Honeybush Hazelnut

This is quite the interesting experience. There’s an awesomely powerful nose on the loose leaf itself, dominating any other possible notes, and on the brewed tea as well. Both reek (in a good way) of the sweet and nutty hazelnut flavor.

The loose leaf is pretty small, lots of little pieces with great brownish and red colors. It yields a light golden liquor that is quite nice. I’ve never actually had honeybush before, just it’s cousin rooibos, but this had none of the bitterness or crushing earthiness of the rooibos. I’m not sure if it’s because of the honeybush or if the hazelnut is masking those tastes.

When it comes down to it, the flavor of the tea is so-so. I’d place it generously on the bland, flavorless side. However, that doesn’t fully dampen my feelings as I still enjoy the punch offered by the aroma. Since I’m not a fan of coffee but have always enjoyed the idea, the smell kinda reminds me of the fancy coffee treats they serve at Starbucks. So I feel all mature like I’m drinking a coffee drink. Is that a legit reason to enjoy a tea?

thanks Liberteas!

Creamy, Nutty, Sweet, Honey-like, hint of sweet potato, yeah…this is nice! The contrast of sweet and hazelnut is winning, here! Neat!

All right, Steepster-verse. It’s late here on this slice of the planet and je suis fatigue. So fatigue, apparently, that I’m pulling out my high school French to express it to you. I’m not motivated to go to a Word document and copy out the accent aigu [not sure on spelling there] to properly spell the word fatigue, so just let’s just pretend.

I needed something to drink that wouldn’t keep me up for hours and so I decided to give this one that Auggy sent me a boiling hot bath. Upon typing that it sounds horribly painful.

Dry, this tea just looks like mini wood chips, but wet it takes on a nice, deep burgundy coloring. There’s also a couple of pieces of what I can only assume to be actual hazelnuts in the mix. Here, have a picture.
http://twitpic.com/ra5lx

See? Wet wood chips!

I can see why this reminds people of coffee. Hazelnut syrup or hazelnut flavored creamer are often used in coffee drinks, and the scent of it on its own is reminiscent of coffee beans.

Does it taste like coffee?

No.

Does it taste like hazelnuts?

Mmm…kinda?

This reminds me of the Almond Cookie I tried [that Auggy also sent me], in that the taste mainly blooms once it is downed. There’s a faint, and when I say faint, I mean really, really faint, sweetness floating in the liquid, but I’m not getting much else. Sometimes that sweetness takes on a nutty profile, and sometimes it tastes like when you dump a packet of sweetener into a cup of bad coffee.

I also don’t consistently get a lot of flavor in the aftertaste, which is a shame, because when I do it’s good. [This might sound weird, but I get that taste more consistently if I keep my mouth shut and breathe out my nose. Don’t know why.]

It reminds me a lot of wafers. That kind of dry, flavorless flavor. Also, biscotti. I had hazelnut biscotti once that tasted very bland and this reminds me of that. Actually, I’ve never had biscotti that really tasted any good. I don’t know why I keep trying it. If anyone knows where you can find good biscotti in the DC/MD/VA area let me know, because I want to know what all the fuss is about.

I know a lot of people don’t like rooibos, but I’ve found myself planted on this little island of people who do like it. That may be why I was expecting more. To me, rooibos has a fuller flavor to it, so I don’t know if it’s just because this is honeybush, of which this is the first I’ve tried, or because this tea is just made of weaksauce.

So…yeah. This unfortunately isn’t nearly robust enough to fill any coffee needs I may have still lurking about. It also isn’t flavorful enough to be something I would consider buying. But the smell is absolutely delicious and it isn’t so completely devoid of taste that it’s a pain to drink or anything.

Siskel and Ebert give it two thumbs sideways. WAY sideways!

I used to think that I was a huge fan of honeybush. Now, I’m not so sure. I find that a lot of the ones I’m trying these days are a lot darker and more earthy than the ones that inspired my initial love, and this tea is not an exception. I had to add sugar to be able to remove the harshness of the roasted bush, and be able to enjoy the hazelnut flavour that is there and pleasant.

