Chocolate Raspberry Truffle

Thanks to Sil for this sample!!
I totally see what you mean about this being a low grade cocoa. The chocolate note is just… well it’s off somehow.
And the raspberry is so sharp! In a very familiar, artificial sortof way.
At first, I really was not enjoying my cup. Strangely, by the end of the cup, it started to grow on me. I still disliked the fake notes but there was something oddly satisfying there. Like Tim Hortons beverages!(I heard they line the cups with a certain kind of coconut oil, which apparently is addictive so there are tons of people out there who don’t really like their coffee, but crave it anyhow heh)
That said, I wouldn’t go out and buy more. Def not heh.
Also, Dad commented on my cup of tea as it was brewing. First time ever he identified the type of tea, and that he likes chocolate! So I made him a cup and all he would say was “interesting”. Pretty sure he was disappointed though he won’t confirm because he is trying to be nice haha
Anyhow, it’s an almost sipdown, I have enough for a small cup left! Maybe I’ll mix it with my assam :)

On the Fourth Day of Christmas, Della Terra Teas sent me this tea!

Backlogging on this one a bit, because like the other 12 Days of Christmas teas from DTerra Teas – thanks Azzrian! :) – I wanted to write up the review in time to have it publish this morning. (or afternoon if you’re on the east coast).

I really like this tea. Delicious chocolate-y, raspberry-ish flavor. Sweet, tangy, and really yummy. Here is my full-length review of it: http://sororiteasisters.com/2012/12/17/on-the-fourth-day-of-christmas-della-terra-teas-sent-to-me/

I have no idea why this wasn’t a tea I chose when I ordered three sample packs from DT, since chocolate raspberry is entirely my thing… but thanks to Starfevre, I get to try it anyway. Maybe I just didn’t want to try all their chocolate teas at the time, or they had other teas I’d rather try like the oatmeal cookie. This doesn’t have too much flavor. I’d say the very sweet raspberry flavor is the strongest, rather than the black tea or the chocolate. I expect not to taste the black tea with DT though! I think I’m picking DT’s black teas when I want a black tea but not so much caffeine. But maybe I’m assuming it has less caffeine since the black tea isn’t as strong? This is nice, but I’d prefer more flavor!

This was a nice little sample that came with the chocolate sampler last month. Thank you!

Many of us are looking out the windows at SNOW today. I’m loving it!

Snow arrived a few days ago in the Rocky’s and the next is coming Christmas Eve. It’s half way melted already leaving just enough to look pretty.

Granddaughter Schey came over last night and we went to the monthly Downtown Free ‘Food Walk’.
We were bundled up in boots and warm coats http://flic.kr/p/dD4h7t, walking first into the ‘Welsh Rabbit’ for Cheese Tasting (naturally smoked Wisconson Gouda and English Chedder). http://flic.kr/p/dD9EoU
When we left the cheese shop there was a man with a tray of hot cinnamon waffles from ‘The Waffle Lab’ on the street corner handing out free big waffle sections. http://flic.kr/p/dD9Eef YUM! Hot cinnamon waffles while walking down the street!
We wound up at the end of our ‘Food Walk’ at ‘Happy Lucky’s Tea House’ where Joe was giving samples of flavored, pressed grape oil paired with tea. (my favorite was Russian Caravan Tea paired with Habanaro Chili Oil).

Schey and I finally sat at the bar and ordered a pot of holiday tea and a cookie to share…(which Sam paid for before leaving for the day. His ’on-the-house gift to us).

Today, I’m picking up grandsons Micah and Donovan for a trip back to the tea shop for TEA WITH GRANDMA! A wonderful thing to do right before Christmas! The boys love going out for tea!

To get in the mood, I decided to drink this flavored tea. (I know, a shock!) I don’t dislike flavored tea’s, I’ve gotten more selective I guess.
I appreciate that Della Terra has samplers where you can try lots of different tea’s at a reasonable price. There were some of the chocolate sampler tea’s (like the Chocolate Puerh) that I was pretty fond of.

The Raspberry Truffle was full of flavor. Chocolate, raspberry…all very rich and strong. You know what the tea is all about. FLAVOR!

When you read the ingredients on the package, it says chocolate flavoring and raspberry flavoring. You can taste them.
Some of the other Della Terra tea’s use natural ingredients for flavor and I like that more.
To tame the sourness of the artificial flavoring, I added half and half which helped a great deal. Then I sweetened my tea.

I don’t think this will disappoint anyone who wants a dessert tea. The flavor is exactly what is in the name. You can’t taste any tea but you taste lots of flavoring.

This is the first of the Chocolate tea series that I can REALLY taste the chocolate…very strongly. The play of both flavors (chocolate and raspberry) works.

Not a thumbs down or a thumbs up cuppa tea.

Meh. This is starting to confirm that it’s the chocolate teas from Della Terra that i don’t enjoy. Something about the way the chocolate tastes…it’s like low grade cocoa. or something. I didn’t get much raspberry from this either. :(

I used 1 tablespoon of dry leaf for 375 ml of water.

