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.