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“This smells like strawberries and cream. VERY intensely scented. It’s yummy smelling. I was going to say this was my Rooibos of the day but technically it’s honeybush, I guess. This was a gift...” Read full tasting note
“GASP Steepster ate my review of this! Bad, bad Steepster! It sort of poofed when I clicked the button. BOOOOOO. Okay, um… let’s see. Dried blood, strawberry strawberry strawberry, ice… where did I...” Read full tasting note
“The Final Sipdown: Day 14.2 I’ll confess: I dumped my entire sample of this [thanks teaplz!] into the strainer. I figured it was honeybush, so it wouldn’t really make a difference and I’d just...” Read full tasting note
“I have too much tea. This was on the shopping list because I thought I was out. I was straightening out the tea collection, when I realized that the old webtea tin (does it age me? Anyone else...” Read full tasting note
Discover new depths of sweetness. Caramel and strawberry swirl effortlessly with South African Honeybush for a guilt and caffeine free dessert blend.
Ingredients: Honey bush tea, pieces of caramel, natural flavor, strawberry bits and leaves.
Preparation: 3g Honey bush tea (2 level teaspoons) per 8oz cup of filtered, boiling water. Allow to brew 5-10 min.
Company description not available.
This smells like strawberries and cream. VERY intensely scented. It’s yummy smelling. I was going to say this was my Rooibos of the day but technically it’s honeybush, I guess. This was a gift from Ashley. Thanks so much!
This is very sweet but not tart. This is also very light tasting…not mellow, but fluffy…lightweight, that is.
I would say this is pretty good but nothing tremendous. I am going to try it iced because I think it was more meant for that…or at least it seems to be…more of an iced flavor instead of a HOT Cuppa.
GASP Steepster ate my review of this! Bad, bad Steepster! It sort of poofed when I clicked the button. BOOOOOO.
Okay, um… let’s see. Dried blood, strawberry strawberry strawberry, ice… where did I even start? I doubt I can type that all out again, so I’m going to summarize.
1. PRETTY LEAVES: They’re red and green and caramel-bits and yeah. Look at the picture. I’m lazy now.
2. DARK INFUSION: Steeped it up for around 8 minutes and it’s the color of dried blood. Also, there are bits at the bottom that are positively black, and I’m sort of scared of them, so I’m using my spoon to stir it up. Also, note: afraid that tea might stain teeth, spoon, mug. Brush teeth after!
3. SMELL: Burnt sugar and heavy strawberry in the infusion, completely strawberry in the dry leaves, medicinal in the wet.
4. TASTE: “Oh hai, I’m a strawberry, if you’d like to become one, just drink Smooth Strawberry Dream!” Seriously, tart-strawberry mixed with the slightest hint of caramel and finished with a sweet honeybush note. Sometimes a bit too tart at points, and the strawberry gets overwhelming. As is cools, the caramel peeps out a bit more. Just a tad more.
5. VERDICT: If strawberries are your fruit of passion, drink this and you’ll be happy. I tend to prefer strawberry paired with heavier stuff (like black tea, like Mariage Freres and their Marco Polo and now I’m craving that instead of this). Might be good iced?
6. SADDED: Note disappeared! Pout. I’m so copying this one so it doesn’t eat this one as well!
Nice review I wan’t to try this but teagschwender does not accept paypal or money orders which is what I used.
I admit the blood thing was different.
Hmm. I had a tin of this last year and went through it pretty quickly. It’s one of the handful of rooibos blends that I like. (Well, the number is starting to grow now, but rooibos straight……haven’t learned to like it.)
I often think that I should order some more of this. I really liked it a lot.
It’s pretty good! I think I’m just not a fan of strawberry things when they’re piping hot. I might actually like this one better iced, but I’m too lazy to do iced tea half of the time.
The Final Sipdown: Day 14.2
I’ll confess: I dumped my entire sample of this [thanks teaplz!] into the strainer. I figured it was honeybush, so it wouldn’t really make a difference and I’d just steep it at the shortest end of the recommended steep time range. The tea brew was dark, dark, dark which made me nervous, but I could smell strawberry from a few feet away, so I figured it probably wasn’t horrible.
