I closed my eyes and pointed and ended up with another Della Terra Teas blend. I gotta say, I’m getting really spoiled here. I also kind of feel like I’m starting to sound like a broken record with my unbridled glee. Every time I feel like a blend couldn’t be better, couldn’t be more accurate, I get one that is. This is such a blend.
For the third time in two days, I wanted to eat the tea. It just smells so much like those chocolate oranges that it’s hard to resist the temptation. I haven’t had one of those chocolate oranges in years, either, which makes it even harder! But I resisted and patiently brewed my tea. The balance was way off in the blend’s fragrance, and this worried me: where the dry tea smelled just like a chocolate orange, the brew smelled mostly (maybe entirely, now that I think about it) like chocolate. I was worried that the orange would be absent from the flavour, as well.
My experience is that DT blends don’t re-steep well. At least, the past two black tea blends that I’ve tried to steep for a second time (Oatmeal Raisin Cookie1 and Dubbele Chocolade2) were both really weak, even after steeping for 10 minutes. My experience is also that the recommended 3-minute steep time really doesn’t pack the flavourful punch I expect. Therefore, I’ve decided to steep just once for about 5 minutes and call it a day.
The chocolate-orange balance was restored in the flavour (and actually appeared in the brew’s fragrance, too, after it’d cooled a bit). It’s quite good unsweetened (my sweet tooth prevents me from thinking any tea can be “amazing” unsweetened, but this is really pretty good), but it’s delicious after being sweetened a bit. I’m going to be thinking about it until tomorrow, when I can next have more caffeinated tea.
Tea amount: 1 level tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: ¾ tsp demerara sugar