Overall not a great cup, and one I’m not planning on buying again.

ETA: Halfway through and the artificial flavouring is making my stomach queasy. Definitely not one for me.

This is really good. The hazelnut is sweet, creamy and nutty, and the natural nutty flavor of the honeybush is a perfect match. Sweet, honey-esque, and very autumnal. It’s time to curl up with a good book and a sweet cuppa!

This was another adagio honeybush flavored tea that I really didn’t like the scent of in the package – I think it’s just way to strong for me. When I took a whiff from a distance it was fine.
The brewed tea actually smells a lot like hazelnut coffee, or coffee with hazelnut creamer. I love the scent of hazelnut, so this is definitely a good thing.
I like the flavor of this way more than the vanilla honeybush. Where that tasted artificial, this tastes nutty and nice. The hazelnut and the honeybush really play well together.

This is my second cup of honeybush tea tonight – 10:40 and I’m trying to go to sleep. As opposed to last night when I must have been way too caffeinated. I lay in bed drowsing unable to fall asleep until 7am at which point I thought in foggy horror “oh my god, what if I’ve become one of those people who are unable to sleep and then they just die?”
After thinking that, however, I was able to fall asleep and grab a few hours of sleep. Incredibly, I was fine today after staggering into the kitchen and grabbing a cup of tea.
My point here is, hopefully the honeybush will save me from a caffeine induced all-nighter. (And where was whatever kept me up last night hiding when I was in college and actually wanted to pull all nighters?)

I was excited to find a hazelnut flavored tea. Back in the days when I used to consume coffee, I would always go for anything hazelnut – be it flavored coffee itself or the flavored creamer. And so, I just had to grab a sample of this one seeing as love both hazelnut and honeybush.

It’s not a bad one by any means, but it’s definitely lacking. Unlike in the coffee I used to drink, the flavor of the hazelnut doesn’t carry over into the tea. As to be expected, I really like the smell of it, but that’s where it ends. I’m fooled in to thinking I’ll be enjoying hazelnut only to discover I’m just drinking honeybush. The flavor would probably be brought out more by adding sweetener, but I think the sweetness would just be overwhelming for me.

After spending the last few hours at the coffee shop actually drinking coffee instead of tea I came home wired, this is a state I try to avoid at 10pm, or any time really. This was a perfect bridge between my coffee binge and my evening cup of chamomile.

I’m really starting to become a fan of honeybush, the last several that I’ve tried have been wonderful. This has a nutty taste to it that works really well with the honeybush base. I’m not sure if I’ve had anything hazelnut before tonight, but I’m sure a fan. I could see this going into my regular rotation of teas that I drink in the fall since that is when I usually drink the nutty/earthy types, something about them just scream fall to me.

It shouldn’t work, but it does. I was browsing Adagio with a friend of mine who has a long-harbored love for hazelnut anything and since I was prowling for samples specifically she suggested that one. I figured its 2$, I love honeybush, and when it doesn’t taste like the godawful creamer, I very much like hazelnut.

Smells odd but good in the bag, smells fantastic (but still a little strange) brewing. The taste for me…its weird, its like I’m tasting the two flavors separately without it tasting horrible. I mixed about a spoonful of sugar into mine and found I didn’t need much more, so that’s good at least (I’m notorious for my overuse of sugar).

So…odd, but very good. I’ll definitely be finishing off my sampler, might buy a full size sometime but its not a top priority.

Yum yum yummy!! These flavors go so well together. This is my first honeybush tea. So glad I tried it. It will be a wonderful late night tea.

Sunday afternoons are my favorite time of the week. Today, I watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe while drinking cups of rosy lee (as Beaver puts it in the movie – nice Cockney way of saying tea). It was delightful.

Very tasty hot or iced! No sweetener necessary.

This is an entirely pleasant nighttime tea.

It smells nutty and chocolatey in the bag and tastes nutty and chocolatey in my cup. Neither the nuts, the honeybush nor the chocolate notes are overpowering.