And it wasn’t.
But it also wasn’t fantastic.
This seems to be a theme for me.
The smell of the strawberry was strong. It was accompanied by a strong smell of caramel. Both of these components were present in the taste of the tea, albeit the caramel was rather weak and only appeared at the front of the sip and at the tip of the tongue, and the strawberry was disappointingly watery.
Also present was a medicinal taste that seems to accompany a lot of these honeybush/rooibus flavored blends.
When I think about this tea, I keep thinking, “That wasn’t too bad.” But really, when I have a solid stack of really great herbals at my disposal, why bother?
Also, does anyone else think that Smooth Strawberry Dream kind of sounds like a race horse name?
Teas Downed: 23
I have too much tea.
This was on the shopping list because I thought I was out. I was straightening out the tea collection, when I realized that the old webtea tin (does it age me? Anyone else remember this company?) still had some Smooth STrawberry Dream in it!!! Joy!
This is my absolute favorite rooibos. The first one that I actually liked, and one of the few that I’ve liked well enough to thing about reordering. It doesn’t come accross as rooibos to me, instead the strawberry and the caramel take center stage. I guess that’s why I like it so much!
I haven’t tried it iced, and I haven’t been in the mood for iced tea lately, so I’m drinking it hot today. I’m not sure how long I let it steep, I did a little bit of cleaning in the aquarium while I was brewing the tea. (Using a battery powered vacuum, which is fast, but that’s probably a review for a different website.)
Wow, I don’t believe I did anything correctly with this tea yesterday (though it was still very tasty). The smell as the tea steeped today filled my office area with a fantastic strawberry scent, it was even easy to pick up on the caramel in the air! The color was spot on with some of the most beautiful crimson fall leaves. As I was leaning into the cup for my first sip and had to close my eyes and just savor the air around my warmed face. The taste, as it was the last time I had a cup, was smooth and subtle. Which is perfect considering how pronounced everything is leading up to that point. I am quickly falling in love with this tea as a great way to start any morning.
*WARNING (Cheesy line time!)* “This tea must be the joyful tears of Merlin ‘cause it’s damn magical.” :p
So, it’s 2am and I’ve had a lot of caffeine today. A lot. But I’m not tired yet (not really surprising, huh?) and I want some tea. Since I really don’t need any caffeine right now, I went with this lovely fruit smelling beastie from the delightful teaplz. And it does smell lovely. Light and fruity, though maybe not quite strawberry… I’d vote for raspberry or an unripened blackberry, but that could be the smell of the leaves – berry leaves pretty much smell all the same to me.
I’m having trouble identifying the smell of the tea. Fruity, tart… sorta strawberry-y but mostly not. A smell of burnt sugar, maybe caramel. And sour. I’m typically okay with honeybush – not in love or anything, but okay with it (rooibos typically is the evil one) – but I’m thinking that the sour smell I’m getting is the honeybush. As the tea cools a bit though the sour smell melds a bit with the fruity-that-we-shall-call-strawberry to make a sour gummy fruit smell. This could be interesting.
Actually, it’s surprisingly mild. Woody but not sour (hallo honeybush) with a tart almost-strawberry fruit taste coming through, especially on the aftertaste which is pretty much all fruit. Ultimately though, it just doesn’t work for me. The flavors aren’t quite right and just don’t mesh for me. Additionally, I keep smelling sourness as I sip and that’s not cool (also not cool is the aftertaste I’m getting that seems remarkably related to that sour smell without actually tasting sour). I do like the fact that the flavor isn’t overwhelming though so that keeps it from being a bad tea (I realize my rating seems to contradict that but I had to go right below the yellow face). And in a running theme, the husband likes it more than I do so I’m the lone voice of ‘meh’ for this tea.
Advent day 11. If it wasn’t for the numbering system this company uses for it’s teas, I’d never have been sure if “Honeybush Emily” was the same as “Smooth Strawberry Dream”. It’s confusing. The tea it’s self is great! It has a bright baked strawberry flavor to it on a caffeine free base that is mercifully not rooibos. I was a bit awed by how tasty it was. It flattens out a bit when it cools, so drink this one hot!
