Honeybush Vanilla

Num nums.

Sweet but not too sweet. Refreshing.

Well, my late night brew time has arrived. This is the Honeybush variety of Adagio’s vanilla tea. In bag, it smells almost too sweet. But there is an additional scent there, something akin to bourbon. It’s almost syrupy sweet smell, so we shall see how well that translates.
Steeping is western style. I will point out that I steeped this about 3 minutes longer than I usually do. I forgot to not listen to Adagio’s instructions and only steep 3 minutes. Water was boiling.
Flavor is… well it’s better plain than the vanilla rooibos, if that makes any sense. I can smell more sweetness then I taste. The sweetness with no added sweetener is very mild. The vanilla is there but isn’t necessarily bitter or sweet. It’s sort of a neutral vanilla note. I’m not getting any real flavor of that bourbon I smelled. I mean it may be there if you hold it in your mouth and search for it, but in regular sippage it’s missing. The tea overall is slightly bitter, but I don’t want to add splenda because I am afraid it will go too far the opposite direction. I suppose this is an acceptable tea. If you like vanilla, then this may be ok. But more than likely it’s probably too bitter and muted for most peoples tastes. Technically, when taken straight, it’s better than the Rooibos Vanilla from same company. But it’s really not the best. I will likely finish the sample but that’s about it.

Woody, sweet, with the smoothness of vanilla right towards the end of one’s mouth where one would expect the usual rooibos nibble (not a bite) to happen. It’s not as sweet as the regular rooibos or the honeybush tea. It’s not a tongue-curler. it’s still somewhat of a dry drink. The vanilla flavor doesn’t seem like the same vanilla in the vanilla green, but if it is, it’s behaving differently due to the different tea base.

I do want to like this, and I probably do like this more than a regular rooibos. Thing is- I’m worrying if my taste is changing away from rooibos, and that worries me. This tea just doesn’t strike me as fantastic. it hits my ‘meh’ button- but because it’s vanilla I may well like it more if I did a blind taste test with other rooibos teas.

Too sweet. Not for me.

These teas are meant to be enjoyed without additional additives. To add anything taints the flavor of the tea, overwhelms the otherwise subtle sweetness and burst of vanilla swimming throughout each sip.

Added 1t of sugar. This tea is delicious – the honeybush gives the full background and the sweet vanilla flavor makes it slightly more interesting.

Hmmm. I ordered a honeybush sampler because I’ve really never tried them before. It’s not bad, but it’s not what I typically enjoy. I will save it for winter because it seems like a great tea for sick days.

The scent is of vanilla extract (it smells strongly like vanilla beans and bourbon.) It has a sweet, creamy taste. The vanilla flavour is a little too mild.

This is not something I’d pay for, luckily its the free sample I got with my big order. I don’t hate it, but the smell reminds me of wood chip mulch, and thats a bit distracting. I don’t get much of the vanilla, but having not tasted the NOT vanilla I don’t have a comparison point so I’m not sure. The smell definitly has a honey note to it before steeping, but once its steeped I only get that woodchip smell. I’ll use this up, and maybe try one other variety as a free sample on my next order out of curiosity to see if I like the style but not the flavor, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.

It doesn’t smell too much like vanilla, but once steeped, has a sweet, creamy and warm vanilla flavour, not too strong, but nice.
A good tea for nights, but not one to have every night.

I wonder how does it tastes like with a drop of milk.