Florence

I have been wanting to try this for freakin’ ever and I decided today is The Day.

I expected to smell Frangelico when I opened the sample packet. OMG. It’s not a syrupy “essence o’ nuts” I’m smelling, it’s the nuts themselves. Down to their planty innards! I can almost feel their little round bodies cracking between my teeth. And the slightly bitter smell of baking chocolate. I can see why people are invoking Ferraro Roche (drool), but the thing that makes this different is it isn’t sugary like those little balls of trouble are.

And this is just the smell of the dry leaves, which, by the way, are dark dark dark and look almost soft and beautiful. I’m coming to recognize this as the signature of an awesome flavored black tea.

The liquor brews lighter than I’d expected for some reason. It is, interestingly, a sort of hazel nut color. The “true nut” aroma of the hazel nut seems to have mellowed some with steeping, and blended into the chocolate. Mmmmm.

And the taste is a lot like the smell. It’s quite wonderful plain, but the lack of sweetness in the chocolate seems to beg for milk and something to sweeten it. I was happy to accomodate it. With just a small amount of sweetening, the flavor becomes downright lush. The chocolate moves from the unsweetened taste of baking chocolate to the bittersweet of dark chocolate. With more milk, it would probably move further, all the way to milk chocolate. Three, three, three drinks in one! The hazelnut is an accent; a strong, Italian one, that provides a middle note during the sipping and a reminder on the back end.

I was only in Florence for a few days many years ago, but I loved it. It was unseasonably cool when I was there in the summertime, a welcome contrast to the heat of Rome. My memories are, primarily, of clear blue skies and flowers in window boxes everywhere I turned. I remember going for a run along the Arno, the Uffizi (of course), and the adorable little bed and breakfast we stayed in with its old fashioned cage of a lift and its roof garden where we ate in the morning. I still have the pocketbooks and coat I bought while I was there. Mostly I remember being young and in love, the future stretching ahead like the clean pages of a new journal, waiting to be written.

I’m not sure how much it is the name of this tea that makes me want to buy a pound of it immediately, and how much is how it actually tastes.

Ah youth.

I posted a review of Florence by Harney & Sons here last November. It was my first review and Florence was the tea that launched a thousand tea orders….and still remains one of my top five teas. If we were forced to go to an unlikely dessert/desert island and only allowed to bring 5 beverages, Florence would be one of mine.

I’ve got some notes to add: I’ve been drinking Florence (I’m now on my third tin since November) regularly. It never disappoints; it never fails to evoke richness and wonder. I do love that taste of chocolate.

When I was in the real Florence I used to zip into Robligio’s -http://www.robiglio.it/index_ing.asp - several times a day for a coffee. They had lovely thick little slabs of chocolate that you could put into your coffee as well as many other accoutrements. It was easy to make the chocolate dominate the coffee. (Aside—thank that Italians for not allowing Starbucks within their borders!). So I have a lot of great taste memories that this tea evokes.

Today I tried Florence iced for the first time. And despite my trepidations, it was simply brilliant. I feared I would get some watered-down chocolate concoction or something akin to a sugar-free melted fudgsicle. Oh, me of little faith! How wrong I was. This is a new and unique drink for me. It’s certainly related to my lovely hot Florence tea, but the chill seems to crystallize the chocolate taste in place. The black tea stepped forward to make certain that there was a good dash of caffeine. I added no milk but a certain creamy taste remains. Florence has a natural sweetness and I rarely add sugar. To add sugar to Florence is gilding the lily and I absolutely love to gild my lilies frequently but this is not essential. With the iced tea, I get the natural sweetness.
So here I am with a sweet, creamy, chocolatefull, caffeinated taste-filled beverage and the expenditure in calories is miniscule.

I want to stress that Florence has been there for me on cold days and hot days; on sick days and ebullient days. Like the ancient city itself, this tea endures with elegance, beauty, panache, and true artistry. Meraviglioso! Rivelazione divina! Voglio baciarti, Signore Harney (e figli)!

Sipdown number something or other. I honestly don’t have any good system for keeping track of anything with tea, as my cupboard is still currently exploding. Don’t tell my husband I moved his coffee for space, haha.

I still enjoyed this cup of tea, but I think after drinking two whole tins of Florence that I am ready to take a break for a little while. My husband still loves this one, and at times I do really want the hazelnut cocoa blend, but I wonder if there are other better chocolate + nut teas out there to explore. I welcome any suggestions from my tea brothers and sisters, of course. :)

Thanks again to the fan-tea-astic Jenn for sending me all these samples!! My gratitude is endless after having tried this one.
I made this to consume whilst cleaning house, and boy was it deeeeeelicious! Like tea and hot chocolate rolled into one, this tea is made for cocoa lovers.
With milk and a tad bit o sugar, this made my afternoon duties bearable. When will they come up with self cleaning kitchens and bathrooms???
It wasn’t as rich as I had hoped but then I somewhat expected that when the dry leaves wafted a light yet distinctly choco-note at me.
Also, I don’t know why but it tastes a hair chemically to me, but then I’ve seen that before in other chocolate scented/flavoured products. (ever tried chocolate gum? it was interesting to say the least)— not that it detracted in any way from my worshipping this cup.
I think it happened to just hit the spot, matching my tea craving so precisely that I was floored by it. Not to mention that the previous cuppa that I’d made (of an assam I got awhile back) tasted stale. Ugh!
From ugh to WOW in five min… yeah that will put anyone in shock :P

Hail, St. Patrick; we who are about to destroy ourselves on an early pubcrawl in hideously bad weather to celebrate your name…salute you.

