Honey Black Tea

Tea type
Black Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Bitter, Chocolate, Honey, Dark Wood, Drying, Green Beans, Kale, Winter Honey, Wood, Smooth, Vegetal, Lychee, Raisins, Caramel, Sour, Bread, Dried Fruit, Malt, Plum, Sweet, Sweet Potatoes, Apricot, Butter, Creamy, Custard, Floral, Grain, Oats, Peach, Vanilla
Sold in
Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by green-terrace-teas
Average preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 2 min, 15 sec 4 g 7 oz / 220 ml

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From Our Community

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54 Tasting Notes View all

  • “When my SO comes in to work we sit down to tea together, and this was her request for today. The dry leaves have a very faint chocolate smell and the wet leaves smell just as one would expect a...” Read full tasting note
  • “I’ve had a really long day, and I just got home. I pulled this one out completely at random. I didn’t have enough for a large session, so I busted out my small celedon gaiwan. I warmed up the lil...” Read full tasting note
    78
  • “Working from home today and trying to make a dent in my sample pile before more new tea arrives next week! I believe this one was from Flyawaybirdie’s Christmas card. The leaves are long, dark, and...” Read full tasting note
    65
  • “This tea is unusual in a good way. It has a distinctive sweet flavor that reminds me of good rum without the alcohol, if you can imagine that. Very round and both soft and bright at the same time....” Read full tasting note
    80

From Green Terrace Teas

This all-natural, handcrafted black tea is a deliciously sweet and smooth delight. It has a wonderful natural honey flavor and light nutty caramel aftertaste that lingers pleasantly in the back of your throat. This tea is sweet, rich and complex, with notes of peach and plum and almost no bitterness or astringency. Like all other black teas, Honey Black is a fully oxidized tea which gives it a bit more caffeine than its green and oolong counterparts. Drink pure – your friends will be amazed that no honey was added to their cup.

Chinese Name: 蜜香紅茶

Origin/ Harvest: Yuchi Township, Nantou County, Taiwan 台灣南投縣魚池鄉 / Spring 2014

Purchase @ www.greenterraceteas.com

About Green Terrace Teas View company

Company description not available.

54 Tasting Notes

391 tasting notes

My second sample from Green Terrace Teas and it’s very good. It’s tasty all by itself. A little fruit/raisin, some dark honey sweetness. The leaves in this, btw, HUGE and holds up to resteeps pretty well too.

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91
1598 tasting notes

Thank you again Green Terrace for this sample! I really enjoyd the Li Shan Black, but this one just blows that one away IMO. It’s bright and sweet, and has a honeyed sweetness that lingers on your tongue. Surprisingly, I’m also getting floral notes, like in a lighter oolong. And peach?

Also, as it cools, the honey notes become even more apparent. Mind = blown.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to review this! It was my pleasure. :) Would I pay $23.50 for 100g of this? Yes. Yes I would.

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880 tasting notes

Brew style: Gongfu in gaiwan
Temperature: 200 degrees F

Dry aroma: Roasted wood, honey, raisins, cherry, milk chocolate, very sweet chamomile flowers
Throat: Nutty, caramel, cream, milk chocolate, a hint of fruit
Wet leaf aroma: Roasted nuts, pure cacao, vanilla, cream, caramel
Brew aroma: Immediate plum, then caramel, nuts, vanilla, cream, milk chocolate.. a more subdued sweetness than the dry aroma
Brew color: Light to medium tawny brown, very clear
Taste: Honey hits first and then is followed by notes of milk chocolate and plum. Some notes of orchid in the middle. Honey and some faint notes of nuts and caramel linger. Long length. No astringency. Very smooth and quite mellow.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C

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84
15006 tasting notes

Another of the 3 samples sent to me by Green Terrace Teas.

this has been highly reviewed by a number of people so i was a little apprehensive. this tastes sweet. Not quite like honey, but still sweet. I think though, that this reminds me of a more solid TTC tea. There is a strength to this tea that runs through it that makes it different to other sweet black teas that i’ve tried. I’m looking forward to having this a few more times since the samples sent from Green Terrace are quite generous! thank you again Green Terrace! more to come :)

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89
687 tasting notes

As soon as I saw this on the site, I wanted to try it. The scent is a nice malty honey. (And the dry leaves reminded me a bit of Yunnan black). There is a sweet malty flavour. I do get some hints of peach. Overall, I glad I decided to get this one as a sample.

