This is another sample generously shared with my by Ninavampi! I will admit, I’m a huge coconut fan but the honeybush aspect of this? Makes me a bit nervous. But I enjoy Teas Etc’s Coconut Custard, so maybe it won’t be as bad as I fear.
Gotta say, the smell of the unleaf isn’t exactly calming my fears. It’s okay, but I don’t get coconut at all. More like… vanilla flavored Greek yogurt. Post-steeping, though, that’s got me really worried. I smell tart-sour like unripened berries and cough syrup and hamster bedding (wood shavings, basically, but a little sweeter).
Hold me. I’m scared. sip
Uhm. Okay. Not as bad as I was fearing but I had gone pretty far down the fear road because the smell is so rooibos-y (aka sour wood). But the taste… is okay.
I mean, I’m not really getting coconut, but there is something vaguely creamy going on. I keep thinking of cream cheese. Kind of bland and white and creamy and smooth and coating. So yeah, I’m going to go with this tastes like cream cheese.
That is, underneath the icky wet and slightly rotting wood.
Honeybush is better than rooibos for me because it doesn’t seem quite so rotten, but yeah, this is wet, squishy wood, like a fallen tree that’s been rained on for the past three days and it’s started swelling and going soft. (Rooibos is more like that tree fell into a pond three months ago and grew things on it.) Theoretically, it is possible that there is some coconut in here and it is a more nutty, woodsy style coconut that is just blending into (and being dominated by) the wood from the honeybush.
I’m going to go with a big ole “not for me” with this one. Cream cheese tea is interesting and thumbs up to 52Teas for getting that taste right (cause I figure cream cheese is just one step from cheesecake) but the flavor is too dominated by icky honeybush for me to deal well. But at least I got to try it!