Good black tea base that compliments the other flavours. Raspberry tastes artifical. Chocolate flavour is only very faint. Immediate aftertaste has a good balance of black tea and raspberry taste with a chocolate hint.

As the cup cools, the tea tastes more just like slightly flavoured hot water.

Thank you to Indigobloom and Sil for sharing some with me!

Cuppa the afternoon……

It is another tea from my Mystery Box from Della Terra. Here is one I probably would not have chosen for myself. I did have an old favorite custom blend from another vendor that I drank quite a bit on the beginning of my tea journey. I probably got my fill of chocolate raspberry tea at that time…..at least enough that it would not cross my mind to purchase more.

All that being said, this one is surprising to me. The chocolate notes are of dark chocolate and they complement the raspberry very well, and it is a very good raspberry flavor. Again, I love that the tea base Della Terra uses is the type that lets the flavors do the talking. Let’s face it….if we are after flavors like chocolate and raspberry, we are not after a tea base that shows up as a bitter interruption. I did use just a little more leaf than I normally would since their base is on the light side for my taste, but that seems to work for me. I am not sure this would be a rebuy for me, but I will say that it did influence my decision to purchase more from this vendor. This is so much better than my older version of this tea. I will thoroughly enjoy it while I have it. Who knows? I might pick up an ounce or so in a later order. I love the size options they offer.

Usual mug method with just a little extra tea.

Sample sipdown from Dexter3657.

I’m brewing a cup of this now so I can leave it on the counter to cool off. I’m starving and I want tea. I won’t be able to drink hot liquids today so a nice lukewarm cup of this will be nice.

I had the first cup a few days ago, at work, but didn’t have iPad with me and I didn’t want to add notes from memory. I remember it being nice. Now I’m going to have it again, in not the best of circumstances, but someone said the tannins in black tea help curb residual bleeding so… I’m sacrificing this one somewhat. Although a sacrificial tea, I didn’t want to drink something barfy as my first tea post-op.

This tea delivers on its promise of flavour: chocolate raspberry. It’s pleasant, not astringent, not bitter, exactly what chocolate raspberry tastes like in my mind. Not having had anything like this before I have nothing to compare it to so I like it.

And now I’m going to go get me some new chompers!

Dry – Smelled amazing.
1st steep – delicious chocolate raspberry. Both tastes were distinct and delicious
2rd steep – much less chocolate taste but raspberry is still there and is very tastey
3rd steep – chocolate is gone but raspberry still shines.
Possibly could have steeped 4th time but was bedtime. Very good tea.

Backlogging a bit. I like this but I don’t love it, so it’s somewhat of a bummer that I accidentally ordered an extra 2oz bag of it. It’s very true to it’s name, you can taste and smell both the fruity zing of the raspberry and the rich chocolate. There’s a chocolate shop back where I grew up called Munson’s and my favorite thing from them is their milk chocolate raspberry creams. I think this is actually fairly similar, but it’s more of a dark chocolate flavor. I’ll drink it and I’ll enjoy it, but there are other teas I enjoy more.

This tea satisfied my evening desire for desert without guilt. Definitely a new favorite of mine.

Making this as the first thing I’ve made in my brand new Breville Tea Maker! Which I will review when I get a handle on what it can do. Ahem.

When I was sipping this when it was really hot, I didn’t get much flavour except the black tea out of it at all, but as it has cooled, I’m getting much more chocolate with a bit of fruitiness which I guess is the raspberry. If you had asked me to name which fruit this was in a blind taste test, I don’t think I could have told you that this was raspberry, but it’s nice nonetheless.

I did add milk to this, and I think that next time I won’t because I think it’s dulling the flavours I get. Milk is always a crapshoot, I’m finding. Sometimes it enhances flavours and cancels out bitterness and sometimes it dulls everything until it just tastes like barely flavoured milk.

The only thing that is disrupting my tea experience right now is the fact that one of the cats is attempting to bring up a hairball a couple feet from the table, very loudly. But I won’t hold that against the tea :)

This is delicious! I got 3 good 16 oz. mugs from a single steep of approximately 2.5 teaspoons of tea — which is a lot more than I usually get; I was surprised. (The last steep was noticeably weaker, but still flavorful.) Sweetened with stevia and served hot, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

This tea trumps all other flavored black teas for me right now… Even my beloved pumpkin! It is delicious. Perfect raspberry and chocolate flavors!

It smells nicely like these raspberry candies I like. The flavour is more raspberry than chocolate. Not bad, but I like their other chocolate teas more.

Yum (^.^)

The raspberry and chocolate come through well. It tastes richer when I wait for it to cool a bit. It smells so good that my sister picked it out to try even though I told her I saved the last bit of Kotobuki for her and she was supposed to drink that last night… It’s alright, I share… Lucky I got the 1 oz and not just the try me.

This was my second sample from Shelley_Lorraine :)

This tea smells amazing! So maybe I had my expectations too high based on that or the chocolate in this one just wasn’t working for me. It’s not bad per se, but it’s not good

The raspberry notes were better. They did seem artificial as other’s have said, but still tasty and it grew on me. Just not enough to really like this tea.

My fiance liked this tea far more than me, so it’ll be heading off to work with him most likely.