White Chocolate Cashew Black Tea

Guess what?

I won Frank’s little tenth responder trivia contest. Wohooo, so I decided to pick up this as my free tea. I think Frank should start offering sampler sets. Who agrees? Split up the teas that aren’t selling as well into sampler packs. Just enough for one or two cups of tea would probably suffice.

Moving onto the tea… I have to say this is amazing tea. The smell threw me off at first, but I slowly got use to it. It smells like cashews that’s been soaked in water for way too long. Sort of moldy smelling. Don’t get me wrong, its not pu-erh fish tank smell, there’s just something about the smell that’s bugging me. The smell isn’t making me run away and quiver with fear. I can stand over it and inhale the tea fumes, but there’s something about it…. shrugs.

I normally complain that the flavors in Frank’s teas aren’t strong enough, but honestly I think this one is perfect as it is. The strength is a mild / moderate black tea, that’s masked by layers. It tastes as if someone granulated cashews into fine particles so every sip is nutty and then there’s this white chocolate flavor that’s mixed within it. Actually, looking into my cup, I think that’s what Frank did. I see bits and pieces of white stuff, which I can only hope is cashews, floating around my tea. The tea’s a bit murky… brown, sewage water looking. Ehh, with white particles floating around. It doesn’t look that safe… but oh so delicious that I can’t resist. Whatever happens, happens. I’m drinking the rest of this fine white chocolate cashew tea.

^{I think my white chocolate morsels melted… couldn’t seem to find them after my steep. Strange… might have been hiding. The tea doesn’t seem to get bitter, it remains almost silky smooth.}

This one courtesy of Doulton!

YUM!

I fixed this one with a little half and half and sugar, and a mere pinch of salt like LiberTEAS! Delicious, buttery, nutty treat! I’m a cashew fanatic, and my husband is a cashew AND white chocolate fanatic, and we are both really enjoying this. The tea flavor is a little weak, but I think it is actually working in the blend’s favor, as this could get sickening if too strong. Good job! I need to pick some of this up because my husband is drinking this down like there is no tomorrow!

EDIT: Woe! It looks like it is sold out! I better jump on the other 52 teas I’ve been coveting!

I drank this all day yesterday (one teaspoon in 12 oz. lasted me up to three infusions each). Its sweetness really help curb my trips to the office candy jar at work. But, in a moment of weakness, I actually fished out all the white chocolate chips out of the packet and ate them! :P

I’m happy to say that the the lack of chips does not affect the flavor at all. They’re there just for looks, really.

I need some caffeine – black tea style! This is not what I consider to be the stoutest tea out there, but it is black… and it is yummy! So this is what I grabbed from my stash.

As I’ve done before with this tea, I’ve added just the tiniest pinch of salt to it to enhance the cashew flavor. If I hadn’t done this – this time – I don’t know that I would have detected it. (Again, not the tea’s fault, but my taste buds) With it though, I can taste the sweet, nutty flavor of the cashews as well as the smooth creamy flavor of the white chocolate.

The tea is pleasantly brisk and provides a nice base for the flavors here, although I think that the white chocolate cashew flavor might be quite interesting with a green tea base as well. Overall, a very nice offering from 52Teas. Deliciously different for a morning tea.

Another one gotten in a swap with Meghann – thanks a bunch! – and also my first taste of a 52teas blend. The dry leaf smells wonderful: nutty, chocolatey goodness. And it’s easy to notice the big chunks of cashew and white chocolate among the large dark leaves.

I gave it five minutes of steeping time and ended up with a medium-dark brown liquor, somewhat cloudy (assuming this is from the white chocolate chip I saw in there melting away into the liquid). The aroma of the tea was milder than I expected, as was the first steep. I got a sweet, nutty smell and taste but little from the black tea. This seems like the kind of tea that really needs cream and sugar, so I put some in and tasted again. Now that’s what I’m talking about! Much more delicious and the flavors are really coming to the fore now. This is a wonderful dessert tea and would be great with cookies for a double dose of decadence.

What an interesting smell this dry leaf mixture has. I can definitely smell the cashew, something creamy and buttery (must be the white chocolate), and there’s also a sharp note that I can’t identify but that I’m sure is a flavoring component. I’m not getting what Ricky smelled, but I can see where his comment came from. I can’t really explain it well. The best I can do is to say the interaction between the cashew smell and the white chocolate smell makes the cashews smell different than straight cashew would.

