Chocolate Covered Banana Honeybush

I only had about a teaspoon of this left, but I don’t remember drinking it before now. I must have at some point. Guess it’s been a while ago. This is an older tea as I’m trying to work my way through those that I’ve opened. Honeybush blends always seem to taste the same to me, no matter the other ingredients. I get a kind of nutty honeybush flavor and not much else. This is no different and I could certainty attribute it to the age, but it also matches some of my other experiences with honeybush so it could just be me. I do think perhaps I am picking up on the chocolate, but whether it’s because I knew it’s supposed to be there I couldn’t say. I don’t taste banana, but that could be the age too. I’m enjoying it and I suppose that’s the whole point, so there we go.

Shameless Plug —> A few of us are doing an advent swap! I know I don’t always remember to check the discussion boards regularly, so I thought I’d share here as well in case someone might be interested but hadn’t seen the post. So far, we have people joining in from Europe and the US. Please come join us if you’re interested! I’ll be matching everyone with their swap buddies in the next couple of weeks. :)

https://steepster.com/discuss/42125-2020-tea-advent-swap

Yum!
This tea tastes wonderfully like a chocolate covered banana! When it is hot the smell of banana is the most prominent flavor, but as you let it cool further, the flavor has more depth, with enough cocoa and chocolate to balance out the sweetness of banana and honeybush.

This is transporting me back to drinking a couple roasted maté blends, primarily 52teas Malted ChocoMaté (from years ago) and DAVIDsTEA’s Chocolate Rocket. Both, from what I remember, had a distinct banana note alongside those chocolate notes, with a roasted, coffee-like background. This has all of that. I wouldn’t have even known that it was honeybush if I were to taste this blindly. That chocolate note seems to be the most influenced by the nibs (versus the shells and chocolate chips).

It’s tasty, smooth, and definitely represents a chocolate-covered banana, so that’s great!

Friday at the Thai restaurant picking up the chef’s special. This is what I’ve been doing pretty regularly on Fridays and then I catch the frequent bus which takes me to my streetcar.

Today was freezing with a harsh wind and I was underdressed. The wind howled through the bus shelter ten minutes, twenty, thirty, forty. The bus eventually came and it was packed. I just barely squeezed in there.

The bus driver was in a chatty mood and I was his person. Why were the buses so delayed today, I asked. The transit commission has let go all of the bus drivers who refuse to be vaccinated and today was the first day of the ruling. Ok then.

Don’t even get me started.

I had COVId and was in hospital for three weeks on a ventilator, the driver told me. One of my passengers was sick with it and then I got it, he said.

My wife was pregnant with our third child then. I slept in the garage and washed there too to keep my wife and kids safe.

It’s been over a year since I was on the ventilator, but my throat still hurts from it. My chest still hurts. I feel like someone is squeezing my left lung in a fistful of knives every time I breathe, he said.

I got home eventually. It’s been three hours or so since then and I am still defrosting. My skin is still chilled.

Sadly, I had been neglecting my non-caffeinated teas for a long while and this one got shuffled to the bottom of one of my Project Sipdown baskets.

However, this is all milk-chocolatey deliciousness and a wee bit of banana sweetness, even after all this time. Delicious. And warm and wonderful.

I really need to drink Anne’s honeybush blends more often.

I’ve tried this blend a few times now, though the flavor was never prominent enough for me to make a tasting note before (though this blend isn’t the freshest, to be fair). So I tried two teaspoons this time around. I’m just surprised that with the all important cocoa shells with the chocolate chips that this blend doesn’t taste as chocolatey as it should! This time around was slightly better but I don’t want to use two teaspoons every time. I definitely taste subtle notes of chocolate and banana and both share the stage equally. I love the usual honeybush base (no one does a honeybush blend like 52Teas!) The second steep I left in the just boiled water for quite a while, so it had more flavor. This one is tasty and definitely something I haven’t seen before… I just wish there was MORE flavor here.
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug// few minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 10+ minute steep

really nicely balanced- neither flavor seems to overpower the other. The banana also tastes like actual banana which is a nice change from the usual very artificial banana flavored things… This is a nice desert-ey tea, perfect for before bedtime when i try to avoid caffeine.

Sipdown

Thank you Evol Ving Ness for the chance to revisit this tea. I didn’t initially love it but it makes for a pretty nice chocolate milk latte :)

There’s something about this one that smells kind of weird, but I don’t taste it at all. I’m really not sure what it is.
This one tastes just like banana oatmeal to me. It’s warm and comforting, and I wish this had caffeine because it would be a great morning tea! Even without, I still like it quiet a lot .

I got my order from 52 Teas today! I know, I know, I wasn’t going to order any more tea … Yeah, yeah. But I only ordered a few sample sizes. And I have a teeny bit of a sense of smell! And I remember how wonderful all of the 52 Teas I’ve had have tasted.

I had a hard time deciding which tea to try. All the teas sound awesome. I finally settled on this one because the directions said to allow the tea to cool for 5-10 minutes before drinking. It’s pretty hot here even with the air on, so I figured a cooling tea might be more refreshing.
It was refreshing. The scent was wonderfully like bananas and chocolate. (boy, I love being able to say that! This sense of smell is weak and will probably last only another week or so, but I’m enjoying it. It brews up a lovely dark apricot color. The odor was really like bananas and chocolate. I let mine cool for 5 minutes. My first sip was slightly woody. I’m not sure if that is quite the word, but I let it sit another couple of minutes and then it was perfect. The flavor was very subtle. That might be because my sense of smell is weak. I could definitely detect banana, and the chocolate was not so strong. Again, someone with a strong sense of smell might get different flavors. What mattered to me was that the woodiness was gone. The tea was slightly sweet on its own, no sugar or honey needed. This is a wonderful afternoon or evening dessert tea. This was the generous sample 52Teas sent along with my order. I wasn’t expecting an sample, since myh order was so small. But i’m grateful for it. Thjs one is definitely a winner!