Received this one from Heather at the tea meetup over the weekend.
Since I have some time to kill before leaving to do more math today, I thought I’d try this one in a mug rather than relegate it to the travel mug.
The smell of the tea in the bag is intensely caramel. A lot more buttery and salty than the Red Leaf matcha caramel. Steeped, I think I used too hot of water. I smell and taste some caramel, and creaminess definitely comes through as I swallow. But the houjicha tastes more green than I was expecting, and that greenness isn’t really doing it for me with the caramel-creaminess.
As it cools, more of the toasty houjicha flavour is coming through, as is the caramel. However, there is still that greenness lingering in the back. I should try more houjicha teas. :)
I will sit here and slowly sip the rest of this mug, and I’m glad I have another tea bag to test out. Next time I’ll pay more attention to the water temperature.
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It’s an interesting combination. I found the hojicha base to be a little nutty, which seemed to bridge the idea of green tea and caramel together in a way that I don’t think most green teas could do.
I found one reason I like hojicha is the lower caffeine content…it allows me to drink it later in the evening with no affects on my ability to sleep. I suppose the extremely caffeine sensitive my find it stimulating too, but supposedly the roasting affects the caffeine and it ends up have as much (or less) caffeine than decaffeinated teas.
As it cooled and the toasty flavours came out, I liked it more. I ended up losing track of time and chugging the rest of my mug before I ran out the door. It was surprisingly tasty. :)
I also liked more as it cooled- another perfect quality for a “reading” tea because you don’t have to worry about it getting gross.
It’s an interesting combination. I found the hojicha base to be a little nutty, which seemed to bridge the idea of green tea and caramel together in a way that I don’t think most green teas could do.
I found one reason I like hojicha is the lower caffeine content…it allows me to drink it later in the evening with no affects on my ability to sleep. I suppose the extremely caffeine sensitive my find it stimulating too, but supposedly the roasting affects the caffeine and it ends up have as much (or less) caffeine than decaffeinated teas.
As it cooled and the toasty flavours came out, I liked it more. I ended up losing track of time and chugging the rest of my mug before I ran out the door. It was surprisingly tasty. :)
I also liked more as it cooled- another perfect quality for a “reading” tea because you don’t have to worry about it getting gross.