The white chocolate chips startled me at first as they are huge. Well really, they’re the size of normal chocolate chips, but most teas that I’ve had with chips in them have the tiny ones so these seemed staggeringly gynormous by comparison. At first I thought they were cashews buried in the black tea, until I scooped one out and could see its shape. The cashews look like your basic cashew halves, split down the middle. The tea in this one has large, long, pretty dark leaves.

The tea liquor looks like weak coffee with milk in it. It’s virtually opaque and a tan/orange color. I am guessing this is the influence of the (now melted) white chocolate chips. It has an unexpected aroma. Fruity. Fruity surrounding the cashews. Though the tea doesn’t have much in common with it really, I made an association with Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut bars.

The flavor is just what it purports to be, and in a really satisfying way. The cashew flavor is subtle and powerful at the same time. Not quite sure how that happened, but it did. I haven’t had cashew flavored tea before and I was concerned I’d be getting more of a generic nut flavor, but no, this is most definitely cashew. The white chocolate surrounds it without blotting it out. I can even taste the tea under it all, though it certainly isn’t the main event but rather the stage on which the event takes place.

I threw a little salt in as LiberTEAS suggested. Made a little difference, but not as much as I’d expected. This may be, however, because I’d just eaten pretzels and so had already had the effect of added salt before adding more. :-)

This is a very nice tea that accomplishes what it sets out to do and I give it a lot of credit for that. White chocolate isn’t my favorite flavor and I think if this had had regular chocolate instead I would have been reduced to speechlessness.

LiberTEAs knew I wanted to try this and she sent me some…how nice!!!! Thanks girl!

This smells nutty with sugar and the look of the post infused tea is a muddy texture-E brown. Not too unusual for something with chocolate in it, I guess.

Yes, Certainly more CASHEW taste than black tea or white chocolate. I guess I like this one just fine but I can’t say it’s my favorite from 52 Teas. There are others I like better.

Actually…as it cools for about 2 to 3 minutes the flavors seem to even out more. Maybe not ‘even’ out but work a little better for the end result. My it’s the chocolate kicking in a little bit more…not sure. But I AM still getting an intense Cashew taste. I would say that is the center and focus of the tea tastes for this.

Weather cooperated for one pickup truck load from the farm (it’s been raining on Saturdays like clockwork), so I am now in possession of the microwave stand that is no a longer a microwave stand, but my Mobile Tea Storage Unit!

Because of that, I spent a pleasant hour or so mumbling to myself (my preciouss……oh, look, my other preciousssss……) and sorting shelves by category, and I was unable to unbox some wonderful post-storm gift teas I hadn’t been able to get to yet, including this one.

No mini-chips in this one, my white chocolate piece in this morning’s cup was full size. Appearance is a little milky because of the melted chocolate. Flavor is spot on. Texture—nice and silky. Tasty and well done!

It was ridiculously tempting not to eat the white chocolate chips right out of the bag – but I was strong and kept them in the tea. :D

I stirred the tea up with a spoon while it was steeping to help dissolve the chocolate, and when the tea was done it was actuallyquite cloudy from it – like I had added milk to it even though I was just drinking it straight. It smelled delicious too, like some sort of dessert or chocolate confectionery only in liquid form.

I though the tea would taste sweeter than it did, instead the white chocolate was more of a background flavour and the cashew was light and nutty. Never the less they lent this tea a smooth, slightly butter taste with not bitterness whatsoever, which was quite nice.

I’m pretty excited about this one because I love everything that is in the name! it’s like it was blended for me…. but it wasn’t!

Anyways opened up the pouch and was hit with a very yummy baking cookies kinda smell… which only got me more excited. I made 2 32oz pots with different sets of leaves to check to see how much different rations of bits affect the flavor. AKA… where is the majority of the flavor? In the leaves or in the decoration bits. I’m a curious cat today! And I didn’t put anything in these two pots… so now… drum roll

Pot that happened to get more decoration bits in my 3 and 1/2 random scoops:
Since this had a lot of white chocolate chips I expected it not to need sugar but I think it does. Since I was expected smooth nutty and sweet… and those flavor aren’t as present as I would like… I’m picking up more astringency than I normally do from franks blends. That might just be my taste buds on over drive looking for more sweet and nut flavors…
So yea… plain pot with lots of chips and things… disappointing. I’ll be trying it with milk and sugar later but I really like teas that I don’t have to put anything in.

Pot with no decoration bits!:
Yep… the bits make a difference. The black tea taste is much stronger in this pot. There’s some nuttiness but its missing the buttery smoothness that must have been coming from the chips.

Experiment completed… I’m having this with milk and sugar next.