Flavors: Honey, Malt, Peach

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 3 min, 15 sec

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96
314 tasting notes

When I was pouring the tea, I detected a bit of fruity aroma. In the cup, the aroma is a complex mixture of cooked stone fruit and an underlying leafiness. The taste is simiar to the nose, but very sweet. OMG: the finish is just amazing. Big and fruity and goes on forever. Sorry; I just had to interrupt. This is a great finish.

One of my favorite things about a really good tea is how it builds up as you drink it. When the finish from the last sip is still there when I inhale the aroma, and the aroma and the finish combine with the taste in my mouth to just build the experience. This tea gives me the full experience.

This is the kind of tea you need to just spend time with. Don’t watch TV. Don’t work. Don’t read a book. I shouldn’t even be writing a review. Just savor the tea. It is worth it.

Thanks to Green Terrace Tea for the review sample.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 1 g 6 OZ / 177 ML
looseTman

Your fav GTT?

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85
278 tasting notes

Method: 1 tbsp, 8 oz, 200 degrees, 3 minutes, Forlife brew in mug strainer

Dry Leaf Aroma: malty and sweet

Flavor: Oh my. Something seems amiss because this is very bitter! This was the sample I was most looking forward to, but I had to add sugar to drink it. I know the temp was exact, and I also have a separate tea timer. I tried this at 2 min, 30 sec and it already had a tinge of bitterness, so I stopped it at 3 min, instead of the 4 I had originally intended. It’s good with sugar, but it lost the maltiness from the dry leaf aroma.

I appreciate the sample, but this one just wasn’t for me.

Update: it seems the brewing instructions on the website were more general, and not specific to this tea. GTT has offered to send me another sample, so I’ll try again. I’ve removed my numerical rating for now. :)

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 3 min, 0 sec 3 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
Cameron B.

Wow, I wonder what happened. :( Everyone has been having such good experiences with Green Terrace’s teas…

SarsyPie

I know! I tried an oolong yesterday. It was lovely. I still have the Eastern Beauty to try. I have high hopes for that one!

Cwyn

Maybe it should be a short steep black, I have a few that must be brewed like that.

SarsyPie

I think you’re probably right, but I don’t have any more. :(

I did check the website for instructions, but I think this may have been better with only 1-2 minutes.

Cameron B.

Don’t have any more, what? I have enough for like two more cups and I’ve already had two!

boychik

I went and looked at other ppl parameters . 1 tsp for 8 oz. if you were using 1 tbsp it had to be less than 3 min

boychik

I wouldn’t rate it.

Cameron B.

boychik I wasn’t really able to measure this one since the leaves are big and fluffy. I don’t think a teaspoon would be enough with the amount of air in there…

boychik

Don’t want to scream at ya but 1 tbsp is gongfu method haha
And you should get scale, it’s not expensive and you don’t have to guess
Just my 2c

SarsyPie

Not sure where you’re looking, but it says right here
http://www.greenterraceteas.com/pages/brewing-guide

Western Style, black tea, 3 grams (1 tbsp) 200 degrees, 3-4 min.

That’s what I did, and the review stands. :)

SarsyPie

Oh and Cameron: They were very generous samples, but I brewed 2 cups for me and my BF this AM (actually I let it go the full 4 min). I was having such a terrible morning and I left the mug at home! I was so upset. So I only had enough to make one cup when I got home. :(

boychik

I’m sorry you are having a bad day. I said I looked at other people tasting notes. I rarely trust generic parameters fr companies. Sorry if my comment made you more upset

SarsyPie

I’m not upset, that’s why I added a smiley face, so you’d know there aren’t any hard feelings, Boychik. I prefer when steeping parameters are on the package, but they weren’t here. So I went to the specific page for this tea on the GTT website. I didn’t see any info there, other than temp. So then I saw the link for their brewing parameters, and I went there for instructions.

