Bushmen's Brew Honeybush

It’s a bagged tea and I love it. There, I said it. =)

I also have to say that the dry leaves don’t have the most pleasant fragrance. I don’t know what it is, maybe a bit chemical in nature(?), but it’s pretty off-putting. Thankfully, the brew itself has the most lovely, warm, woodsy fragrance I associate with rooibos (I don’t really know the difference between honeybush and rooibos; I’ll have to look it up at some point). Reading Steepster reviews, it seems like that’s a fragrance people either love or hate, and I love it.

The brew is so good. It’s a totally unassuming, straight-up, woodsy tea. It’s honeybush, like it says on the packet. It’s exactly the kind of “comfort food” cuppa I needed on this lovely autumn day. There’s nothing complex or fancy about it, but it’s an accessible bagged tea that doesn’t disappoint, which is no small feat now that I’m used to loose tea blends.

Tea amount: 1 bag
Water amount: 8oz/~237mL
Additives: 1 rounded tsp Demerara sugar
Dry mouth factor: 0/10

There’s a thread floating around the discussion forums here about how many cups of tea people drink in a day¹. It surprises me to read that some folks get through 10+ glorious cups a day, when I drink maybe 1-2. I have this travel mug² that I use all the time. It keeps my tea hot for several hours, drinkably warm for over 12. I happily sip away throughout the day, but since I’m not in a rush to finish it before it goes cold, I don’t go through it very quickly. Well, my mug’s in the sink and I wanted tea now, so I used a regular teacup. Okay, so now I get it! By the time the steep timer rang, the tea was cool enough to sip. By the time I got to the couch from the kitchen, it was half gone. By the time I sat down and got comfortable, it was all gone. I had to get right up again to make another cup! I’d be hopping up and down like a jack-in-the-box if I had to keep this up all day, and get nothing else done. I’d better get that mug washed. =)

Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering… I tried getting a second steep out of the bag (only because I was feeling extra lazy) and that’s as much of a “silly rabbit, Trix are for kids” thing as you’d think it’d be: the second cup was basically sweetened hot water, with a bit of colour and a very light tea flavour to it. =)

¹ http://steepster.com/discuss/3583-how-many-cups-of-tea-do-you-drink-a-day

² http://amzn.com/B002PY7AYS

This is the end, beautiful friend[s]. The last of the teabag notes from the initial round of overbuying when some mysterious force moved me to become a tea drinker and appreciatrix. Yay!

The only other honeybush I have had thus far is the Tazo bagged version, which I appreciate for its versatility. It’s a pretty good all purpose sweetener for too-tart fruit blends. It’s also fairly smooth and flavorful on its own.

The Numi bags smell greener and woodier than the Tazo, which smelled like apricots to me. I don’t get an apricot smell here so much as — honey! And that repeats in the aroma after steeping, with a reedy note similar to what I recall was present in the Numi Green Rooibos. This brews slightly darker than the Tazo.

It’s a greener, reedier, less sweet taste as well, which makes me wonder whether this is less oxidized than what Tazo used. But there’s no information on the Numi web site that would help determine this. The honey note is present, but it seems to move around some rather than being continuously present. Sometimes it pops with a little burst of flavor on a particular taste bud, but the overall impression is that it is less pervasive and less sweet than the Tazo.

This could make it more appealing for someone who really likes drinking honeybush plain. This describes me only very occasionally, and when I am moved to drink it plain I think I’d be likely to go for the sweeter alternative. In any case, as I’m mostly using honeybush as a natural flavor enhancer to bring out sweetness in tart fruit blends, I’d be likely to choose the Tazo for that purpose as well.

This tisane, which came as part of “Numi’s Collection,” tastes woodsy to me, and has a sweet but subtle pine-sap flavor and scent (not like pine-sol), rather than like honey. I added some acacia honey to it and it began to taste like honey, but probably because of the added honey. I thought rooibos actually had a more natural honey taste to it than this tisane. It’s not bad for an evening herbal tisane, but I probably wouldn’t buy it.

1 bag for 250mL water, bare.

(Backlogging)

I like honeybush. This is a bag of honeybush. Therefore it was quite good. What makes it good is that it’s honeybush. It’s like chamomile and peppermint that way, pretty standard across the brands, provided the leaves are treated nicely.

I wonder if it is possible to become a te-a-holic. If so, I am rapidly becoming one. This evening, I once again couldn’t resist reaching for another (caffeine-free) tea to accompany my dessert. I was very fortunate to flip a coin in favor of the Bushmen’s Brew Honeybush selection. I couldn’t have picked a more appropriate time to take this delicious number for a spin. It is easy to see how Honeybush got its name. This tea has a wonderful natural sweetness that happily walked hand-in-hand with my butterscotch pudding. The sweet Honeybush is delightful, with a light and easy flavor. There was no bitterness, even after six minutes of steeping. As of now, this scrumptious tea is the leading candidate for my night cup.

It is OK. I steeped for 4 minutes and added raw sugar and a little milk. I was expecting more of a chai, even though it doesn’t say that.

leftover from a wonderful international tea swap group i used to belong to, this Bushmen’s Brew is probably ancient, but it still tastes quite nice to me, perhaps a tad too sweet for my liking, but it is, after all, a honey-based teasan. the colour is very red. i had never heard of honeybush before. that was the joy of the tea swap, new discoveries.

This was a nice surprise. I’ve had other honeybush that turned weird or tasted too sweet to me, so the Numi version is refreshing. There’s not really anything else to it- no blends, no bonus flavor. I prefer my tea strong, so I brewed it quite a long time and it still didn’t taste heavy or bitter at all.

The aroma is more complicated, and sweeter, but the actual flavor is simple; mostly a grass-like freshness.

Got this just now from a tea swap. Have never had honeybush before! It brews up a clear rich reddish-brown, like oolong, and while both the dried bag and the final result are sweetly aromatic, the scent doesn’t resemble honey at all to my nose. What it is like is the slightly medicinal-fruity sweetness of dried longan meat or red dates, as used in Chinese soups and fortifying drinks. Based on that I’d assume honeybush is “heaty”. My mother says she finds it acidic, but I don’t. It doesn’t taste like much, actually (and it’s been steeping for 6 minutes at this point), but that’s fine with me in a late-night uncaffeinated brew.

I had no idea what this tea was before I tried it, but it was EXACTLY as I thought it would be. A nice scent and a nice flavor. It also doesn’t get bitter if you boil the water. I think it would be nice if Numi paired honeybush with some kind of melon flavor in another tea.

I wasn’t a fan of the honeybush. While it had a pretty good flavor, the smell was off-putting to me.

This has a very nice, sweet smell. Tastes mild and sweet. It goes down smoothly, but for some reason I am getting a hint of cardboard or that taste of an an envelope if you lick the sticky part. It might be the bag. Regardless, the honeybush’s sweetness overpowered the cardboard taste. I would not repurchase this.

This is a fantastic tea, very nice scent, a rich but not overpowering flavor with wood notes. I always have a box handy.

Sweet scent. Nice brown with reddish tint for color. Delightful taste. I really like this