Stormy Night (Organic)

Stormy Night will entice you with the scent of coconut and cinnamon but it’s the chocolate that will seal the deal for you. This was the first tea I purchased from DavidsTea, being a big fan of black tea and a big fan of chocolate I figured it was worth the shot, and overall I will say I like it though it didn’t really blow me out of the water.

Dry the tea has small leaves is very dark with some contrast added in by the coconut flakes and chocolate chunks. It has a strong cinnamon scent with light coconut undertones. Brewing the tea takes on a dark appearance and has a strong cinnamon smell.

The final beverage is your standard black tea color, very dark, lots of cinnamon can be seen floating around in the drink, the smell kind of reminds of hot chocolate a bit, more so if you add milk.

Stormy night will certainly appeal to the chocolate and cinnamon lovers out there, but be warned it is a fairly strong flavored tea (heavy cinnamon) so people that do not like explosions of flavor may find this tea too much. Fans of chocolate milk and hot apple cider will feel right at home with this tea. It is one of my personal favorites to enjoy on an actual stormy night as it seems to make me care less that it is raining!

Whenever I make tea for a group of people and ask others which tea they would like to try, they always seemed very surprised when they smell this tea. It smells wonderful, and tastes great.

When I first had this tea, I had been drinking mostly green teas at that time, and thought this was a pleasant change.

When I first took a sip, my tea was still very hot, and I thought it tasted kind of weak. I had a light taste of chocolate combined with the black tea and vanilla. I got just a hint of coconut and cinnamon. As the tea cooled, I think I was able to taste the subtleties in the coconut and cinnamon better. Overall, I thought everything blending very well together.

I made a pot of this for everyone at the office towards the end of the day, and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.

So this has just lovely ingredients..a smorgasbord of them!

I’m not crazy about the smell it reminds me of Chai Amazonia(Am I losing it??)not as strong but a subdued familiarity.

It’s actually a stormy night..dark early…raining and cold that snaps your bones.
Perfect for trying this tea.

After brewed smells completely different.
Cinnamon OH sweet Cinnamon you sly sexy devil!
It smells sweet and velvety with vanilla bleeding through.

I CANNOT WAIT TO DRINK YOU!

As for taste,
It is smooth,velvety sweet with cinnamon and a chocolate base.
It is a very light tea.

I prefer my cinnamon kicking me in the face (HARVEST APPLE SPICE ohmagerd! from Tea Forte)

It’s weird but I’m not sure how I feel about it It’s definitely lovely there’s no denying that but I think it is in need of a longer steep.

I believe there is more richness that I am missing out on!

I’ll start out this review by saying that this is quite possibly one of the ugliest teas I’ve ever steeped. It’s murky and brown, and reminiscent of…feces, I guess.

But if you can get past the fact that the tea looks (quite literally) like sh*t, then it’s actually rather enjoyable! While steeping, I found it smelled very strongly of chocolate and coconut, and slight vanilla undertones. I wasn’t picking up on the cinnamon or black tea at all.

After letting it steep for 6 minutes, give or take, I gave it a taste and was simultaneously surprised and, well…not surprised. It tasted exactly like it smelled! Which was not a bad thing, necessarily, as the chocolate, coconut & vanilla all blended very well with the black tea, but I was slightly disappointed at the lack of cinnamon taste.

I’ll certainly have no qualms with finishing the rest of my 50g bag, but I probably won’t buy it again. Also it may be worth noting that before the even left the container at the DT store, the chocolate had melted and hardened back up again, making this tea very clumpy & hard to measure while dry. I think I will call David’s about this in the near future.

Ladyfriend gifted a bit of this to me since I’m a spiced tea lover :)

I’m glad she did as this is an interesting sip. I went a little heavy on the leaf, as per her suggestion, and feel that’s another valid choice. I can see how this may be a little underwhelming otherwise.

The main flavor is definitely the cinnamon, which is both enhanced and defined by the coconut and chocolate notes. Thanks to the fruity sweetness these provide, the tea is very cider like. The pseudo cider meant I didn’t need any cream, which is usually present in my black teas, so there’s that too.

This isn’t the tastiest tea I’ve tried but it’s nice as a caffeinated cider so it’s appreciated as a cold morning cuppa (like today – it’s bitter out).