Busy day today. Rental dog went home to his family. They are going to try and come together as a team to actually get him trained. So with any luck what we started will hold. Sad to see him go but also SUPER happy to have our house back so we can clean and get organised.
I also spent the better part of today getting tea packages ready for friends – something i have put off for too long. Also got everything prepped to be able to weigh my cupboard and land on a sipdown goal for 2016.
omgsrsly asked me to pick this one up for her when i was in chicago last since the store will let you get 50g instead of the forced 100g online. I haven’t tried this one yet so i pulled enough for a cup out (yes i asked!) to try it. What did i learn? I like tea G’s honeybush WAY more than their rooibos – which i dislike as it overpowers their flavours. Also, this is quite similar to walter bishop (old) but not quite there. the strawberry is a little artificial like, though in fairness i think i brewed this accidentally for about 15mins. A shorter steep would like have resulted in a creamier, less artificial strawberry taste. All that aside, i like this one more than others seem to have. :) I’d be inclined to pick some up again for myself in future, provided i get my cupboard under control heh
Final Count: 143
Thank you OMGsrsly for sharing but I think I messed this up terribly. All I am getting is a creamy honeybush in both smell and taste. I know this tea is so much more than that so I am sure it is personal error. Such sadness because I had high hopes for this one. Still, thank you for sharing your beloved tea!!
My last serving of this (I’m still so undecided! Do I keep some of what I was sent, or give it all to my friend?), and it’s a latte.
SO FREAKING GOOD PEOPLE OMG! These fruit teas with eggnog are AMAZING. It’s a strawberry custard pie. In a cup.
My mom’s rhubarb pie recipe is a custard pie, and she puts a little cinnamon and nutmeg in it, and honestly this strawberry tea and the blueberry rooibos, made as tea lattes, are just THE BEST. Especially since mom keeps forgetting to make the custard with gluten free flour, so I can never have her pie. (For thanksgiving I got ramekins of pumpkin and pecan pies which was rad, but then my brother got to take home 1/4 of each pie which. Really now.)
Pooh this one looks good. I’ll need to remember to check it out next time I’m in chicago
OH MAN, seriously – even though I can have normal wheat flour (though whether or not I should is a matter of debate that rages on daily in my tummy) I’d much rather have a ramekin of really good pumpkin/rhubarb/whatever custard and do without the crust, which is always the most underwhelming part of the affair anyway.
Sil – Do it, so good! And get some for me too. :D
Sami – I really like the crust. It’s not sweet, it’s buttery and crispy… yep, I’d be happy with crust. Unfortunately that’s not really that possible (most gf crust recipes suck. I need a better flour blend so I can just use my mom’s recipe).
Fruit and eggnog really is the way to go. Who knew? Lol
:D Fruit custard yum!
3! “Smells like strawberry and cream” lol:) That’s what I call a “well duh!” tea. Those are good:)
LOLOLOLOLOLOL! Well, duh! hahaha! Yes, yes…it is…silly me!
So..what is the difference between rooibos and honeybush? I had the impression they were the same thing.
Rooibos, which is only grown in South Africa, is Afrikaans for “Red Bush.” It’s actually green when ground but they allow it to oxidize which turns the leaves to a red color. Rooibos, of course, is not actually tea since it does not come from the Camilla Sinensis herb, native to China. It contains about 20-30 times more antioxidants than green tea, including about 8 times more vitamin C than a cup of orange juice. It contains 14 different types of antioxidants and it’s organic and naturally caffeine free. It’s an anti-inflammatory, so it’s used to reduce swelling in joints. It’s also commonly used around the world to soothe colicky infants, since it contains amylase, an enzyme that’s naturally found in the saliva of adults, but babies don’t produce it until between 4-5 months. It’s also great for urinary tract infections.
Honeybush comes from the Cyclopia herb, also only found to grow in South Africa, it’s also red in color and ground to about the same size as Rooibos. It’s also caffeine free and high in antioxidants. It has a similar taste to Rooibos, but it’s actually a little sweeter. The health benefits are almost exactly that of rooibos. They each contain a good bit of iron and are used to remedy anemia. They both calm the nervous system and are used as a sleep aide. They also detoxify the skin and aide in the reduction of skin ailments, like eczema.
