“Definitely ordered more of this because it’s amazing, so I’m going to town on my current bag of it. Seriously one of my fave teas right now – the flavouring is absolutely perfect. Probably better...” Read full tasting note
“I am always a fan of teas with banana flavors, so I had to try this tea as soon as it came out. This tea smells amazing in the dry leaf, both tropical with the coconut and banana, and dessert-like...” Read full tasting note
This tea was previously blended by Frank back in 2011 and last year, when I was gathering ideas for archived blends to include on the 12 Teas of Christmas poll, this is one that was requested and much to my surprise, it actually won a winning majority of the votes. However, I didn’t include it in the box because Houjicha (and white tea) happen to be a very “big” leaf tea – and make for a very full pouch of tea. Because space in the cute little boxes that I utilized for last year’s 12 Teas of Christmas was limited, I couldn’t include such a bulky tea for the holiday countdown – so instead, I put it on the calendar for featured reblends this year . . . as early as possilble.
But I did make a little change to the blend this time around. Instead of using just houjicha, I decided to go with my blend of houjicha and Yue Guang Bai White tea. The white tea lightens the houjicha just enough to allow the flavors of banana and coconut (plus custard-y cream) to shine through this dessert-y tea without masking the toasty flavors of the roasted green tea too much.
Frank’s original description of this tea was:
Here’s a toasted green Hōjicha blended with freeze-dried bananas, our honking big coconut flakes and natural flavors. This is a truly delicious treat you are NOT going to want to miss out on.
And I agree – this IS a delicious treat you are NOT going to want to miss out on! I kept pretty true to the recipe except – as I’ve already mentioned – I used my blend of Houjicha and Yue Guang Bai – which in my (perhaps not so humble?) opinion, takes this already fantastic blend to a whole other level. YUM!
This delightful dessert in a teacup is VEGAN and gluten-free. It does contain coconut so if you’re allergic to coconuts, I don’t recommend indulging. All others, I highly recommend indulging because this is so good!
ingredients: white tea
organic ingredients: roasted green tea, coconut, bananas & natural flavors
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