Florence

The aroma of the leaves is faint, if you bury your nose right in the tin you can make out a hint of chocolate. The resulting infusion has a promising hazelnut on the nose, but falls flat on the first sip. A smooth, medium-bodied black tea with a ghost of chocolate flavour, which I could just be imagining due to my desperation to taste something, anything!

This is the second Harney & Sons tea that I’ve tried that hasn’t had much flavour to it, contrary to the other tasting notes, so I’m starting to wonder if this is a freshness issue. The leaf is packed loose in the tin (other companies I buy tins from will seal the tea in a bag inside the tin) and there is a best before date for August 2010. A “packed on” date would be much more helpful to me really, is this tea a year old or 5 years old? Just how airtight are the tins? Why isn’t there a decent stockist here? Why am I poking around on Steepster instead of sewing my dress?
So many questions, I’m not sure there are answers…

It makes me sad to rate this. Everyone else rated it so highly, but I find it absolutely does NOT taste like dessert. It’s bitter, and I have to force myself to steep it a second time just because I’m too cheap to throw out leaves that still have ‘juice’ in them. I want to swap this all away for something more on my page. I don’t taste any flavor in this.. if the bitterness is supposed to be hazelnut, yuck.

I will try adding cream and sugar I suppose. Otherwise I can’t see me willingly drinking this.
I’m trying really hard to be a tea person who enjoys tea for tea, and I suppose Harney & Sons’ teas are supposed to be of fair quality (am I wrong??) with subtle flavoring vs snowflake shaped sprinkles, fake flavoring and whatnot, but if this is what subtlety or quality tastes like then I’ll stick with the greasy sprinkles and chemical additives.

After yesterdays confusion and euphoria with new teas, then the stress of evaluation thrown in, today is going to be much slower and deliberate.
I appreciate SimplyJenW who is helping me round out my “Tour de Harney.” First of all, I would not have bought this. I am a bit of a traditionalist, I enjoy courses in a meal separate. I dont like foods getting too close on my plate unless it is by design or recipe. I don’t really care for coffee flavored tea, I would rather just have coffee if I am in the mood. The same goes for cocoa and tea. I love them both and know full well a piece of dark chocolate and a cup of black tea are a divine combination, but I like them to compliment each other on their own, not mixed together. All this is to say, I have avoided chocolate flavored teas until now. This may seem odd, but it is just how my tastes have grown over the years. Thank goodness for Steepster, and friends like SimplyJenW, OUR beloved QuiltGuppy, KiTT and so many others who willingly share to help expand our tastes. Every sip of this, I have to do a double take to see if it is in fact tea or cocoa. I can imagine this would be excellent for a cold winters night, rather than a hot summer day, but it is good all the same. Dry it smelled of a chocolate bar. Steeped, it smells just like cocoa with warmed milk or cream. The Hazelnut is subtle, just barely there. It seems well balanced, not too much of anything (a Harney trademark from my standpoint) and is a comforting cup.
I like this and honestly expected not to. I will however plan to get some and have it on hand for the hounds of winter. Good as it is, I will enjoy it more in a traditional setting. :)
Thanks SimplyJenW. You changed my mind about this one.

I was hoping this would satisfy my craving for nutella on toast (or croissant, or waffle, or…anything. What doesn’t go with nutella?) The flavors were subtle; the chocolate and hazelnut were mildly there, but it was lacking that certain something.

Then I added milk and sugar, which smoothed it out and enhanced the flavors a bit, but still didn’t result in that “pow!” that I was hoping for. I guess it’s just not that kind of tea, and that’s ok; now that I know what it’s all about I can accept it for what it is. And it was a nice cup. Thank you to whatshesaid for the sample!

_{Brew temp was 208}

It’s in the water.

So many times I read how important quality water is for good tea. My parents neighbor-who knows less about tea than me-was going on about it this weekend. Myself, I have been using filtered water for so long, I can’t remember drinking tea made with straight tap water. So there I am at my parents house making this new tea for dessert last night and something was not quite right.

It was the water.

Unfiltered tap water that I had grown up on and thought tasted pretty good was overpowering this wonderfully aromatic and sweet tea I had just bought earlier in the afternoon. I could taste the potential here, but rather than enjoying the tea, I couldn’t wait to get home and try it with better water.

I’ve been looking for a dessert tea to have besides masala chai (which I enjoy, but not every night) and mint chocolate tea-which doesn’t go with everything and I get tired of anyway.

