Chocolate Malt

The house has been eating all my time lately, so I’ve missed a couple of tealogs again :(

The tea: I’m on my third pouch of this (clearly I’m a big fan), and this is apparently my first log! I usually write my tealogs during breakfast or lunch, and because I drink my honeybush teas at night I rarely log my poor honeybush blends despite relying on them every evening. This one is definitely one of my favorites. I make it a little stronger by adding at least an extra half teaspoon of the dry mix and I just leave it steeping. It gives it an extra oomph, and never seems to get bitter anyways so I figure there is no harm. Chocolaty Malty goodness, this is my night-time go-to drink.

The ramble: When we moved in less than 2 weeks ago, we found that the main floor bathroom smelled funky. We scrubbed it repeatedly to no avail. There was a bubble and rip in the linoleum, so we figured that may indicate the problem. Well, our intended quick fix of changing the linoleum gradually evolved into a slightly bigger powder room reno. My Dad came over and took out the toilet and discovered that the wax seal under the toilet was completely chewed away and even the concrete slab that it was sitting on was starting to crumble around it! We also noticed some staining on the wallpaper, so since the toilet was already out, we thought it was a good time to do the walls as well. But removing the wallpaper meant removing the trim and most of the cabinets…and so it goes. So together with my Dad we’ve ripped off wallpaper, cleaned the walls and started the sanding and mudding in preparation of the eventual painting of the room. It’s an unexpected reno, but once we’re done, it will be so much better than the pee-scented toilet in a stained floral wallpapered room that we started with. I’ll drink to that!

Someone just ordered this in the shop as a 16oz iced tea with a tablespoon of sugar, took one sip and exclaimed, “MY GOD! This tastes JUST like a chocolate shake!” Had to pass that on. =)

I was so excited when my 52 Teas package arrived! Yay! Tea! The best thing about being home on is getting the tea the moment it lands in your mailbox. And then brewing a cup of new tea right away! Perfect timing since I was feeling cold from walking my doggies in the snow. They were not pleased. They look absolutely adorable in their jackets though. :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23283174@N00/8456031767/

So since I’ve been wanting this particular tea the longest, I ripped it open and dreamt of sweet malty chocolatey tea while it brewed. Unfortunately, what it really tastes like is a vaguely sweet pure honeybush. If I didn’t see the cocoa nibs in there myself, I wouldn’t believe there was any chocolate in there at all. Where’s the malt? Where’s the chocolate?! So much disappointment. :( I’ve read some people saying that a newly flavored tea needs a few weeks to begin tasting the way it’s supposed to. But even if there seems to be no flavor whatsoever? So many good reviews for this tea from the past too… I guess I can only wait a few weeks and try again. I’ll hold off rating until then.

Um… YUMMY!

This is so good. So good, in fact, that it is difficult to be typing about it because, it’s… yeah, it’s that good. I think I even like this better than Chelsea’s Chocolate Banana.

I can’t even talk about it because this is too ridiculously good.

So I was poking through my box from Momo tonight, and was surprised to find this one! Ahh, so many teas I think I don’t have samples of, but actually do. Which is awesome, since I missed out on the last couple packets of this one and was sad.

The aroma of this tea is strangely almost a touch spicy, and I’m finding it difficult to discern anything chocolatey, possibly because I just drank the incredibly chocolatey Chocolate Cream Truffle Rooibos from Mahamosa. Oooh! I think that’s because the chocolate here is milk chocolate (just read that) – I sipped this and… holy yum! This is good!!! Frank, bring this one back! I’m not entirely sure why I’m pegging the smell as “spicy”, but the flavour is totally malty milk chocolate. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a tea that tasted quite so much like milk chocolate! This is amazing! Oh man. A chocolate honey bush with no mint?! Want want want! Perfect dessert tea, no scratchy throat from rooibos. A huge thank you (my bank account/lustful heart somewhat disagree…) to Momo for this one!!

ETA: Second infusion is too light for me, possibly because any chocolate in here would have been exclusively in the first infusion. Ah well.

Another day, another storm. This one sounds less intense so that’s good.

I decided to try to make this cold. I’m still not much of a fan of the taste of honeybush iced. It has a strange aftertaste to me. But since it is chocolate malt, it has to be cold! I did this a bit different. Steeped it double strength, then added coconut milk creamer to it, and a little chocolate syrup.

Honeybush when it’s cold just reminds me of wet wood. I’m hoping if I keep drinking it especially in such tasty ways, I’ll get used to it. Beyond the woody taste, this is so good. It’s like having a chocolate shake minus the heaviness of drinking one!

No thanks. Ugh. I hope the first incarnation of this was better cause let me tell you about how this is honey bush….with a side of honey bush…..sprinkled with a dash of….weird tasting sweetness. I tried steeping this longer, shorter…it’s just kinda ICK. I think that officially brings me that much closer to being able to say no to 52 teas going forward. Not that it’s been my favourite or anything but there have been some really tasty blends. Unless a few of the others that kittenna and I split, step up their game, I’m just going to go with no thanks going forward unless there’s something that I really really want. And I’d have to REALLY want it. Or unless I hear that frank has changed his tea bases again….

Hello again all my tea friends! I have been away from this site for 4 months! Pretty crazy. I am expecting my first baby and was sooo nauseated for a long time. I couldn’t even smell tea without feeling sick for the longest time :( It sucked big time. Anyway, enough rambling, I am back!

I ordered this tea a long time ago, and finally feel well enough to try this. This is wonderful. Sweet but not too sweet, malty with that wonderful chocolate taste. I imagine this would be awesome as a latte.

It made the perfect evening treat.

FYI: I steeped this for 10minutes.

