Peanut Butter Chocolate Hojicha Powder

Sipdown.

I had this a few times and like other peanut butter teas, I just couldn’t perceive the peanut butter flavour at all. It could be that after having peanut butter powder in a smoothie, I’m expecting that level of flavour. Either way, disappointing. I drank this a while ago and oddly can’t remember my thoughts on the hojicha powder, just the lack of peanut butter flavour.

You know, I’m never going to be a hojicha person, but I keep trying! I drink this with almond milk to try to help bring out the nuttiness, and mostly, I just taste toasty hojicha. The flavoring I’m sure is helping it be less aggressive than usual, but I wish I could taste more chocolate and especially more peanut butter! I do taste a bit. I think I like this more than any hojicha I’ve had before at least! I’ve had it a few times now, and I like it with whipped cream on top.

This is from an awesome package from Cameron B!  Thanks very much!  I love being able to try teas I would just 99% chance probably never get to try otherwise, if it wasn’t for samples.  I am very much a fan of chocolate peanut butter combinations.  And the promise of a houjicha powder base — even better.  This might be my first “houjicha powder” that I have tried?  I just mixed some of this in some cold milk. I just love the idea of this blend, however in cold milk it seems to me to taste mostly like hot chocolate powder.  There was a HINT of houjicha in one sip… I am making a note now to try the remainder of my sample in water — not milk — to get a better idea of the flavors here.  I’m sure instructions say to use ten teaspoons or something crazy per serving, but I’m not up to doing that. heh.  On a good note, the powder was fairly smooth.  I think the cane sugar used here, was the perfect sweetener and perfect amount (for what I added to the mug anyway.)

As I said earlier today there are a handful of new teas that launched this past week and one of them (maybe the one I’m most excited about) is this one! It’s a first for DAVIDsTEA as we’ve never carried hojicha powder before.

As I think most people here on Steepster know, I fucking love hojicha. Straight. Flavoured. Powdered. It’s all just fanastic. I own so, soooo many different hojichas in my personal collection and it’s just an ingredient that I get so excited about whenever I have an oppertunity to professionally work with it. I think it’s just so distinct and delicious – and the powder form is honestly just the next natural evolution to not only DAVIDsTEA’s matcha assortment (I know it’s not the same, but it’s made the exact same way) but the matcha boom/trend that’s been taking place in North America for the last handful of years. It’s honestly wild to me that flavoured hojicha powder hasn’t really hit the market yet…

So, all that to say that getting to put my own stamp on hojicha powder as a product not just for DT but within the industry as a whole was pretty incredibly meaingful to me both personally and professionally.

So what does this taste like? Well, it’s hojicha forward for sure which means it’s got that lovely, dark roasty flavour of different grains and nuts with a hint of caramel or coffee. Perfectly suited to really compliment the peanut butter and chocolate notes of this tea! We did initially try doing this blend using chocolate flavouring, but chocolate flavouring really just couldn’t deliver the richness that I felt the tea needed in order to stand up to the hojicha itself. That’s why we switched to cocoa powder, which adds to both the mouthfeel and the taste. The peanut element was very cool because we ended up using a totally peanut (and nut in general) free natural roasted peanut flavouring which means that the blend is actually allergy friendly. Hooray for accessibility!

On its own, I do find it a little bit harder to distinctly taste the peanut butter notes as they blend very seamlessly into the natural nuttiness of the hojicha itself. Where this tea really shines is when you make it as a latte (or even just add a splash of milk) – both hot or iced. The creaminess accentuates both the chocolate and peanut butter type flavours and makes this feel like a more elevated or mature Reese’s peanut butter cup profile. So decadent but not as superficially sweet tasting.

I’ve gotta say that I really hope this does well because boy oh boy would I like to release more flavoured hojicha powders. I have many, many ideas of different flavours that would be so fun to explore!

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/CvxwhKiug1V/

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKB2o_E0jf4

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.