This is one of those teas that I knew as soon as I smelled the dry leaf, I would love it. It smells just like you would expect-of hazelnut and chocolate. This tea tastes almost like coffee to me. At least what I think I remember coffee tastes like as I have never really been a coffee drinker. It’s smooth and kind of heavy, it’s hard to believe it’s straight and translucent. Zero bitterness. Liquor is a nice shade of chestnut. As advertised, it tastes like chocolate and hazelnut. The flavoring is so natural. It’s really sweet and rich with nothing added. I imagine it would be exceedingly decadent with soy milk/cream and sugar added-which I will have to try soon. Water problem solved

Masala chai has some serious competition here.

I am not gonna lie, I was full to the brim with admiration for the tastiness and awesomeness of this tea. It smells DIVINE, it tastes amazing and it is lovely and awesome, although I’m gonna have to find some Toppo and eat it before I can confirm the resemblance. It is a sacrifice, but one I am willing to make.

Anyway, I was gonna wax poetic about every aspect of this tea and how its subtlety was a lovely change form other dessert teas I have tried and how I have to buy a whole thing of it right NAO. But…I got into a particularly bad pug and not even the amazingness of Florence can counter the frustration and general put-upon-ness I am feeling right now. AND the worst part is that I am blowing it way out of proportion because a stupid offhand remark from one of the worst offenders happened to evoke an…unpleasant memory.

I sulk now. But Florence is delicious!

(Note: you will never see me give out a 100 because I will always be all like “but what if some even MORE awesome tea comes up later? what will I give THAT?” Yeah, it’ll probably never happen, but WHAT IF IT DOES?)

Oh Florence, you smell divine. I’m glad that you didn’t seem to mind me constantly smelling you. I tried steeping you like other black teas, but you didn’t seem to take kindly to that sort of treatment. You hid your flavors from me and barely held yourself together. You should know that I rarely “do subtle”. I thought our relationship might be short lived, but I had a “Plan B”. For my next cup, I added another teaspoon of you to the same leaves from my first attempt. This seemed to suit you. You had a perfect ratio of chocolaty goodness, and your hazelnut taste was bitter and nutty…but tasteful. If I close my eyes and try not to think too hard, the black tea fades away and you are nothing but creamy chocolate in my mouth. It’s cool though. I’m in to a little trickery every once and a while. I thought my constant drinking of strong Yunnan blacks was going to ruin my taste for you, but you still prevailed. You just needed a little bulking up. I really wanted to try you with a little milk and sugar, but you seem too shy for that. I have just enough to make a few more cups. Since I have to double up your leaf every time I want a cup, I fear we do not have long together. I promise, however, to make the most of it.

Tonight is probably not the best evening to even begin compairing or complaining of tea. It is a zombie night and I am enjoying the sound of rain and a dark and delicious cup, or two, of chocolate teas.
Florence is my second variant tonight and sadly, I like it best.
The black tea is exquisite and I would swear it is a milk chocolate I taste. Generally I dislike most chocolate and milk chocolate just plain creeps-me-out. Who knows why but I enjoy baking with it. Ask me to make a chocolate cake and it’s all yours. Pour me a cup of this tea and just try to pull it away… you’ve got yourself a fight!
This tea was well worth the drive to Seattle to pick up… yes, and even the crowds of touristy shoppers. :)

It’s still light outside, at 7; it’s already June, it seems! It was back in February that I first read about the Harney & Sons flavored teas on Steepster, and I’ve since been wanting to try them! So, Maria, thank you for making a mini tea wish come true with this swap, haha!

But this first step into Harney & Sons is coming with high expectations. I’ve heard so much, and Florence, in particular, is loaded. For one, I was drawn to this tea because you all were mentioning dreamy things like Nutella, and I can’t help but expect that… For two, despite the milk chocolate hazelnut pre-conceptions, I was very unimpressed by the dry leaf aroma, which was like Teavana’s Cacao Mint Black – my most terrible tea nightmare, so far. So, which is it? Dreamy, or nightmarish? Nutella in a cup? Teavana gone wrong?!