Another good mail day! My Octavia samples order came (with 4 samples tucked in that I hadn’t ordered!), a wonderful-smelling package from Geoffrey arrived (my whole mailbox smelled like Lapsang Souchong…yum!!), and I got the marshmallow flavoring that I’d ordered ages ago! Having fun stuff in my mailbox has definitely helped me keep my sanity this week!

I have finally gotten around to trying out the sample of this that amandajo sent to me. Love the smell of this honeybush blend! All chocolate and malty…and the taste!! This tea is the one you want to use when trying to convert non-tea drinkers into the fold. Who needs hot chocolate? Oh, nom, nom, nom…

I was a little wary to try this one because the dry leaf smelled a lot like that cheap wine you buy in a box. I know that sounds terrible…maybe it’s the honeybush? This is only the second honeybush tea I’ve tried. I was so looking forward to a super chocolate shake-like tea that didn’t have caffeine, so I could drink it at night. The taste was better, more chocolate-y, but it still had that sweet wine smell and taste. At the bottom of my cup was a malty chocolate residual, so I know it’s in there. It’s not bad, and I feel like it might grow on me. Sometimes, what you expect a tea to taste like doesn’t mesh with what it actually tastes like, but you get used to the new taste. We’ll see.

Thanks LiberTEAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You will not be able to find a Chocolate Tea/Tisane that smells better than this! Ahhhhhh!

Um…yeah…this is Incredibly Good!!! I agree with the other reviews! VERY NICE!!!! I was thinking about giving it a 99 but I am going with a 100 for now until I can find something better…and I think that is going to be VERY hard!

This is sweet and chocolate and malty and yummy and goooey and smooth and it makes me crave more!!!!! Gimme! Gimme!

Another sample from the wonderful Sil! I did actually try and order this one, but a bag of Malted ChocoMate turned up instead. Still, it was just as welcome, and I’ve got to try both in the end anyway!

The dry leaves smell sweet and woodsy, and ever so slightly like maltesers. It’s only very slight at the moment, though — the main scent is undoubtedly the honeybush. That’s okay, though. Honeybush and I can get along.

Brewed, this smells rich and deep and chocolatey. Not so much like malted chocolate, more like a bar of chocolate that’s been melted. To taste, this isn’t quite what I was hoping. It is vaguely chocolatey, but I’m not really getting chocolate malt. There’s also a slightly odd chemically flavour that I know some others have picked up on too. It’s not overpowering, but it does seem to mask the flavour a little.

With my second and third cups, I tried a little more leaf and a slightly longer brew time, but that didn’t really change anything. I’m not 100% happy with this one. It’s a palatable enough honeybush, but it just doesn’t wow me like some other 52Teas blends have. I’m not missing the full bag after all!

Is it just me or have there been a LOT of 52teas honeybush blends recently? I’ve been subscribed to their tea of the week for a little under 2 months now and this is the 3rd one I’ve gotten—the first being Strawberry Rhubarb and then Walter Bishop. However, I’m not going to complain—I do like honeybush, though I don’t love it, and I’m dreading the day I get an inevitable rooibos blend that I can’t try!

This is pretty malty and chocolatey even iced, which is how I am trying this since I want the “chocolate shake” effect. I suppose the best way to really do that though would be to make it stovetop and then pour it over iced… or even better yet iced milk. I’m not going to rate this blend until I do it right, because while it’s nice now it probably has the potential to be great.

I think I’m in love. This tea is the definition of chocolatey – I could smell it thoughout the house while it was steeping, making my mouth practically water with anticipation. The flavour is sheer chocoholic’s heaven, the rich taste of chcolate blending seemlessly with the sweetness of the honeybush base and enhanced by the malt notes. I can totally see how adding some milk and a touch of sweetener would make this taste like a chocolate shake. I think I might try that with my next cup of the tea. Yummy!

This is the other tea I got in the mail today. I am completely incapable of leaving a bag of tea unopened in my tea drawer. It is totally Frank’s fault that I ordered this one. When he told me that I could order the Chai with Chocolate without the milk chocolate chips, he slyly also told me that I could order this one without the milk chocolate chips. Since malt might be one of my favorite flavors in this world, I couldn’t resist. So, this batch that I am drinking is also completely vegan.

I love this. It’s like the American Tea Room Choco*Late, but mellower… without the woodsy bite of the rooibos. The honeybush is perfect for this. I don’t know why there aren’t more honeybush teas out there (instead of rooibos). This also reminds me of the Neapolitan Honeybush, which I also liked, but without the strawberry mingled in. I’m definitely enjoying this one.

Wow….so so good! I love it by itself and also mixed with Teavana’s Zingiber Coconut. I just ordered a pound of it so I can drink it every night and not be stingy with it. Oh there’s my timer my second cup is ready!!

yumminess! Chocolate Heaven in a cup! Falling more and more in love with 52Teas :) (Just don’t tell my husband LOL)

Wow. Thankfully I snagged two of these pouches. This is my new afternoon and go-to non caffienated tea. This tea is great. Almost perfect minus a slight off taste from either the honey bush or the extracts.

Tastes very chocolatey. Much like I would have expected double chocolate decadence to taste.

Please bring this one back Frank!!!

This kinda smells like liqueur. The flavour is kinda mellow chocolately. I tried this long enough to know it was a chocolate tea I liked.

I couldn’t wait to try this… thanks SimplyJenW! This made my day, it smelled a bit like chocolate bananas…maybe it is the maltyness…

After steeping it has much more of a chocolate malt smell. First sip and it was just really good… i am super impressed. The sweetness from the honeybush really brings a great compliment to the chocolate. It has a nice sort of tangyness that reminds me of a chocolate malt! When it cools it is truly good chocolate.

Another one well done Frank!