This tea makes me think of Japan. What? Yeah, I know. Florence. Italy. Europe. Nowhere near Japan. And yet. But perhaps this clarification will help: this tea makes me think of Japanese snacks. Specifically Toppo, a little sweet pretzel-like tube stuffed with chocolate. (It’s basically an inside-out Pocky but (for some reason) so much better.) There was something about that tube that balanced the chocolate so nicely. Which meant that I wouldn’t get sweetness overloaded and would eat way too many at a time.
This tea is like Toppo. The chocolate is balanced nicely with the hazelnut and tea tastes so it doesn’t feel like plain old chocolate. Instead it is rich, decadent, adult-type chocolate. Given the mood I was in when I had the tea (an oh-please-someone-kill-me-and-put-me-out-of-my-misery-preferably-before-I-maim-you mood), I went ahead and added sugar and half & half because I wanted needed the full-on dessert tea experience. And boy did this tea deliver. Delicious! No single flavor is overpowering so I didn’t sit there and think “Oh, this is a chocolate tea” because it is really much more than a one dimensional taste like that. The flavors are so bold, rich and sweet that I ended up thinking it tasted like a fancy flavored coffee. (Is it sacrilege to say that?)
Anyway, enough people have gushed about this little beauty that I probably should have stopped a hundred words ago but I just can’t help myself. Through the power of this tea alone, I will be able to refrain from killing someone today.
Thanks to Doulton for the chance to try this lovely beast!