Turns out, this is neither. It’s definitely not a terribly artificial tea, thank the universe. But then it’s not my beloved Nutella, either… And I don’t want it to be. Because then it wouldn’t be this: a smooth, elegant chocolate hazelnut tea, so refined and restrained in flavor, but not ‘fantastic’ or ‘dreamy’: more accessible, so everyday, so candid. And somehow, the ‘Florence’ name is spot-on – it’s definitely reminiscent of Italy. Maybe it’s that same candid decadence I’ve found in every other chocolate hazelnut Italian anything I’ve ever had, too. Dessert sweet, but from the cocoa and hazelnut themselves, and not just plain added sugar. Creamy, a flavored creme, not just milk, soft and smooth. And that hint of caffeinated bitterness from the cacao-coffee notes, making this more mature, but also more balanced. An everyday goodness…

I initially intended to brew just a cup. I thought better of it, and opted to brew a teapot. The second infusion is gone, now; now, despite other tea plans for the night, I want to brew another pot. Florence is not perfect, but it doesn’t attempt to be. It seems happy to be Florence. What a creation you have here, Harney & Sons. Definitely more of this in my future.

I bought some of Harney’s teas from Yssah, since I only wanted to try about an ounce of some of them, rather than buy many ounces of each. thanks, Yssah! I love small amounts of tons of tea! This one immediately reminded me of the Harney’s I had the other day: Valentine’s. They are both chocolate but this one was supposed to have more of a hazelnut flavor that I didn’t really find. The only way I could tell that this one was hazelnut was that it was slightly less sweeter than the lovely milk chocolate flavor that Valentine’s has. I’m a bit disappointed, since I LOVE Adagio’s hazelnut flavor and sometimes wake up craving that one! So this would be tasty if you don’t expect more of a hazelnut flavor.

My daughter helped me measure out the tea. :)

It’s good … certainly not the best chocolate tea I’ve tried (OK I admit it – I’m biased when it comes to chocolate tea).

I do like the hazelnut flavor though. Overall it is very smooth and creamy tasting. Delicious.

This is the first time I’ve had Florence since I purchased my Breville. And WOW. I didn’t realize how good this tea was. I was having one of those nights, and Florence made me feel a little bit better. (Thanks Erin!) It made me realize I need to restock asap. Then before I tried to sleep I just managed to catch Frank’s post on Facebook that he’d added some more Banana Bread and my drug of choice, Cinnamon Roll. !!!!!!!!!
Boy was I excited. So excited that I placed an order for several, then panicked and realized that I needed even MORE……and placed a second order right in a row.
My name’s Ashley, and I’m an addict.

Another tea from the Doulton gift, the second of the two I picked myself. I think it’s also the last one I hadn’t tried yet. I think. Not sure. I don’t have much in the way of a general view of the tea situation at the moment. All I know is that I’m halfway through the Lockdown Conditions I set, and that it doesn’t seem to be making much of a dent in the holdings. I’ll probably have to do a double of that or some such. I can deal with that. It seems like it’s going pretty fast at the moment. But that was a tangent.

Back on track, we have this tea that has received absolute rave reviews on the site so I’m very very curious about it and not a little nervous of getting disappointed. I have such high expectations of it now.

Unlike the leaves which smells primarily of hazelnuts and chocolate, the aroma of the finished cup is a more tea-y sort of sweet. Oh it’s still very chocolate-y and not so much with the hazelnut, but the sweetness is not only chocolate.

Hmmm. That was unexpected. The aroma made me think I’d get some sort of viscous liquid like for example milk is, but that didn’t really happen. I just got a sip of… tea. The flavour isn’t nearly as strong as I had thought it would be. This always happens to me, though, so I don’t hold much to it.

After a few more sips, it’s easier for me to figure out what it actually tastes like. I need that first one to realise that I’m not going to get chocolate milk here, however much the aroma might try to convince my brain otherwise. Now, with a more reasonable tasting sensation, I’m picking up a lot of hazelnut and a slightly bitter astringency of the tea underneath, but not really a whole lot of chocolate, except if I really look for it.

As it is right now, it’s a very nice tea. Nicely balanced with the nuts and the chocolate and the tea base underneath, but I think it could be better. That, though, I believe is result of my brewing. It seems a little under-done somehow. I’m just not sure yet whether it’s leaf amount of steep time or both that needs tweaking here. I guess I’ll just have to give one of them a go the next time I have this.

“Giuchie, Giuchie, ya ya dada
Giuchie, Giuchie, ya ya here
Mocha Chocalata ya ya
Creole lady Marmalade”
Mostly the Mocha Chocalata ya ya. This tea has been taunting me for months. Thanks to Amy Oh I am getting to try the legend that is Florence. Flo your dry leaf smells amazing that’s for sure. Mais, Je ne vais pas dormir avec toi ce soir. The chocolate/hazelnut aroma is there but it doesn’t shine through in the taste. It’s very similar to Stash’s chocolate hazelnut decaf. It is still a really good tea I just don’t find it to be a mind blowing tea experience.

