Honeydew Mate

So I’ve decided, i really like this tea. It’s fresh and light and awesome. I don’t mind the hint of bubble gum scent even, because it’s getting more honeydew like to me. I think my favorite part of this tea is that it is a way to have caffeineated green rooibos. It’s my only blend with it that has caffeine, and it’s a nice change! I think I will have to stock up on some of this. I really like it! See previous notes :)

Oh, and second day of spring, we are in a major winter storm… Highways almost shutting down. And of course I have my grad pics later today, going to try to not get snow in my hair lol

Fiiiiinaally I am drinking tea at an appropriate time to sample this one (aka not late at night). Like all those other caffeinated teas are any better. Riiight.

Anyways! Dry, this one smells really deliciously like honeydew melon, which is about the only thing that led me to pick this one up, since I don’t really seem to be a fan of mate or guayusa. Steeped, it smells similar, and… omg… it actually truly tastes like honeydew!!! I am impressed. There’s a bit of an… earthy flavour in here as well, which is probably the mate, but it all works quite well. The tea is sweet enough not to require additions either, which is pretty awesome. Again with the grumpy stomach bit, so this isn’t as satisfying as it could be, but I’m pretty pleased. I bet this would be tasty iced like Cantaloupe & Cream (that is, cold-brewed, warmed a bit, and sweetened slightly).

ETA: Tasty re-steep in half the water, left for eons (idk, 10 mins?)

Guess what guys – it’s finally happening! I have a dentist appointment tomorrow to get all my stupid mouth pains fixed!!! YAY!

Anyway, I steeped this up for morning tea – finally! I’ve wanted to try it forever because it just sounds amazing, but I’ve been sort of putting it off because I have a limited amount and what if I just love it and then can’t get anymore!? However, VariaTEA sent me a fairly large amount of it in our last swap so I decided to finally give it a go. The leaf I’m using right now actually came from BrewTEAlly Sweet as part of her tea stash sale, though.

My steeping parameters were 1 1/2 tsp. of leaf in 8 oz. of boiling water, steeped for six minutes. Dry the leaf smells kinda sweet but not really melony, and steeped up the smell is faintly melon with sort of bubble gum notes?

Taste wise? Ughhh…

That is mouth wateringly juicy! I actually really truly taste the honeydew! Which is awesome because I love honeydew! I hardly ever got to have it growing up because no one else in my family liked it. Sometimes we got watermelon which was ok because that’s my favourite melon (Honeydew is number two), but usually we got Cantaloupe which is my least favourite melon.

In addition to juicy honeydew flavours, I get a very subtle earthiness from the mate and an almost equally subtle taste of the green rooibos. There’s also bubblegum-esque notes. I’m not really sure what white hibiscus blossoms are supposed to taste like – the only other thing I’ve had them in was DT’s Buddha’s Blend and I really dislike that one. However, I don’t taste anything reminiscent of that mess of a tea at all (yay).

So overall – super impressed! I really hope this comes back with the spring collection (pretty sure that’s where it’s from) so I can get more of it. I can totally see this being my go to mate for early mornings over Main Squeeze which is also a favourite. Next up will be cold brewing this one because I’ve heard it’s good that way.

Sipdown!! (200)

This came to me from Lovelylotus when I first started on steepster and I finally finished it today. Although I am glad I tried it, I am not too sad to see it go. I find the honeydew pleasant enough but it is such a subtle flavor to begin with that it is being drowned out by the more prominent mate. Not bad but not something I reach for. Nonetheless, thank you Lovelylotus for sharing :)

On another note, I finally tidied up my tea stash a little bit. I now have a multitude of different boxes including a swap box (teas that I want to swap out), a box of swaps (teas sent to me by other steepsters), and a sipdown box (teas with a mere one or two cups left). I think my roommate will probably appreciate that my teas are not as vastly spread out anymore.

tea haiku

honeydew mate
very sweet juicy and ripe
great start to morning

(some liberties on the formal haiku taken)

seriously though, I do really enjoy this tea. Bought 2 oz at the local davids yesterday.

SIPDOWN! sooo i’m not a big fan of mate but one of the girls on the floor at work purchased a bunch of david’s teas the other day and is pretty much getting me to try as many of them as she can. She not only sent me home with her extra samples but also teas in baggies to try. I tried to finagle more pom tango out of her for kittenna, but she’s attached to it. So guess i’ll have to wait for it to be back in the store kittenna! Don’t be hating that i got to try it :)

I wasn’t too sure on this one, because i’m not overly a fan of mate. This one smells pretty good, but reminds me more of random melon flavour than specifically honeydew.

In drinking it, it tastes pretty decent BUT there’s an after taste there that my taste buds want to call smokey…but i KNOW it’s not smokey. Not too sure what’s happening there but i’m hopeful that i’ll figure it out. Overall this isn’t a BAD tea, but it kinda falls into my oh yeah..that’s a david’s tea category :)

I love the smell of the dry blend, which has a nice rooibos melon armona, but I’m not so much a fan after everything is steeped. I can definitely distinguish the smell of the mate in this cup and that reminds me of pulling all-nighters.

I can also taste the mate, as well as the green rooibos and melon. The flavours meld into each other quite nicely, actually; this is a good pairing and everything seems to bring a lot of flavour to the cup. I don’t know if I can pick out the white hibiscus, however. It’s sweet and syrupy mid-sip, like honeydew melon (also, a little watermelon, cantaloupe, etc.). I’m picking up something a little tangy in the back of the throat.

It reminds me of Lucious Watermelon from last year, except this definitely has a strong (mate) base where the LW was all fruitiness. I’ll have to try this iced soon.

1.5 tsp for 300mL @ 95C, steeped 6 minutes.

Yes, I steeped it a long time. And that’s okay, because it did not get bitter.

I hardly tasted the mate at all, getting much more of the honeydew and green rooibos. It’s sweet, and it tastes mainly of honeydew melon. Quite agreeable, if you like honeydew. I’ll report later on any mate buzz.

From the Great Canadian TTB.

It seems to me that Davids Tea (and many other companies) seem to sneak rooibos in to most of their tea blends.

I had wanted to try this when it came out in the summer but not bad enough to pick any up. So I am glad that I have a chance to try this through the box.

Dry, this was smells similar to bubbicious bubble gum.

After brewing, there is an artificial candy melon smell mixed with a kind of coffee grounds smell.

The brewed tea tastes like roasted mate mixed with the candy melon taste. To me it is not the greatest flavour combination (the roastiness with the melon). I think this one may have been better as a guayasa blend or just a rooibos blend.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this one. But I do so love melon, any kind of melon, so I couldn’t resist picking some up.

The scent is definitely melon. The taste is actually quite nice – not too heavy. There’s an initial taste of melon with an aftertaste of mate. I’m not a mate fan unfortunately but I’m still able to enjoy this cup. I can imagine this would be amazing iced. Perhaps I’ll pop the remainder of this mug in the fridge.

Update: Tried this one chilled and the mate comes through much more so this one will be a pass for me. The melon flavour would great in a green or white tea I imagine.