like the chocolate-y flavor that the cacao shells deliver.

This IS a really chocolate-y tea, though. The honeybush is tasted and adds a little bit of nutty flavor to the cup which is kind of nice for the brownie batter taste. I find that the chocolate-y flavors develop as I sip, now that I’m nearly toward the bottom of my cup I’m experiencing a lot more chocolate-y flavors than I did at the start.

Really yummy!