Yeah, doesn’t quite have the ring of the original, but it captures the foreboding feeling I have listening to freezing cold rain splattering against my window, while I eyeball the clock and am forced to confront the fact that, yes, in four hours, I am going out. Hoh-boy.

Something…reassuring…was in order, here. Why not try Florence, finally? I have fond memories of that city. Eight months or so out of the year, my mother and stepfather live in a tiny villa on the side of a mountain overlooking the Mediterranean on what is known as the Cilentan Coast, in the Province of Salerno, within the Comune di Sapri, and a bunch of other divisions I can’t be bothered to remember sorting out. It’s nice. Peaceful. There are goats and hairpin turns winding through mountainside towns of a variety that you do not get in the United States, because if you had them here, there would be incidents resulting in cars on rooftops every other Thursday. Somehow that does not seem to happen there, regardless of the fact that every other person you glimpse behind a wheel appears to be one thousand years old and half-blind.

Anyway, I digress. Off to Florence I go, when the goats no longer hold my interest. Hop a train, and bam: buona sera, Ponte Vecchio!

For those of you interested, the very best way to see Florence is not, in fact, to get a hotel room, but to rent one of any number of widely available private apartments just off of the very same Palazzo della Signoria mentioned in the description of this tea. There are a ton of them, and they are available, in the off-season, on what passes for the cheap when you’re talking euros (which means not so cheap anymore, alas).

Anyway, I cannot for the life of me recall having had hazelnut hot chocolate in Florence, but there IS a little chocolate and pastries cafe on one of the corners of the Palazzo called Rivoire that…

…mmm….Rivoire…

…wait, what?

Anyway, enough about Italy. This tea is escapist enough to be worthy of the moniker even if the flavors it so expertly captures are not flavors I immediately associate with that city. I prefer this tea hands down to the plain chocolate blend from them that I’ve also sampled…something in the hazelnut really gives the tea depth, and without it the nose would not be nearly as special. It has the balance I’m coming to expect from a flavored H&S tea, and all in all I’m pretty pleased with having selected it to restore my resolve to march out into the worst weather ever in search of a perfectly-poured Guinness.

This tea doesn’t really remind me of tea. It reminds me of something else, but I’m not sure of what. It smells nuttier than the last time I made it and I think it is a darker amber color than the last time I made it too.

I am getting a fair amount of chocolate and a good amount of hazlenut when I sip this. I had to let it cool for a little bit before the flavors developed. I think it doesn’t register as tea for me because it doesn’t taste watery. Even though it doesn’t have the thick body of cream, I am getting a more creamy mouth-feel. It feels like I am getting something rich, creamy, and decadent when I am not actually getting something thick and creamy. It is decadent though.

I think I have to boost the rating because it really feels like I am sipping on cocoa instead of tea. I am falling more in love with it every minute I sip this. Thank you Ashley! I will have to remember to actually get some of this when I have the tea funds.

I noticed this was on my shopping list and when I made my multiple Harney orders back in November, I added a tin of this. Now I can’t remember quite why. It’s good enough but I’m just not a chocolate tea type of person normally.

This is vaguely chocolatey in the way teas that are intended to be chocolate are. Does that make any sense? The teas I like that are described as being chocolatey are the ones that aren’t intentionally flavored for chocolate – the straight deep blacks that have cocoa notes to them – those I love. The flavored chocolate teas? Usually pretty meh to me.

I’ll share this one around. There is definitely chocolate flavor as well as hazelnut and a bit of vanilla. I did slightly oversteep it and it didn’t turn bitter at all so that’s something to be said for it. A dollop of cream helps it along, makes the chocolate not seem as watery.

I’m sick of being sick and I’m sick of drinking crap tea. Florence is one of my tried and true favorite teas, and I could really use some comfort about right now. I’m feeling a little less congested so I was actually able to taste this tea pretty well. I deserve a chocolaty treat and I shall have it!

At first sip, the promise of a chocolaty treat is delivered. That chocolate flavor quickly moves to a biscuity, smooth, black tea body. A nice, creamy, hazelnut tone quickly follows and the finish is all rich chocolaty goodness.

Ah, chocolaty goodness…

Traveling Tea Box C #10
I’m am taking this one from the box!!! I might leave a few teaspoons to pass along but I am in love!!!!! Hazelnut and chocolate! You have me sold! The smell is heavenly! The taste is perfect! Just the right amount of nuttiness and creaminess. I made this as a latte the second steeping and I didn’t think this tea could get any better but it did! I like the fact that the flavors didn’t seem artificial to me… Which I usually get from a chocolate tea or a hazelnut tea. AMAZING! Period.

The smell of this reminds me a little of coffee and the taste is what I imagine coffee to be. (I don’t drink it.) The hazelnut adds a dark roastiness to it all. The chocolate tastes like chocolate bubble gum rather than the dark chocolate flavors I like. Overall it’s just an ok tea.

Thanks, Shelley_Lorraine for this sample! :-)