Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
This is a crowd pleaser. Order this today and offer your Thanksgiving dinner guests an awesome caffeine-free treat with organic flavors of gingerbread and a hint of cream cheese frosting. This is a real treat and likely to go fast. Do not miss out on this one.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
Gingerbread is not something I eat often. I like some gingerbread, but most that I find tends to be a little on the wimpy side with no real ginger flavor. An exception to that is the gingerbread that I’ve tasted from Nikki’s Cookies. Good stuff.
But a lot of the gingerbread that you can buy in the grocery stores (about a month ago, you couldn’t walk into a grocery store without seeing a “gingerbread house kit.” And most of that stuff tastes like it was made from cardboard. No real ginger flavor – it’s as if the ginger that they use in the recipe is ground ginger that had been sitting on the shelf since Christmas in 1990. Boring flavor with no ginger kick.
So I’m hoping this tea will give me the kind of gingerbread flavor I want!
I hot-brewed this tea. I brought a quart of water to 195°F and dropped the sachet into the kettle and let it steep for 9 minutes. Then I strained the liquid into my favorite half gallon iced tea pitcher and repeated the process: heated a quart of water – 195°F – and put the same sachet into the kettle. This time, I let it steep for 11 minutes. Then I let the pitcher come to room temperature before I stashed it in the refrigerator to cool overnight.
Today, I have a pitcher full of gingerbread tea! Well, I guess I should say, I did have a pitcher full of gingerbread tea. Now I have about 1 glassful of tea remaining at the bottom of the pitcher and that glassful will be consumed soon!
This has a nice ginger flavor. The ginger is subtle but present in every sip. It doesn’t have a strong, peppery zing from the ginger, but there’s enough ginger in there to know that you’re tasting ginger. And there’s a pleasant sweetness, almost molasses-y, and that’s something I want to taste with gingerbread too.
This is sweet and enjoyable without being cloying. The ginger cuts through enough of the sweetness to keep it from tasting too sweet. The honeybush is a good base for the gingerbread flavors because the nutty and honey-esque flavors of the honeybush really tie in well with the overall gingerbread concept.
If I’m to offer any “complaint” about this tea, it would be that I want a little more “buttery/pastry” like flavor. That – it would seem – has become a common complaint of mine about some of the baked good flavor teas that 52Teas/Southern Boy Teas/Zoomdweebies has been producing as of late. I’m just not getting the buttery/pastry-like flavor that I’ve come to love from some of 52Teas’ classic flavors like their Pancake Breakfast tea. I think that would make this taste more like a gingerbread cookie.
That said, I found this iced tisane to be enjoyable. I like the flavor of the ginger and the molasses notes are quite delightful. It’s not my favorite iced tea selection from Southern Boy Teas, but it’s tasty and refreshing. The fact that the half gallon pitcher is nearly empty after it being in the refrigerator for less than a day should be testament to the fact that I enjoyed the flavor and it is very easy to drink.
Please take a moment to check out Frank’s Kickstarter campaign! He’s looking to take Southern Boy Teas to new heights and the fundraising effort will help get him started in the right direction! Please help this small business!
Cinnamon Apple Honeybush from 52Teas
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tisane Description:
Organic, caffeine-free honeybush blended with real freeze-dried granny smith and red delicious apples, cinnamon chips and organic flavors.
Learn more about this tisane here.
Learn more about 52Teas’ subscriptions here.
Please check out my campaign to take over 52Teas here! Please help me keep 52Teas alive and kicking out those teas every week!
Taster’s Review:
It seems that this fall season, Zoomdweebies is embracing the apple! There have been several apple-y flavors released this year. That’s OK with me, because I’ve been enjoying them!
For this review, I decided to try something a little different with the brewing process. I steeped it in my Breville One-Touch (nothing different about that) but instead of going with 500ml of water, I went with 750ml of water and poured the whole pouch (1/2 ounce) of tisane into the basket of my Breville. The reason for this is that when I was measuring out the 3 bamboo scoops of tea into the basket, I noticed that there was about a scoop left of the tisane (maybe a little more than 1 scoop, like a heaping scoop). So, I decided to to ahead and add a little more water to the jug and use the whole pouch. I set the parameters for 195°F and 10 minutes steep time.
The result is a tasty pot of caffeine-free tisane! Two very large mugs full to the brim of cinnamon apple-y goodness. Before I took my first sip, I set my Breville One-Touch to “keep warm” so that I could have another hot cup of yummy, but shortly afterward, I thought that I’d like to try it iced. So, I poured the rest of the tea into a lidded cup so that I could refrigerate it.
This blend is a really delightful combination of flavors: the sweet apple notes with just a hint of tartness toward the finish, the zesty, warm notes of cinnamon and the honeyed nutty flavors of the honeybush. It’s pleasantly sweet – no need for additions with this one – so if you’re one who typically adds sweetener before you taste it, I would recommend trying this one before you add anything to it. If you like your drinks sweet, a dollop of honey would be a nice addition.
Served warm, I find it to be somewhat hot apple cider-like and I really liked that. It also makes a refreshing cold drink, although I found that as it cooled, I could taste a slight chemical note from the flavoring. It’s very slight and it was not as apparent to me when I drank the hot tea.
I enjoyed this, but not quite as much as I enjoyed some of the other apple offerings this season from Zoomdweebies.
