Honeybush Pumpkin Chai

Another sipdown from my decaf cupboard

I’ve already reviewed this tea I believe, but since I left this cup too long and it cooled down I’m doing to write another one for drinking it cold. I get lots of standard chai spice (peppercorn, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon) and the honeybush is lovely. The honeybush is less sweet than usual, and I don’t get as much piumpkin spice flavour at the bottom of the bag. This is possibly because the bottom of my pouch had a lot of the heavier spices and less honeybush.

It is a solid chai, especially for a herbal tisane base. I will buy it again when I order from adagio, but it doesn’t stand out as much as the banana nut (my favourite adagio tea so far) or the vanilla rooibos chai.

Surprisingly fruity. The spices are definitely more muted than I’d expect. It’s not bad, it’s just not at all what I was looking for.

324/365

I also picked this one up with my last Adagio order, because I was feeling the pumpkin. Pumpkin everything. It sounds promising enough; cinnamon, cardamon, ginger, cocoa nibs, and…“natural pumpkin spice flavour”. I’m hoping it’s not the same natural pumpkin spice flavouring that was in their Pumpkin Spice blend, because that tastes to me rather more like cola than anything else.

Unfortunately, it is. I get mostly cola, drinking this. The honeybush is nice – sweet, smooth, not too woody. There’s also lots of cinnamon, but the other spices are hard to discern individually. I think I can just about make out the cocoa nibs, but to be honest I can’t get past the fact that it tastes like cola. WHERE IS THE PUMPKIN?

I don’t mind cola flavoured teas; in actual fact, I really rather like them. Cold. In the summer. The problem here is that I wanted, and was expecting, pumpkin…and that’s not what I got. It’s nice, but it’s not pumpkin chai.

I brewed this strong, using extra tea and extra time, as I know honeybush teas tend to be on the light side. This tea smells spicy in the bag, cinnamon and ginger, and brews up with similar pie-like flavors. The honeybush is nuttier and a bit more caramel-like compared to the rooibos. If you can’t bring yourself to drink rooibos vanilla chai, this will probably be a nice decaf chai alternative. That said, it has additional pumpkin flavoring, which is sort of starchy and gently vegetal with lots of cinnamon and spice. The flavoring is the same as the pumpkin chai tea, so you should know that going in. If you like all things pumpkin spice, this will also be a winner.

Happy Fourth of July! Today I went to a local art festival. Most fun, until the rain happened. When I got home, I decided to have some tea. But that was put off until the evening. The brew smells strongly like spices, I get mostly clove and ginger. There is a nice spice flavour, will have to try it with vanilla. Not the right season, but still good.

Instead of having a certain alien invasion movie or a historical drama, I decided to watch my favourite TV shows. The US Air Force is in it, so that counts.

Very rich and autumn-y…perfect for a fall day and no caffeine to take sleep away. Given that today is masquerading as fall, it seemed perfect.