I feel like a tea company SHOULD know the best way to steep all of their own teas. And to be honest, I don’t always have time or the inclination to check a bunch of different places for instructions, you know? If it’s not on the package, it should be on the tea page. I did the best I could with their instructions, and the tea was bitter. It is what it is.

boychik

That comment about scale was for Cameron. But I’m sending fr iphone so many times my reviews or comments are crooked. I only trust Stacy with her instructions. If you look at H&S website everything should be brewed 205F for 5 min.

sherapop

A good scale cost me $8 at Amazon.com. Just do it! lol

green-terrace-teas

Sarsonator – thanks for your honest feedback. It sounds like you definitely used too much leaf and oversteeped the tea. The samples sent were a total of 10g, so if you used all of the leaves for 2 cups, the recommended steeping time would only be 40-60 seconds. The brewing instructions on our website are general guidelines for steeping loose tea, and we take the blame for not being more specific. Generally, we always recommend our tea be brewed Gongfu style for the best taste. Per your feedback and the feedback of others, we will definitely work on providing more detailed brewing instructions for each tea and include it directly on the product page. Your review has been very helpful to us, but we don’t think a good tea should take the fall for our misguidance (we are sending you another sample as an apology). We hope you can try steeping this one Gongfu style for about 40 seconds, and adjust your review accordingly. Have a great day, and sorry you had a “bitter” morning!

boychik

That’s so nice Green Terrace Teas. Maybe it’s better not to have that general steeping page at all

SarsyPie

Thanks, GTT! It was actually 3 cups from one sample. 2 cups in the AM, and one cup that I tried after work. I used 1tbsp for each cup. I’ll absolutely try again. Thanks for the offer! How much tea should I use in the Gaiwan?

TheTeaFairy

Sorry you had a bad morning Sarsonator :-(
But very happy about GTT’S response, that’s great customer service! I will start tasting and reviewing my samples tomorrow, can’t wait.

green-terrace-teas

Brewing gongfu-style, you typically want to fill up about 1/3 of the gaiwan with larger, strip-style leaves (this applies to our black, green, and eastern beauty teas). If you brew our oolong tea, which is semiball-rolled style, you will only need to add tea until you can’t see the bottom of the gaiwan (about 1/4 or less). For our Honey Black, try about 40 seconds for your first steeping, and then add 10-15 seconds to each subsequent steeping. You can of course add/subtract leaves or brewing time to suit your tastes. Our general brewing table is coming down, and we are adding specific brewing guidelines to each tea. Thanks again for all the great feedback!

SarsyPie

TTF: thanks! I agree, GTT has been very helpful. I’m really looking forward to trying this tea again. :)

GTT: thanks so much for the additional tea and the instructions. I’ll update when I get the tea and try again. I am drinking your Eastern Beauty now. It’s really lovely, and I’ll be reviewing that soon. :)

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92
1353 tasting notes

I’m skipping the queue with this one, because I want to show the GTT team that I am actually gratefully writing and drinking the things they shared with me. Sort of like a proof that I’m keeping my end of the bargain, even if the other two samples will likely wind up in the posting queue and turn up in due course. I just didn’t want to have the first post wait that long. The oldest posts in the queue at the moment are from May, you see. (I haven’t been adding to it nearly every day though, so it’s not as long as one might fear.)

Shortly before I went on holiday, I received an email from Green Terrace Teas, inviting me to try a few samples from them and writing about them. This put me in a bit of a dilemma, because you may recall that I have this box on my desk of things I haven’t yet tried and the goal for 2014 is to empty it. Completely. So empty that you could turn it upside down and nothing would fall out. As a consequence I am strictly prohibited from adding to said box.

But if they’re offering to give me stuff which I didn’t ask for first… Then technically I’m not the one adding to the box. So that must be okay, right? I mean, I can’t be held responsible for other people’s actions, right? So I said yes please and chose three things. Well, actually I chose two things and dithered on the third to the point of saying ‘surprise me’. I chose the two black teas (of course) and also wanted to try an oolong, but I haven’t had much experience at all with these green type oolongs in recent years, so apart from a couple that I was already familiar with, I didn’t even know where to begin. Hence, ‘surprise me.’

Now, this particular tea is the one I’ve been looking forward to the most.