That’s about all there is to it.
Thanks for the thorough explanation :D I found it quite helpful!
Another thank you for the great explanation! :)
I don’t like red rooibos… and haven’t tried green or either red or green honeybush- but I think I need to since eczema runs in our family!
I have green and red rooibos. To be honest, I do like the red rooibos better, only because it’s sweeter. Green rooibos is dusty and earthy. In fact, its the only tea I have, that when I open the bag and pour it into the giant tin I have for it, a giant poof of green powdery, tea smoke shoots into the air and I cough, heh. I honestly prefer my rooibos’ teas to contain some type of flavoring, like Belgian Chocolate or Bourbon Street Vanilla. Believe it or not, I sell green rooibos almost exclusively to male customers, I think because men usually like earthly, twig tasting teas, I guess they think it puts hair on their chest or something. Heh.
I have enjoyed both red and green depending on what they are each paired with. I know Renee at da.u.de uses Green Rooibos primarily because she isn’t fond of Red as much. I have enjoyed the 3 blends I have tried of theirs so far!
Then again…I like manly teas as well…lol…just no bacon (says the vegetarian) :P
But if it’s VEGAN bacon… then again lapsang souchong isn’t too much different.
The other day a guy bought half a pound of green rooibos from me and was so excited because he said he can never find it anywhere, most tea companies only sell the red, how often to run across the green?
I think Green is becoming more and more popular but I think it really just has the potential to keep growing! I haven’t seen to many creative blends featuring the GREEN Yet…only a few…and what I have had I have liked. I have also had a few Green Rooibos Chais…thought they were crazy until I tried them…weren’t too shabby…
Oh, I have a green rooibos blend called Desert Blossom, it’s green rooibos and cactus flowers, I’ll send you a sample. I use it in making my Rooibos Mirage, which is a special blend I make using green and red rooibos, with organic orange peels, peach and bourbon street vanilla.
Awesome!! :) Desert Blossom is a great name, btw! Rooibos Mirage…all I can think of is the Mirage in Las Vegas…which I should be able to visit in Sept!!! Can’t wait! I love it there!! Woot! Sounds like another goodie!!!!! Daniel…you have some great stuff!
Danke! I’m jealous, I’ve never been to Vegas. But I would love to go someday. Years ago, when I first got into the tea business, I was the general manager of the first Teavana franchise store, at that time they had left the franchise and became their own corporation. That was when Teavana only had two stores. Shortly after we broke away from them, they got a group of investors worth over $50 millon to come in and build stores across the nation. We use to buy a tea called Rooibos Tropica, from a tea wholesaler, but Teavana was a bigger fish and purchased a lot of tea from them and told them ‘not’ sell it to us, so that’s when we first blended Rooibos Mirage. It was meant to be a replacement for Tropica. I’ve honed it over the years and it’s funny, cause the the other day, I tasted from rooibos tropica from Teavana and I actually think our mirage is better that it now.
Oh!!! I’m intrigued! :)
Wow, my grammar progressively got worse in that comment…
I’ll send ya some.
Haha! That happens to me a lot Daniel. That’s why I want an edit button instead of just a delte button. And sometimes even they mysteriously vanish.
I knew what you meant! LOL :P
I find that when I’m telling long stories and I’m attempting to type as fast as it’s coming in my head, that the grammar becomes worse and worse. And God knows I’m way too lazy to proof read. :P
nah…proof reading-shmoof-reading! lol
I normally notice it just after I press “send”.
BA in English Lit gal/future librarian sez: it’s all good! In my first linguistics class the professor hammered it into our heads that “all grammars leak” and it’s futile to try and put hardcore rules on everyday language (both spoken and written). Business/school papers should observe the rules, but beyond that the only thing that matters is that the meaning of what you say is understandable.
All this is to say that you were completely understandable Daniel Mann and I found the story really interesting :D
Of course, there’s always those little things that bug me, like when people use the wrong ’there’s. Heh.
@ Rabs…I love your professor already….heh