Hojicha Cinnamon Raisin Bread Pudding

Eating food from Canadian companies today so I’m curating my teas to match! I placed a truly ridiculous order with a vegan grocer in British Columbia, initially because I wanted the specific vegan gummies they had in stock but then because they had a bunch of other intriguing treats. Canadians, your vegan options are SOLID!
I paired this with vegan lox on a bagel and cream cheese. Not the best pairing, but I don’t have any non-sweet low-caffeine/no-caffeine options from a Canadian company. My thinking here was that at least the roastiness of the hojicha might complement the smokiness of the lox. Which it probably would, but the cinnamon sugar really clashes. I ended up waiting until I finished the bagel and drinking most of the tea afterwards.

I love toasty hojicha and I love maple and I love an earthy, almost woody cinnamon, so this should be a win! But unfortunately it’s just too sweet for my taste, probably because it has maple crystals AND apple AND brown sugar. The latter almost drowns out the cinnamon — I get a bit of cinnamon mid-sip, but almost straight cloying sugar by the end.

Points for accuracy in naming, though, because it’s very evocative of cinnamon raisin bread. Not so much on the bread pudding, alas.

The maple crystals come to the forefront of this tea and create a nice enough sweetness (a bit sweet for my liking), but almost drown out other flavours. I can certainly smell the cinnamon, but the taste is extremely subtle. This is essentially a maple-sweetened hojicha.

Thanks for sharing Cameron!

Really like this one. The hojicha base perfectly suits the cinnamon and gentle maple sweetness and makes for a very smooth, warming cup. I particularly like the cinnamon in this tea – sometimes it can taste too much like red hots but not here – it’s very gentle and smooth. Very tasty.

Sipdown! (19 | 471)

I have a whole tin of this, but just finished off a 25g packet that I had lying around. This is probably my favorite tea from Deb, and it really does taste like toasted cinnamon raisin bread to me. So cozy and comforting, and surprisingly not too sweet even though there’s a definite sweetness to it.

I dig it. Glad I have another 100 grams to go. :D

Sample from VariaTEA. I’m surprised that i liked this one as much as i did. Hojicha is hit or miss for me but in this case it wasn’t half bad. This was more cinnamon raisin bread to me than bread pudding but i’d call that a win for Deb lol

Prior to trying this tea I really hadn’t developed a taste for hojicha. I decided I would order this tea based on some great reviews I had seen and wow, it didn’t let me down. I should start by saying I love cinnamon raisin bread, absolutely love it! I can safely say that this tea is cinnamon raisin bread….in a cup!!!!!!!! The hojicha base gives this tea a darker quality, makes me think of when you are eating raisin bread and the crust ends are all dark and browned, this is the taste that is captured here. The raisin and cinnamon are there, I get everything! I do enjoy this one as a latte, as Deb suggests to make it as, and I think the latte aspect brings out the pudding part of the title. This tea actually was my top tea of 2020, it was that good!!!!! As someone who tries a lot of teas it take a lot to really wow me and this tea really did wow me!!

Latte Sipdown (237)

I had such high hopes for this one but I am not loving it. I think its the hojicha since this is overwhelmingly grassy. Cinnamon, sweet maple, grass. So its not working for me at all…which is probably for the best since I can’t love and own everything.

I love this one! :) I like it as a latte, but I also like it plain. It tastes like you are drinking a melted cinnamon raisin bread! :) I also love how Deb makes flavoured hojicha blends.

Yummmmmm. This is the tea that made me place my first Dessert By Deb order. I love hojicha, and feel like it’s so under-utilized in flavored blends. The maple is subtle and works really well here. It’s bready, and the cinnamon is bold. It really tastes like a toasted piece of cinnamon swirl bread. Tried with and without oat milk, and both ways are tasty. I think I prefer with milk.