94
drank Mayan Chocolate Chai by 52teas
243 tasting notes

I finally made this today. I wanted to brew and evaluate the tea a few times before writing anything so that I could give it justice. Here goes:

The dried leaves smell chocolatey and spiced, but not too spiced, you are not getting hit in the face with chai spices here, it just smells spiced. Like all chais, the tea is a jumble of leaves and pieces of tea that are assorted and pretty. I used 1 scoop (it is the wooden bamboo spoon from teavana, I have no idea how much tea it holds, but it is my usual tea serving size) of dried tea and was able to get three solid infusions out of it.

The first infusion was hot with no additives, brewed three minutes. LOVED it! good level of spice here, not overpowering, it is not the only thing you are tasting, here you can actually taste some of the chocolate but then there is spice, and varied spices, I am picking up cardamom mostly, but there is a hint of pepper with it. The spices actually come in waves or layers, however you want to interpret it. There is an upfront spiced flavor (not spicy, spiced), then chocolatey flavor with a hint of almond, then pepper spice (which is more of a spicy spice).

The second infusion was hot with sugar added, brewed three minutes. Still loved it, was ecstatic to get a second steep out of the same leaves. The spice seemed a little stronger here, so immediately after brewing (based on aroma) I added some rock sugar. Definitely did not hurt the batch at all. Still a good level of spice and the cocoa/almond flavors are a little more prevalent.

The third infusion was hot with a tiny amount of the sugar upfront into the brew basket. I do not think this changed anything, I feel the level of spice was about the same as the last two brews. The cocoa and almonds were not hurt and the pepper and cardamom were still well balanced. The reason I mention this one is because I got distracted (by shiny things) and forgot about my cup of tea, I left it about an hour. It is cold now, but still delicious and this has never happened to me before! Normally, I cannot handle a chai that is cold, the spice becomes overwhelming and I can no longer drink it. This is NOT the case here, it is still delicious. The spices are still there, they are upfront, then comes the chocolatey flavor and the hint of almond, then as you swallow, BAM! pepper! Fantastic!

I will keep brewing this, in varied methods, Cofftea has given me a ton of ideas about how to keep drinking this, thank you :)

Preparation
3 min, 0 sec
Cofftea

WO HO! I have very little left so I must live vicariously thru you for a while=,(

Cinoi

Oh no :( I know how you feel my chocolate pu-erh is depleting oh so rapidly…

mattscinto

I feel like everyone is drinking chocolate teas this month. I need to get some already haha

Cofftea

Yes you do mattscinto- start w/ the new Steepster Select Item and this one!=D

Southern Boy Teas

My favorite comment on this one was from one of our Twitter followers who called it “a delicious kick in the mouth.” I always find it invigorating. To me, it tastes like a really good chocolatey chai and then right after you swallow it, WHAM, it gets you right in the back of the throat.

Cofftea

I agree 52teas! This tea neat is so much better than drinking or hot chocolate made w/ water.

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Comments

Cofftea

WO HO! I have very little left so I must live vicariously thru you for a while=,(

Cinoi

Oh no :( I know how you feel my chocolate pu-erh is depleting oh so rapidly…

mattscinto

I feel like everyone is drinking chocolate teas this month. I need to get some already haha

Cofftea

Yes you do mattscinto- start w/ the new Steepster Select Item and this one!=D

Southern Boy Teas

My favorite comment on this one was from one of our Twitter followers who called it “a delicious kick in the mouth.” I always find it invigorating. To me, it tastes like a really good chocolatey chai and then right after you swallow it, WHAM, it gets you right in the back of the throat.

Cofftea

I agree 52teas! This tea neat is so much better than drinking or hot chocolate made w/ water.

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Bio

I am a sarcastic perfectionist, a computer nerd, a game geek, an avid reader, a gadget guru, a wine (and tea) enthusiast, and (in my spare time) a chemist.

As I mentioned, I am a chemist, research and development to be exact, so when evaluating tea, it is much like evaluating my products: I will find the flaws and do my very best to fix them because it is what I love to do. Along those lines, nothing is perfect, but can have perfect qualities, I will highlight those also.

I made a preliminary guide to my rating scale:
0-19 – Did not like anything about the tea, feel it cannot be saved without being reformulated.
20-40 – Did not like the tea, it can be saved with extreme amounts of tweaking (i.e., sugar, milk, honey and or blending with another tea)
41-60 – Neutral about the tea, it can be helped or hurt by additives or blends, varied temperatures and steep times
61-70 – Decent tea, needs a little bit of help to get it in the place I like it, but definitely not out of reach
71-80 – Quality tea, liked it, will try again
81-90 – Really enjoyed the tea, high quality, will continue to drink the tea, not looking for something better
91-100 – Loved the tea, will continue to brew and drink and spread the word about the tea to everyone

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NJ

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