Autumn Harvest! I received this one in a past cupboard sale from tea-sipper, so thank you tea-sipper! Been meaning to try it all month and realized that since houjicha has next to no caffeine in it I may as well make it as my evening pot on a work night (and yes, I’ve got the Saturday shift this week so tonight is a work night for me… bleh.) This is a rooibos/houjicha blend mixed with almonds and savory spices… the smell of the dry leaf is very interesting. It has a sort of sweet marzipan quality, but I’m also definitely picking up on the spicy ginger and sage. I really have no idea how this is all going to pull together. I’m certainly curious.
Brewed up, it’s the dark brown coffee color of houjicha, and the aroma smells of roasted nuts, melted caramel, marzipan, and sage. I still can’t imagine these things going together… but the taste is actually better than I could possibly expect. The woody and roasty/nutty notes of the houjicha make a good base for something like this, and the sweet and spice create a counterbalance for each other that is an interested juxtaposition. I think my only real issue is the marzipan comes across as such a desserty note, and everything else in the tea is quite savory, so it feels a little out of place? I can see the need to get some sweetness in here, since the fenugreek and sage are very dominant on the tongue and I think without it the blend would’ve been way too harsh, and I can understand how sweet nuts does compliment the nutty notes of hojicha… but it just seems odd overall when the blend is very savory. I feel like maybe it just needed some slight tweeking of the components (maybe a dash lighter on the savory spices, or more rooibos in the blend to try to bring in more of the sweeter honeyed notes from that tea to lighten up on the marzipan flavoring?)
It’s different, and I’m surprised I actually like it… the more I drink it, the more I warm up to it. Maybe the fact I’ve never had anything like this is making it so enjoyable. I don’t eat actual stuffing (I’ve never liked the stuff; it’s a texture thing for me) so I can’t compare it to what it is trying to mimick, but I’m personally really enjoying a sage-heavy tea with a nice roasty base and some sweetness to keep the spice from being too overbearing. It’s definitely the kind of tea that is going to be polarizing, though.
Flavors: Marzipan, Nutty, Roasted Nuts, Sage, Spicy, Sweet, Umami, Wood