I doubt I’ll purchase it in the future but I’m stoked I got to try it :)

I’m not sure what happened to that one…the first time I had it, a month ago, it was from a sample from Davids and I really enjoyed it. And I was so happy to find some (tanks Nxtdoor!), since it’s discontinued and I can’t find it anymore. But when I received it in the post, I opened the bag and smelled it…ewh…strange odor. I steeped it, hoping the taste to be better…but no. There is a strange flavor that I cannot identify. Is it possible that my taste changed so fast? Or are they from two different batchs? I had keep the sample bag and smelled it to find if there is any difference…and I think the first one dont have this strange odor. I just smell cinamon and chocolate in the first one.

Brewed myself a cup this morning with vanilla agave in honour of Halloween. Mmmm :)

This morning, I rolled out of bed knowing I had to get things done. My list of things to study and upcoming exams are piling up enough to smother me.

As always, step one: drink tea. Not yet feeling up to tackling the day, I resteep some 2002 shu I had in my cup to relax after work last night. I wasn’t into it for one reason or another, and could hardly down the cup. Nothing in my tea shrine seemed appealing, so I decided the conditions were right to hit the samples I had stocked up. Stormy Night stuck out to me, and reading the ingredients, thought it would be perfect to enjoy with some morning granola.

The smell of the dry tea practically filled up the room instantly, and I was excited. It smelled like a spicy, earthy autumn night spent at a family gathering at candlelight – or maybe, more simply, potpurri. When I poured the near-boiling water in the pot, it smelled closer to heaven, and the aromas really came alive, mainly the cinnamon.

As soon as I finished pouring out the last dribble five minutes later, the cup hit my lips. And…disappointment. I’m not as let down by this tea as some other reviewers, because it’s certainly drinkable and quite enjoyable, but very lacking as well. It tastes like sipping on cinnamon water, and I can’t even detect any black tea flavor, or coconut for that matter (and the bits of it are very obvious in the mix). It kind of reminds me of every Republic of Tea sachet that I’ve ever steeped, that smells intoxicating but ends up tasting much like dirty water no matter how it’s steeped.

I can think of a ton of ways to draw out the last of my sample and improve upon it, though. Ideas are spinning through my head: cut it with some good black tea and a drop of vanilla, a bit of dark chocolate, and some chai spices…make a 50/50 blend with masala chai…make it a latte and add more spices…etc. I think this blend has HUGE potential, as the flavor combinations are just perfect for a, well, stormy night. Chocolate, chile, chai spices, coconut, and vanilla are about as comforting and warming as it gets, and I can’t wait to play around with this (though I’d rather I didn’t have to).

I got this tea as a sample from David’s Tea back in Spring; it sounded quite interesting so I’ve been saving it for a “rainy” day ever since. Course I’m one of those people who has a habit of saving single servings of tea for that “perfect” day and then never actually steeping them but today… today is definitely a good day for this one.

Dry this tea is quite chunky from the hunks of chocolate and small pieces of cinnamon stick. There was a definite scent of chocolate that came as soon as the bag was opened and the coconut was also present, just underneath the hint of cinnamon. There was however a slightly odd high note in the aroma that I couldn’t place, not off-putting but just… odd.

Steeped the liquor is a light brown, a bit on the murky side with all of the debris floating around (bits of cinnamon and the remainder of the dissolved chocolate). Scent-wise the chocolate loses out to the cinnamon and the coconut takes on a bit of a “roasted” scent. Intellectually I know the vanilla is in there too but I have a really hard time picking it out.

I ended up having to steep this one for quite some time to get the full flavor effect, coconut and cinnamon were the first (somewhat) weak flavors that I noticed prior to the extra-long steep. Fast forward a few more minutes and the flavor became much more robust with a nice warm hit of chocolate to mellow out the cinnamon. The coconut helps to round out the flavor profile, but I still have a hard time finding the vanilla in it. The black tea this is based on is also quite nice as it stood up well to the additional flavors and didn’t get overly bitter with the extra-long steep.

Overall, this is quite a nice smooth tea, the flavors are subtle in the end but all the better for it I think. It’s just too bad that David’s Tea is discontinuing this one for now… hopefully it will be back soon.

I like it but not as much as other teas I’ve purchased from here in the past. My mom loves it though so I gave her the tin to keep for now and I’ll see if I warm up to it later.

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