This tea is nicely balanced.

This is a good evening or nighttime herbal drink for me. I love the flavor of hazelnut in general, giving this blend and easy in with me. The flavor here is particularly enjoyable and warming, as is the fragrance.

My one big irritation with this blend is that the herbs are so fine it becomes a pain in the ass to infuse with anything but an ultrafine mesh strainer, which I have unfortunately yet to acquire. When infusing this blend with a more standard wire-mesh tea strainer loads of herbal particulate pass into the liquid and it becomes a somewhat pulpy experience. Cleaning the strainer afterwards has proved frustrating as well, with many grains becoming stuck in the mesh. You practically need to use a fine brush to clear the mesh completely.

Alternatively, I’ve tried infusing this tea in a gaiwan and pouring off through the small funnel strainer I use for Gongfu brewing, as that strainer has a finer mesh, but the problem then becomes the leaves pouring out of my gaiwan with the liquid and clogging up the mesh of the strainer until it’s completely blocked. Ugh!

I like this herbal blend well enough, but these frustrations in preparing it prevent me from drinking it more frequently, and from rating it any higher. Ideally, infusion should be a painless and straightforward experience, not a distracting and frustrating one. Until I get some kind of special superfine mesh strainer (or, God-forbid, empty disposable teabags!) to make brewing this blend easier, it will likely continue to be something I reach for only infrequently. That makes me kind of sad, but I’m already equipped with a good range of tea preparation utensils, and I think for an herbal blend to require the purchase of another special tool or disposable steep bags for its own sake is asking a bit too much. If this were a tea of exceptional quality, you’d be hearing a different tune, as I’m plenty willing to make special accommodations for something worthy of it. But this is neither a tea, nor an exceptionally high quality blend of herbs.

Final word: a pretty good herbal blend, with disappointing drawbacks on the preparation end.

Tonight I blended half Honeybush hazelnut, half Honeybush chocolate. It smells kind of like some fancy coffee drink (minus the coffee) and tastes amazing. Honeybush is awesome because it has a sweet, mellow flavor- similar to rooibos, but not as powerful. It is amazing iced- i think iced honeybush is probably one of my favorite things, ever. I like to cold brew it because it’s easier that way. But tonight I’m drinking it hot, and loving it.

I got this tea a few months ago, in my first order from Adagio ever. Admittedly when I first got it I didn’t like it at all by itself. I have an incurable sweet tooth and I added loads of milk and hot chocolate mix just to get it to where I could drink it. I haven’t really had it since because I don’t like having to add a lot of frufruy things to my tea.

I suppose my taste has become more refined since then, because I pulled this out tonight and was able to drink it unsweetened. Its delicious and toasty, and now I defiantly can pick up the sweetness in it. Its a nice tea. Not for everyday, but defiantly very nice.

I was astounded by this tea. Without a doubt, this is thus far, the best tea I’ve had.

The tea is a beautiful shade, with a wonderfully thick aroma, and smooth taste. I put a bit of sugar in mine, but I’m thinking that I don’t even need it. The tea is smooth, and just plain good. This tea is definitely going on my “but every month” list, and that is an exclusive list indeed!

This was..interesting. I’m not really a fan of red teas. The dry aroma was very woodsy, almost dusty with strong hazelnut overtones. The hazelnut really popped while steeping and was present in the final liquor with a very mild flavor of the same. I was expecting a sweeter too, but had to add some agave. I can’t see myself drinking this every day – or even weekly.

I agree with what some others have said — I wish it had a little more taste. But the dry aroma is incredible!

Okay I’m editing this note because now that I’ve steeped for… well let’s just say a verrrry looong time I’ve found it to be much better than it was intially. It is just a sample so I have more time to figure out if it’s for me.

This is a great tea for hazelnut lovers. My husband, who knows nothing about tea, commented that the tea I was drinking smelled very hazelnut-y. Light, but yet has a good amount of flavor. I will buy more of this one when it’s gone. Prepared with stevia.