Love Tea #7

Hmmm, yes this was great!
Not the tea I had intended to order, in fact I had planned to make one from my own stock, but I was passing by while running an errand and figured I had to get a cup! I’m stressed out from studying for an exam I have coming up and that usually leads to me making poor financial decisions (not that I’m making excuses! just sayin)
Oh yah the tea…
At first sip I couldn’t taste the chocolate much, so I added a swirl of agave and it brought up the notes quite nicely. I don’t like that the agave was needed but atleast I’ve found a chocolate tea I enjoy! most of them either have mint or taste like a chemical brew. Somehow, its almost creamy. Maybe from the chocolate? Funny, I’ve never seen that before. Most of the time, any choco chips don’t melt, or so I’ve noticed. The second infusion was less creamy but had less agave and was just overall lighter. Still great!
In both infusions, the roses, chocolate and strawberries blend well together. It reminds me of my Rose Congou Emperor, only sans the cocoa. I wonder, what would happen if I added a few chips to my congou??? :P
Too bad they are so similar… I can’t justify buying any of this one til my congou is gone.

I am on the fence with this tea. The chocolate really only came through in smell. The hot tea, for me, was a bit too floral due to the rose petals (I find floral teas can easily turn perfume-y which has a artificial and chemical taste to it that just is not pleasant). However, there was some subtle hints of the sweet strawberry that I liked. Also, I tried this as a latte and thought the milk brought out the berry notes quite nicely and got rid of the perfume-y issue I was having. Overall, this is not a bad cup but not something I would reach for so I am glad I only bought 10 g of this.

Tea #17 from Traveling Tea Box C

To me this was an all around more artificial and less tasty version of Love Potion from Bluebird Tea Co. I would also prefer Adagio’s Valentine’s tea to this.

The chocolate has that same artificial twinge that Della Terra’s have, and the aftertaste is hard to explain, but when I eat cheap chocolate (Hershey’s bars for example) they give my mouth a waxy feeling that leaves me feeling and tasting like I ate crayons. That is what this does.

That sensation goes down as the tea cools. But convincing myself to take a sip after that initial feeling was hard.

As it cools, I can pick out the strawberry (very slight, and I can taste it in the back roof of my mouth, which was a strange sensation), and the rose adds a subtle sweetness.

I ended up dumping this because the crayon/waxy/candle feeling never quite got to a point where I wanted to keep going.

This tastes like Lip Smackers! Chocolate, strawberry, cherry and maybe even Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers. Husband took a sip of it, said it was too hot, but smelled like coffee and tasted “like that rice thing with the, the sencha!” Sigh, no dear, I’ll brew the genmaicha next, but this is certainly not it. Chocolate covered strawberries in lip gloss form, no doubt. Thanks Traveling Tea Box for bringing up late elementary school memories.

i have nothing to say about this tea exactly. i don’t taste the chocolate covered strawberries but i WANT TO! i WISH i did.

what i wanna say is that I FUCKING LOVE STEEPSTER! i wanna spend all day here and just try all 88 of my teas in a cyclical pattern and think about art and books and movies and tell you all about them and listen to your stories and loves.
mad fact.

I’m writing this note thanks to Dexter3657. I was lost to all of you forever (big deal, right?) because I couldn’t add comments, notes or anything at all. I freaked out and emailed Dexter who said “clear your cookies”. Once I figured out how to do this on ipad it all worked fine so… I’m back baby!

This tea is amazing. Yes, “amazing” and “DAVIDs” can go together. You can taste the chocolate, berries as well as the rose yet it is so well balanced, none of the three are too much. This is of course the way it tastes to me. I’m not Hemingway, he was the best at describing things, even food, but suffice it to say that if you like chocolate strawberry teas you will enjoy this. It’s not too floral, I worried about the roses too but it’s good.

I steeped it at work, in a bag, and it’s still good. Resteeps well also although the resteep is more chocolate and rose and only a hint of strawberry.

Dry leaf smells mostly of chocolate but there is a whiff of strawberries. The brewed tea is not overly fragrant but there is chocolate on the nose. Caramel coloured liquor. ( The tea bag smelled out of this world afterwards, as it was waiting patiently to be re-steeped.)

2 tsp, 12 oz near boiling water, 4 min.

I woke up cranky, still tired, with low blood sugar, and somehow ran out of time to eat anything before going to work. This is becoming a comfort tea for me when I am cranky and bratty. It feels decadent so it works for me in those moods.

Sometimes it tastes pretty floral and others it’s more chocolate-strawberry. I’m still weirded out by it as the thought of a rose tea kind of repels me. But, clearly I like it! I even just sniffed my empty Libre because it still smells so good.

Got this in a swap with Emilie, thanks again!

This smells fantastic, mmm chocolate covered strawberries. The liquor it’s a really pretty deep orange-red.
Really lovely flavor, dark and delicious. Definitely a cocoa taste and not just a “we dumped chocolate syrup in it” taste, which is great. The strawberry mingles really well and I pick it up as a bit of an aftertaste. Yummy!

This tea is getting a huge rating boost, I am newly in love!
I was brewing this in my timolino at work with the lid off so that it would cool down faster (those things hold heat!). Anyway, the next five people who walked by my office all popped their heads in to ask about the smell (I have a full office, my door just wasn’t closed, so the smell had to have been pretty powerful). They were all like “what is that heavenly smell, are you melting chocolate in here?”. So I had to explain and then i’m pretty sure I directed about 5 of them to the DAVIDs website to order some for themselves.

Anyway, love this tea more everytime I have it, so sweet, so flavourful, all pleasure and no guilt!

I went to de-cupboard this today and discovered it’s not in my cupboard in the first place. ANOTHER ONE, HEAVENS!

I recall being quite disappointed by this one after Read My Lips. Of the two, Read My Lips is by far David’s superior chocolate tea. I was not exactly in love with this one at first. Har har.

I also recall that I started off steeping this one at my “cautious” black steeping time of 3 minutes, which I gradually learned is a mistake with DT’s blacks, which generally need a good 4 or 5 minutes to get the best flavour. (Actually, I’ve learned that it’s a mistake with many blacks, unless I plan to try for extra steeps – which I admittedly don’t do often because I’m too fickle most days to drink the same tea twice in a row. The number of blacks which need a shorter steep are vastly outnumbered by those that can stand up to a longer one.) At three minutes, this had next-to-no strawberry flavour – the strawberries were overwhelmed by the chocolate, which nevertheless had a flimsiness to it, a lack of richness.

At four or five minutes, this one is way better, with the strawberries coming out to balance the chocolate. It’s a very enjoyable mix of chocolate and berry sweetness.

I know that, and yet, the last two cups in this bag just haven’t been as good as I know this one can be. Maybe it has just gotten too old, who knows. I will have to re-visit this one at some point, but for now, I have too many to drink up to re-purchase it.

Man, I really don’t like being unable to click to take this out of my cupboard. I miss having the closure here.