Both the steeped tea and the dry leaf have a strong note of something which is very hard for me to place. It’s sweet and malty, but I’m not sure I would say it was necessarily honey. Maybe a very concentrated honey note, but I’m leaning more towards honey with something else. It’s the something else I’m having trouble with. The malty note is quite strong though and it’s only enhanced further by the honey note. As it cools to a sippable temperature, the honey note develops further, gradually making it stronger than the malty note. At this point the something else is also developing a bit, and I’m starting to think berries. A fairly tart sort of berry, possibly dried. Black currants and/or blackberry are the first things that come to mind. Perhaps also a little bit of plum, but I’m uncertain about that one.

The tea itself is surprisingly strong. It’s not strong in the overleafed or oversteeped way, it’s just a naturally strong tea by it self. The first and foremost note that I notice is something sort of wood-y, like how a dark oolong can be quite wood-y in flavour. Not the dark sort of oaky wood that black tea can have but something a bit lighter and sharper. I have a specific type of wood in mind that it makes me think of, but unfortunately I don’t know what kind of tree that’s from… It’s a light wood with a sort of pinkish-golden colour and the wood grain is very well defined. Anyway, it tastes to me like wood that looks like that. (Bring on the synesthesia. Why can’t I have this phenomenon in a normal way?). As a result this whole tea kind of tastes like that pinkish-golden colour, complete with wood grain and everything.

Along with the weird wood note, I’m also getting a strong note of honey. It’s amazingly sweet this and the honey notes is very clear. A little spicy and hay-y too, which reminds me of Yunnan teas, especially the sort.

These naturally occurring notes (rather than flavourings) are always rather subjective, so I was uncertain about how much honey I would actually find in it, but I’m very attracted to things to do with honey. I’ve had supposedly peach-y teas before and not found even a whiff of stone fruits, so I tend to take that sort of thing with a grain of salt. This one, however, definitely delivers. There is a bit of astringency on the swallow, but the aftertaste is all honey.

If bees drank tea, they would drink this.

Buzzzzzzzz!

MzPriss

This sounds really really nice and like something I would like very much. I hope it is in my sampler.

Angrboda

Did you not choose your own?

MzPriss

Um no, I didn’t realize I got that option – I just chose a black sampler – I should go look at my order and see what it was.

MzPriss

Oops! I posted on the wrong thingie. The one I got was the Good Life one. I’m going to go look into this one because I really want to try this one.

looseTman

Excellent review!

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91
477 tasting notes

The smell is similar to the Li Shan, but not quite as syrupy strong. Notes of assam in teh smell, but there’s no real malt in the taste. Thick and mouth-coating, honey, barley. Definitely smooth. I can get where the ‘peach’ and ‘raisin’ flavours in the description come from, though I wouldn’t tag it that personally. Light fruit flavours, again comparing this to the Li Shan sample I got, which has a darker drop fruit taste (peach vs. plum, I guess). Honey when I breathe out, but floral in the forefront with each sip.

The honey reminds me of ceylon teas, but there’s no oak or astringency to round it out. The assam smell of the leaf didn’t carry over, which leaves me wondering if it’s an assam varietal used or not. The leaves are long (but not quite THAT long).

Preparation
Boiling 2 min, 0 sec 6 OZ / 177 ML

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3294 tasting notes

Like many others here, I took advantage of Green Terrace Tea’s offer of 3 free samples, & I’m glad I did. My teas arrived on Saturday, & I’m enjoying this one now.
This is a lovely tea, a very gentle tea, that brings to mind a creamy bowl of oatmeal, with some peach or apricot jelly stirred in, & some honey drizzled on top. I’m thinking apricot, as there is a slightly tangy quality to it. All of the flavors linger nicely. This is not a bold wake up! kind of tea, but is more like a homey breakfast, very soothing & comforting.
Thanks very much for the sample, Green Terrace Tea! I’ll share the remainder of it with my dear Tea Sister, Sil.
Unless she got her own…

Angrboda

I asked for this one as well when they wrote me. I’m very much looking forward to it.

Sil

i have this one…and uh 2 others which i can’t remember

Terri HarpLady

then I won’t send them to you :)

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