Nut & Honeybush Crunch

I like this. I don’t know how to describe it! It’s different from the others I’ve had, but in a good way. It’s not dessert sweet, but still just very yum. More of a clean taste, I guess? But still some sweetness. It’s a good breakfast companion for my Atkins chocolate chip granola bars.

I forgot to log previous cups, but this morning’s is the end of the 0.5 oz. sample I ordered. If I remember right, I think I got 3 cups out of it (12-16 oz. each).

Somehow I’ve never written a note on this one, and it’s not on my tea spreadsheet so I don’t remember who I got this from, but thank you to whoever it was! I’m drinking it as a latte tonight, and it’s tasty but I need to remember not to use maple syrup as sweetener in these lattes as it always comes off as sour when combined with the milk. There’s prominent apple, the hazelnut less so but it is still there lingering in the background. It’s giving me a sort of toasted honeyed granola impression, and I’m not mad at it.

This came as a sample with one of my Della Terra orders from a while back. I’m not sure why it languished, but it did. As with many languishing teas, I brought it to work knowing that my limited desk selection would end my procrastination. I’m not having a great time at work at the moment, and yesterday I finally made up my mind to leave. I’m going to use the weekend to take stock and apply for some jobs (I also have a PhD application in the works), so hopefully things will start looking up soon. In the meantime, I have tea to cheer me up.

Dry, this one smells gorgeous. Honey, fruit, and grain. It reminds me of some of the breakfast cereals I used to eat when I was younger. Sugar puffs, maybe? I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but it also reminds me of Special K cereal/breakfast bars.

I gave 1 tsp of leaf about 5 minutes in boiling water, and the resulting liquor is a golden brown. The base here is blend of green honeybush and green rooibos – I’ve tried both plain previously, and I definitely prefer them flavoured! They do lack some of the woodiness of the red versions, though, so that’s a definite point in their favour.

The main flavour here is apple. It’s the baked apple flavour that Della Terra do so well, rather than their odder floral-apple. After the initial fruitiness, there’s an almost toasted nuttiness. I can accept it as Hazelnut, as per the ingredients, but it’s a little generic tasting if I’m honest. The final flavour is honey, and it adds a smooth, rich sweetness that rounds out the sip perfectly and brings the apple and nut flavours together. If I’m looking for a cereal bar in a cup, this is the tea I’ll turn to! My only complaint is that it’s quite a strong flavour, and by the end of the cup it’s almost a bit much for me. A smaller cup would no doubt help with that, and that’s how I’ll approach it in the future. A unique blend among the teas I own.

This is nice. It reminded me of Teavana tropical nut paradise which I actually prefer to this one. But this is also very good, nice taste of nut and caramel I think.