Steepster's Ho-dduk Ho-dduk Goose

Another tea from this morning. I still don’t know how to describe this tea. I like it, but couldn’t tell you why. It’s got a baked good sort of feel to it, it’s smooth, not sweet….there’s another taste in there too. Overall just a nice tea, but I can’t quite explain what I like about it haha

I have a very specific craving but can’t quite put my finger on what it is that I want. So instead I went with an Evol craving and decided to crack open the seal on this one. It certainly is a good tea but if I am being honest, it is not my favorite. It’s got a cinnamon dough flavor that is nice but as a kid I lived for elephant ears and this seems to trend toward that but falls short for me.

There’s that perfect moment when the tea cools to just the right temperature to allow the buttery fried dense pastry dough with burnt brown sugar with a bare hint of cinnamon melding beautifully with the toasty fried dough bits and the base to emerge all in the exactly right proportion. Another masterpiece.

And it’s a sipdown!

Sipdown 64

Im sad. I saw so many amazing reviews on this tea that i thought for sure id be in love. WTF. All I taste is black tea. No nuttiness, no sweetness, no cinnamon, no cake, no walnut, no maple…what did I do wrong? I followed the instructions. Grrrr. I even shook the bag! Maybe I got a bad batch? I dont know. I am going to keep trying it and see if I change my mind. Hmph.

NEW BAE ALERT.

This is my Tea of the Week. I bought this taste-unseen* based on its description. It was supposedly a sort of cinnamon bread pancake thing. It’s described on 52Teas’ site as “a lovely pancake-y, nutty, sweet flavor with just a hint of warm spice from the cinnamon.”

( * “Taste-unseen” is a phrase that makes no sense.)

There are malt notes, cinnamon notes, bread notes, sweet notes, and warm black tea notes.

I didn’t write a note last time (the first time) I drank this because I was shocked at how much I liked it.

I was like “I doubt it’s actually this amazing. I’m going to hold off until I’m in a more rational state of mind.”

Turns out I’m never in a rational state of mind. This is so good I almost can’t handle it.

So I’ve actually never had the treat for which this tea is named and inspired by, but it sounds absolutely delicious and I really, really found the name of this tea very compelling so I figured this one was absolutely worth a try.

And honestly, it’s phenomenal. Probably the best creation by 52teas that I’ve tried in a LONG time – and I’m definitely including my reblend in that list as well.

It’s just this wonderful, rich and full bodied dessert-type tea that hits the pastry nail right on the head. Personally, I’m drawing a lot of waffle-y, sweet, maple and nutty type notes from this one. Having never tried Ho-dduk before I can’t speak to the accuracy, but in addition to those maple and waffle notes I also I get hardcore pecan pie or butter tart vibes from this (and lord knows I love pecans) crossed with kind of Elephant Ear like pastry? You know, light and fluffly dusted with lots and lots of powdered sugar and cinnamon. The stuff you get hot at the carnival or as street food. Mmm!

No song pairing for this one; I got too caught up in the cup and I never found a song to pair it with before I’d finished it. Here’s a hilarious video instead, though:

https://www.facebook.com/viralthread/videos/553731768149858/

Another interesting one! I drank this around the same time as Mayan Chocolate Chai, so probably need to try it again on its own to get a better picture of how it tastes.

However, I do certainly recall a lovely nuttiness that I quite enjoyed, and in reading a bit more about the tea, I see that it’s supposed to taste like walnuts and sweetness, which I’m pretty sure it did. More details to come some other day, maybe, if I get around to it, but this is a generally positive review :D

I finally got to try the special tea that 52Teas created for me as part of their Kickstarter campaign, and it definitely lived up to the hype!

To start, I was concerned that I gave Anne and Amethyst a tricky one to try and replicate, but they definitely delivered. This reminds me a lot of the Ho-dduk treat my fiancee loves so much (and I do too). It’s got that sweet cake flavor that’s like the fried dough pocket. It’s got the sugar and nutty notes from the brown sugar and walnuts fried on the inside. This tea is all types of good. Plus, I left it to cool for a while and the flavors were even more pronounced, which is a nice change of pace because usually ho-dduks are so hot they burn the crap out of your mouth.

I’m super pleased with this one and couldn’t have asked for a better custom tea to be made in Steepster’s/my name. Thanks to the ladies behind 52Teas for the wonderful treat!

If you’re interested, they’ve shared a little more about the tea on their tasting note here: http://steepster.com/LiberTEAS/posts/337703

Lastly, sorry for the ridiculous name. It’s obviously a duck, duck, goose pun…and coincidentally, one of my nicknames is “goose”. But it’s quite a mouthful to say, my bad.

For those of you who remember – last year we had a Kickstarter campaign going to raise funds to be able to take over 52Teas from Frank. One of our contributors was none other than Jason! (Thank you so much Jason!)

And he wanted to create a Ho-dduk flavored tea (which is a Korean street food dessert type of pancake thing that is fried in a bunch of butter and filled with a filling of brown sugar, cinnamon and peanuts – or pecans or other nuts) It took me a while to get the flavor balance just right for this tea. My first batch turned out tasting a bit more cinnamon than I wanted it to – but I do believe I finally got the flavors right!

The black tea base is a Thyolo OP1 Black tea from Malawi – it’s smooth and flavorful but not overly heavy or aggressive. The pancake flavor comes through (but don’t go looking for maple flavoring here which is what my palate was kind of looking for at first because – pancake.) There’s a nice warmth from the cinnamon and a touch of buttery taste. I actually used pecan flavor rather than peanut because I like pecans better than peanuts. I also felt that the pecan flavor would come through better than the peanut flavor would with this particular base.

It’s sweet, cake-y, nutty and warm with cinnamon – with just a touch of butter. Really tasty. I hope Jason likes this as much as I do!