I received this and a Strawberry Kiwi Fusion sample from Della Terra Teas on Friday after winning their Facebook giveaway recently. Amazingly, the tea arrived in Nova Scotia only a week after they sent it, which is a Canada Post miracle. Unfortunately there was some serious smell contamination from a bonus sample of Chocolate Chai Puerh they threw in, so I left the three teas to air out over the weekend. All that aside, Thank you to Della Terra teas for the samples! Winning things is always exciting!
I wanted a cup of hot chocolate today as it is sub-Arctic at work, but I couldn’t find any anywhere. Drat! So, I turned to this one as a good substitute, with less calories. Win! I gave it about 8 minutes to steep, which yielded a dark amber liquor, with the aroma of a rooibos based cappuccino. It does smell like cappuccino (coffee, sweet, cream) but the rooibos aroma is very present too. There is a bit of a bitter note at the end that is more reminiscent of coffee, but I’m hoping that isn’t included in the flavour (I hate coffee but tend to enjoy sweet frou frou cappuccinos the odd time I get them).
The first sips are a bit thin and a bit bitter. Not bitter in the way that tea can be, but more a hint of roasted coffee. I am a little surprised at the flavour, though I don’t know why because it tasted like it smells. Maybe I somehow anticipated the taste of a cappuccino, which would be hard to do without adding all the fat and sugar! :) I wish this had a touch more caramel flavour as that is the real selling point for me. There were a couple little squares in there which I can’t seem to find now so I assume they melted in? Either that or they disappeared!
Cumulatively, I enjoyed this, but it didn’t present the depth of flavour I was hoping for. Maybe if I doubled up on ‘leaf’ it would be a different story, but I’m worried about emphasising the dark bitter note too much. I’m such a wuss. Anyway, brilliant in theory but not quite for me in practice. Thanks again, Della Terra Teas!
