Bushmen's Brew Honeybush

Sipdown! No. 10 for 2014.

Four bags left, so the entire family engaged in the sipdown.

The kids really like this one and I worry it will be a hard act to follow, but I’m not unhappy to see it go. Plain honeybush is no longer my thing, if it ever was.

It’s a bagged tea and I love it. There, I said it. =)

I also have to say that the dry leaves don’t have the most pleasant fragrance. I don’t know what it is, maybe a bit chemical in nature(?), but it’s pretty off-putting. Thankfully, the brew itself has the most lovely, warm, woodsy fragrance I associate with rooibos (I don’t really know the difference between honeybush and rooibos; I’ll have to look it up at some point). Reading Steepster reviews, it seems like that’s a fragrance people either love or hate, and I love it.

The brew is so good. It’s a totally unassuming, straight-up, woodsy tea. It’s honeybush, like it says on the packet. It’s exactly the kind of “comfort food” cuppa I needed on this lovely autumn day. There’s nothing complex or fancy about it, but it’s an accessible bagged tea that doesn’t disappoint, which is no small feat now that I’m used to loose tea blends.

Tea amount: 1 bag
Water amount: 8oz/~237mL
Additives: 1 rounded tsp Demerara sugar
Dry mouth factor: 0/10

There’s a thread floating around the discussion forums here about how many cups of tea people drink in a day1. It surprises me to read that some folks get through 10+ glorious cups a day, when I drink maybe 1-2. I have this travel mug2 that I use all the time. It keeps my tea hot for several hours, drinkably warm for over 12. I happily sip away throughout the day, but since I’m not in a rush to finish it before it goes cold, I don’t go through it very quickly. Well, my mug’s in the sink and I wanted tea now, so I used a regular teacup. Okay, so now I get it! By the time the steep timer rang, the tea was cool enough to sip. By the time I got to the couch from the kitchen, it was half gone. By the time I sat down and got comfortable, it was all gone. I had to get right up again to make another cup! I’d be hopping up and down like a jack-in-the-box if I had to keep this up all day, and get nothing else done. I’d better get that mug washed. =)

Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering… I tried getting a second steep out of the bag (only because I was feeling extra lazy) and that’s as much of a “silly rabbit, Trix are for kids” thing as you’d think it’d be: the second cup was basically sweetened hot water, with a bit of colour and a very light tea flavour to it. =)

1 http://steepster.com/discuss/3583-how-many-cups-of-tea-do-you-drink-a-day

2 http://amzn.com/B002PY7AYS

This tisane, which came as part of “Numi’s Collection,” tastes woodsy to me, and has a sweet but subtle pine-sap flavor and scent (not like pine-sol), rather than like honey. I added some acacia honey to it and it began to taste like honey, but probably because of the added honey. I thought rooibos actually had a more natural honey taste to it than this tisane. It’s not bad for an evening herbal tisane, but I probably wouldn’t buy it.

It’s cold; I want tea, but it’s late. So in ferreting through my uncaffeinated (now out of decaffeinated options) stash, I happened upon a couple bags of Numi Bushmen’s Brew Organic Honeybush. It’s really just honeybush, no more and no less.

What to say about honeybush? I guess that it reminds me of carob and chicory in that it’s not really what it purports to replace. It doesn’t really seem like tea. Nor does it seem like a flavorful herb or flower. But it’s none of those things; it’s honeybush. Probably an acquired tasted. I just don’t like it very much. It’s potable, so I’m drinking it right now, but I won’t buy this again.

This must be the sort of offering which keeps companies such as Numi solvent. All they have to do is take one ingredient, honeybush, from God knows where (I guess it’s South Africa), and put it into a little bag for a 30000% mark up. Maybe if I weren’t a tea lover, I’d see the virtues in this. But I am, and I don’t. Something about the flavor reminds me of dirty water.

1 bag for 250mL water, bare.

(Backlogging)

I like honeybush. This is a bag of honeybush. Therefore it was quite good. What makes it good is that it’s honeybush. It’s like chamomile and peppermint that way, pretty standard across the brands, provided the leaves are treated nicely.

I wonder if it is possible to become a te-a-holic. If so, I am rapidly becoming one. This evening, I once again couldn’t resist reaching for another (caffeine-free) tea to accompany my dessert. I was very fortunate to flip a coin in favor of the Bushmen’s Brew Honeybush selection. I couldn’t have picked a more appropriate time to take this delicious number for a spin. It is easy to see how Honeybush got its name. This tea has a wonderful natural sweetness that happily walked hand-in-hand with my butterscotch pudding. The sweet Honeybush is delightful, with a light and easy flavor. There was no bitterness, even after six minutes of steeping. As of now, this scrumptious tea is the leading candidate for my night cup.

It is OK. I steeped for 4 minutes and added raw sugar and a little milk. I was expecting more of a chai, even though it doesn’t say that.

This tea is how I first fell in love with honeybush. It is very sweet, flavourful (it re-brewed three times quite well), and smells like nectar. The dark orange brew is also a bit on the woody side, but in a really good way. It has none of the unpleasant quality that tea can have (astringency, tannic, bitter, leafy/grassy/vegetal), it is incapable of being any of those things, no matter how you brew it. A friend of mine keeps herbals around for when company comes over (she only drinks coffee), and I think I’ve almost consumed the entire box now.

Trying to keep the caffeine down, so I won’t stay up all night, although I have so many things to catch up on.

While I was visiting my folks, I came across some random tea bags, like the blueberry one I reviewed earlier, & so I brought a few home with me, this Honeybush included.
I much prefer Honeybush over Rooibos, it’s mildly sweet & kind of woody & soothing.
That’s all I’ve got.
:)

A smooth, sweet tea. I drank it with sugar but probably could have done without it. Doesn’t overbrew or get bitter. Very tasty, but there’s nothing unique about the flavor.