Campfire Hojicha

I’ve been really enjoying this! Nice, roasty hojicha with those cozy woody and nutty notes, with a nice caramel sweetness. The caramel is really popping for me, leaning almost into a maple flavor with the fruitiness of the apple. This will be missed when I finish off the bag. Shame flavored hojicha blends are so uncommon, I haven’t had many but seem to really like the ones I have stumbled upon.

(DavidsTea 3)

This has grown on me. The aroma has always been very appealing – delicious caramel – but it took a couple cups for me to really appreciate the flavour. It probably didn’t help that I initially had it alongside Salted Caramel Oolong, now one of my top teas from DT. I can’t say that the hojicha base nor the “campfire” element are really apparent to me, really just the caramel, but the roasted base doesn’t get that metallic taste like most green teas (but not hojicha), and it’s pretty forgiving on time/temp. I do wish there was a bit of smokiness here, as I think it would really enhance the “campfire” element. Perhaps I’ll add a pinch of lapsang souchong one day, or some other smoky tea I have sitting around.

Also, this tea resteeps pretty well – the caramel really lasts.

sigh this tastes like chemicals. Like apples and chemicals. I am not getting very much Hōjicha. And I was expecting this to taste like a roasted marshmallow, almost! But sadly, I am not a fan of this tea.

Luckily, I finished this off – slowly, but surely. Not one I would repurchase.

I was very much looking forward to trying this new blend, and it arrived today! I immediately brewed up a cup, and it does not disappoint. Sticky sweet, caramelized sugar. A bit of a roasted quality coming through from the hojicha, but it’s mostly just delicious caramel. Not getting any smokiness at all, so if that was a deterrent for you, fear not!

I was immediately sold on picking up this tea, because I’ve never seen DAVIDsTea experiment with hojicha up until now. The dry aroma is sweet caramel with undertones of the roasted, somewhat smoky green tea. Once steeped, the hojicha is immediately apparent, but there’s also something about this combination of ingredients that evokes a flavour reminiscent of burnt marshmallows like Kelly (aka Roswell Strange) suggested in her tasting note. There’s no bitterness or astringency to this tea, but it definitely has a thicker, heavier mouthfeel and slight salted caramel vibe.

I think I prefer it with a splash of milk. It’s a sweet, but cozy cuppa overall. I really hope DAVIDsTea introduces a straight hojicha without add-ins to their catalog at some point…

I guess this is the year of caramel teas!?

Anyway, this is one of the newly released teas from today! I’m pretty excited about it, but I definitely think it’s the most “out there” of today’s teas – and I hope that doesn’t prevent it from doing well…

As y’all here on Steepster know, I absolutely love both a good Hojicha tea base for a flavoured tea blend but I also really like a good smoky tea base for flavoured teas. With this blend, I kind of get the best of both worlds because as the name would imply there is Hojicha in this tea. However, what it might not super obviously convey is that it’s actually this super cool Hojicha that’s also kind of smoky!!

Both of these interesting and cozier profiles, from pine-y smoke to nutty and roasty toasty Hojicha, provide a really interesting and nuanced canvas for which the rest of the blend is built. It’s got sweet, but not cloying, burnt sugar/caramel note with a hint of salinity that mixed with the Hojicha base almost tastes like a really golden, gooey and maybe even just a tiny bit burned marshmallow – and that’s where the idea of the name “Campfire Hojicha” came from. This gooey, golden and complex marshmallow/caramel note mixed with all the smells and aromas of a big fire and surrounding trees on one of the last hot summer nights before The Fall.

Yes, what I’m describing maybe doesn’t make the most sense for a tea launching with holiday teas – but this year has been unpredictable for many reasons, and that includes some unexpected delays with tea as well. So, this was definitely intended to be more of an Autumnal profile this year…

My dream is that this tea does really well, and it opens the doors for the use of more Hojicha in DT’s tea blends (or maybe even a straight Hojicha) but I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much, because I do think that maybe it’s a bit more out there/“busy” in terms of flavour than our more dessert-ish blends usually are.

Still, I can dream!

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.