Strawberry Pie Honeybush

My pick for National Strawberry Day. Strawberry teas are my very favorite, especially strawberry black teas, but I’m going in with something different today and trying a honeybush I picked up recently. Unfortunately, it doesn’t taste or smell anything like strawberries. Or pie. My first and immediate thought was that it smells like cherry cough syrup. The taste is medicinal as well but with that woodsy note added from the honeybush. Side note – I haven’t decided yet if I actually like honeybush. Most of the blends I’ve tried are from 52Teas, though there was one from Satori that I really enjoyed. It’s like it has this almost stale nutty taste that dominates all the other flavors. Does anyone else experience this or is it just me? Maybe I feel about honeybush the way some others feel about red rooibos (which I do like, by the way). The honeybush is overpowering the other flavors in this cup as well, but since the other flavors are cherry and medicine it’s not such a big deal.

52Teas Countdown- Day 11
I generally love berry blends by 52Teas, so I was quite excited to try this. There’s big pieces of freeze dried strawberries, and it does smell like strawberry pie! Nice and sweet, but very distinctly strawberry. It tastes as I imagined it would- strawberries coated in sugary glaze. I’m not getting any pastry note, but that doesn’t take away from the tastiness. I do wish it was on a black base, as the honeybush flavor is competing with the strawberry a bit.

Used more leaf than usual and cooler water as usual.

Cinnamon scent and taste. The strawberry flavour is gentle. I am not detecting any cream.

In my perfect world, I would prefer more strawberry and less cinnamon.

As an experiment, I added a spoon of honey to see whether it would bring the strawberry flavour up a bit, and it did, perhaps a little.

Herbal TTB

After the watery flavor I experienced with the other 52Teas honeybush I tried today, I decided to give this one the full 10-minute steep. Not sure if the longer steep time helped or if this is just a more fully flavored tea, but I’m definitely having a better experience with this one. It actually does taste a lot like a slice of pie! The front end of the sip is all strawberry, but there’s a bit of a pastry flavor and just the tiniest bit of cinnamon in the aftertaste. Very tasty!

I usually like honeybush teas hot, but this might be an exception. As this cup cools, I’m tasting the strawberry more and the honeybush less, and actually starting to taste the cream that other people have mentioned. It tastes like its getting sweeter as it cools, too. When it was hot, the honeybush was stronger and the strawberry tasted a little sour. This is a decent strawberry tea, but I don’t know if I’ll buy it again. I think I prefer strawberry teas with hibiscus rather than honeybush. I wonder how it would taste cold brewed?

This is probably my favorite blend from 52teas. Goes quite well with trefoils. Its amazing I can really taste the pie. I was worried at first thinking it was rooibos but the fact that it’s honeybush makes it that much better.

Cooking TTB #8

This tea is a tasty surprise!! I tend to find 52Teas a little temperamental, you usually need to really baby them within very specific steeping perimeters to get the full taste effect with them which I usually just don’t have the patience for. My new Breville tea makers has definitely helped me to enjoy my stash of 52Teas a little more as now I don’t have to worry about over/under steeping or my water temperature.

Brewed at 212 and steeped for 3 minutes this tea has some serious wild strawberry, cinnamon and crusty pastry notes! The strawberry is a little artificial tasting and I couldn’t drink more than one cup of this at a time but its a nice late morning / afternoon treat without the caffeine hit!

I definitely like strawberry in my teas because I think I’ve liked every strawberry variation I’ve had so far. This was nice because it had good strawberry flavor with just the right amount of cinnamon to make it feel desserty. I would have gone more with something along the lines of muffin than pie, but I’ll take it either way.

This is a great fall/winter cup. It’s warming and spiced and sweet. I can see why it was part of the best sellers group.

It’s just not really for me.

I really think the honeybush base for this was brilliant. It’s a bit spicy in itself and it comes together with the cinnamon and creates a wonderful spiced note, that really does suggest strawberry pie in a way.

It’s the strawberry flavor that is kind of meh, for me. It’s not plasticy or insanely artifical like I’ve had before, but it tastes a bit like freeze dried strawberry (y’know those little strawberry bits in cereal? Like that). It’s not bad, but it’s definitely just a bit off. I know sweet natural tasting strawberry can be done in tea — I’ve had it before — so this is a little bit of a let down.

There’s really no suggestion of a crust, no butter, sugar or pastry flavors, so this is all about the filling, and when that missed the mark a bit it kind of brought the whole cup down for me.

Definitely good, but not as great as I might have been expecting.

Thanks AlexaK!

Edit:
I made a second cup of this as a latte, and definitely preferred it that way. The freeze dried quality of the strawberries becomes less pronounced and more desserty.

Sample comes via VariaTEA.

DT’s Sweet Strawberry put me into a strawberry mood for the rest of the evening, so I broke open my sample of this despite not really intending on trying it yet.

I have to say – it was weird (strawberry/cinnamon isn’t really a flavour combo I’m used to or can say I’ve ever really craved) but I think in a good way, overall. I did enjoy the cup and I can see where the “pie” comes in. I’ll enjoy finishing the sample, too – but I wouldn’t feel a need to order it again either.

Just another 52Teas blend to cross off!