This was my first taste of Florence and I’m so happy to have finally tried it. I ordered it as a sample package and upon opening, my inner Nutella detector went off. Ooh, it’s so scented of chocolate and nuttiness that I can’t wait to try it.

I didn’t steep it too long, and I think this is one of the few that may have been better if steeped longer. But, no matter, even this way it’s really good.

The taste is a warm chocolate with a definite accompaniment of hazelnut. The tea itself has a slightly thinner mouthfeel and doesn’t coat my mouth as I would expect hot chocolate to do. (And, I know this isn’t hot chocolate, but the richness of the flavor is so true to it, that I can’t help but expect the hot chocolate experience.) Even with all of this flavoring going on, it’s still fairly easy to detect the black tea. It’s not bitter, or even astringent, which would work against the flavor. It’s really nicely paired with it. In fact, it’s so good that I’d like to try it without the flavors. One of the first times I’ve said that about a black tea!

Delicious.

Roasted hazelnuts dusted with dark cocoa. Bittersweet and flavorful.

Very aptly named. This is somehow evocative of how I imagine Florence at dusk to be like. Romantic, wistful and artful.

Sorry to wax poetic, but this tea inspires me beyond words! I love it!!!

The following is a true account with absolutely no exaggeration or hyperbole.

I got home from work and pulled my car into the garage. When I got out of my car, I smelled something sweet and decadent; I thought a neighbor was baking. I walked out of the garage towards my front door and the chocolaty smell became stronger. I saw there was a sealed cardboard box sitting there. Inside this sealed box was a sealed tin of this tea. I had smelled the awesome fragrance of this tea through metal, cardboard and from approximately 30 feet away!

Upon opening the tin, the tea was black as night and smelled strongly of chocolate, caramel and creamy-nutiness. It brewed very dark and the fragrance held fairly well.

The taste was very mild but had a lot of body with a silky cream mouth feel. As with most nut or chocolate enhanced teas, I felt the flavor was at its peak after cooling just a bit. It wasn’t as pungent as the initial fragrance would lead you to believe, but it was a good representation of the flavor characters it’s intended to present.

Part of the Nabokov prize package! (Thanks again, Doulton!) :9

Oh my. This was the first thing I smelled when I opened that prize package, and there was a LOT of tea in that little box. This was in a tin, too, so it’s slightly surprising that this won out.

But oh. I was worried. It smelled divine dry, as others have noted. It smelled even more divine after I poured boiling water over it. As it steeped, the rich hazelnutty chocolate smell pervaded the entire first floor of my house. It’s a hell of a thing to experience first thing in the morning! (Starting a day on such a note, really, how could your day possibly go anywhere but downhill from there?!? XD)

It’s delightful, yet nerve-wrecking. Smelling it, you think to yourself, how could this possibly taste as good as it smells? No way it can. No. Way.

And it’s…surprisingly light. Full-bodied, yes, but lighter in colour than expected when fully brewed. It doesn’t coat your mouth the way you’d think on smelling it. Which is actually a good thing, because it smells like one of those decadent desserts that you can only eat a few bites of before you have to doggie bag it. Because this is lighter than expected, I was able to drink the whole pot over the course of a couple hours.

Added a teeny tiny bit of raw sugar to it, but that’s it. Later, I may try a spot of some sort of milky-thing, or soy creamer. Update to follow. Man oh man, the Nutella comparisons are apt, except that’s chocolatier and this is hazelnuttier (technical terms, yes). I can’t wait to try this with my banana/Nutella crepes. :9

This has been a chocolate weekend for me courtesy of Doulton’s sampler! First, lots of Mayan Chocolate Chai, then Dawn, then Haute Chocolate (from Teavana), and the best for last, Florence! This is by far the most chocolatey tea blend I may have had “ever” and perhaps, the hazelnut gives it a richness that a solo-chocolate blend would not be able to provide….

Hmmm..Florence…è così così.

Maybe it’s my fault for expecting more of a nutella taste, but lately things that have strong nutty flavors are not my friends. For me, the hazelnut is just overpowering everything and I am not really a fan.

It’s just not chocolatey enough for me because the hazelnut just lingers far too long with each sip. Oh well. Maybe tinkering around with steeping it will produce a better result in the future. Thanks for giving me some to try, cheetah_pita!