Cotton Candy Honeybush Iced Tea From Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: Zoomdweebies
Tea Description:
Our cotton candy iced teas have been a big hit, so I decided we really should have a caffeine-free, honeybush version.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn about SBT’s subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
I love the cotton candy teas that Zoomdweebies creates. So I was confident that I’d enjoy this one too.
And I do.
I way, way oversteeped this – but because it’s a honeybush blend, I wasn’t worried. When I say “way, way oversteeped” what I mean is that I infused 1 quart of water with the sachet for over 30 minutes.
I forgot to set my timer and I stepped away and then I looked at the clock a half an hour later and remembered that I had this tea steeping! Yikes!
But again, no worries. And no bitterness. Honeybush just doesn’t get bitter. The same is true of rooibos. However, I’ve found that if you use too hot of water to steep either one, the leaves may impart a funky, sour wood kind of flavor that I don’t really enjoy. But since I heated the water to 195°F rather than boiling, I didn’t have to worry about that funky flavor either.
The sweet, sugary cotton candy flavor is strong and I like it with the honeybush base. The lightly sweet flavor of the honeybush highlights the sweet candy notes. I don’t taste a strong nutty or woodsy note from the honeybush. I taste some background flavors of the honeybush, but it doesn’t overpower the fluffy notes of cotton candy.
This flavor works really well with the honeybush, in fact, I think that I might prefer the honeybush base to either the black tea or the green tea versions of cotton candy iced teas from Southern Boy Teas!
Another yummy iced tea. Very refreshing!
Strawberry Lemonade Flavored Honeybush Iced Tea from Southern Boy Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: Southern Boy Teas
Tea Description:
Premium organic caffeine-free honeybush with organic flavors.
Learn more about this iced tea here.
Learn how to subscribe to SBT’s tea of the week here.
Taster’s Review:
I could really smell the strawberry lemonade-ish-ness of this blend the moment that I tore open the pouch! It smelled like a pitcher of yummy strawberry lemonade!
When I first saw this blend on the website, though, I wasn’t as confident about it. Oh sure, I love strawberry lemonade. But I wasn’t really sure how I’d like these flavors combined with the natural nutty flavor of honeybush. It just didn’t seem like something that would work well.
Well, I was wrong. Please don’t tell my husband I admitted that. It’s much better that he operate under the notion that I’m always right.
This is really tasty. The strawberry and lemonade notes are strong and forward, while the nutty, sweet notes of the honeybush are a little off to the background and don’t really obstruct the flavors of the sweet-tart lemonade and strawberry.
The lemonade is the prominent flavor. It’s tart, but not pucker-y tart. There is some sweetness to it thanks to the strawberry. The tartness comes through strongest at the finish, when I taste both the sour notes of the lemon as well as the tingly berry tart. There is some sweetness from the honeyed notes of the honeybush base.
Something else that I found interesting: as I neared the bottom of the glass, I started to pick up on this creamy taste. I don’t usually get a strong “creaminess” from honeybush. Occasionally the nutty flavors translate into a slight creaminess but this time, the creaminess was strong enough that I really took notice of it. Nice! “Cream” is not a flavor that I would normally associate with Strawberry Lemonade but I like it here.
It’s a really tasty and refreshing iced tea. I’d recommend keeping a couple of packages of this on hand for when you’re having guests over – this is the kind of tisane that everyone will enjoy. It’s a funky twist on the Arnold Palmer!
Maple Vanilla Honeybush from 52Teas
Tisane Information:
Leaf Type: Honeybush
Where to Buy: 52Teas
Tisane Description:
This week’s tea is a new blend of caffeine-free honeybush, vanilla bean pieces, marigold petals and organic vanilla and maple flavors. This is an awesome relaxing night-time blend.
Learn more about this tisane here.
Learn more about 52Teas’ subscriptions here.
Taster’s Review:
I’m not generally all that excited about the honeybush blends from 52Teas. I mean, I usually like them alright and some of them I enjoy quite a bit. But when I read the announced flavor of the week and it happens to be a honeybush flavor, I can’t say that I’m all giddy about it. But this one … this one I was excited about. I love maple. I love vanilla. And the idea of maple and vanilla together with the naturally nut and honey notes of honeybush? Yeah, that sounds pretty darned tasty!
And it is. This is the perfect late-night snack when you want something yummy to satisfy that sweet tooth craving. Sweet, creamy vanilla. Nutty flavors from the honeybush. The maple … mmm! And there is a light honey-like note in the background that sort of melds with all these flavors. This is deliciously, decadently sweet!
To brew this, I put 3 bamboo scoops of the tisane in the basket of my Breville One-Touch tea maker, and then added 500ml of freshly filtered water to the kettle. The reason I added 1 extra scoop of tisane is that I generally do add a little extra leaf to honeybush and rooibos blends. They tend to have a slightly thinner body and I feel that the little extra leaf really helps enhance the flavor. I set the parameters for 10 minutes steep time at 195°F.
And like I said – yumminess! This would make the ideal dessert substitute for someone who is looking to cut the calories and fat without losing out on the flavor of a delicious dessert. This really does taste like an indulgent dessert. Like vanilla bean ice cream that’s been topped with real maple syrup and a sprinkling of chopped nuts.
Because it has that decadent flavor, I think that this is best hot. Sure, it still tastes good as it cools, but there’s something remarkably cozy about it when it’s served hot. It’s like comfort food. It’s like that big chunk of cake that you eat to coddle the broken heart after a break up, but it won’t keep you from fitting in that little black dress next weekend!