Cocoa Cardamom Seduction

The name of this drives me wild! Mission Accomplished? Well, I must say when I got this yesterday afternoon in the mail – I couldn’t wait to get back to work and try it today! I can clearly see ALL described ingredients! I can’t stop sniffing this!!! It’s AWESOME…It’s like a Chocolate Peanut Butter type smell. I have been smelling it over and over again. The last time I opened the tin to sniff I sniffed so hard I almost snorted up some of the loose leaf mixture! HAHA! Seriously!

The first sip I really did notice the cardamom but I think that was the idea of the whole thing, right!? I mean, hence – the name!? Anyhow…I continued to sip and certainly picked up on both the Almond and the Cocoa. It’s pretty good. The cinnamon and cardamom pair together as they should and the pairing jumps up in front of the line but the Chocolate/Almond taste isn’t fair behind. The color of the tea liquid is a light-medium brown.

I still like their Chocolate Almond Allure better but this is good, too.

I’m giving it extra points for aroma…I LOVE IT…

I like my dessert teas with cream and sugar (if they are black based), and thus prepared this that way automatically. This is a very rich full cocoa flavored tea with a taste of cardamom and a light hint of cinnamon. Very nice, thanks TeaEqualsBliss for sending some my way.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for this sampling!

I’ve tried a few teas from Talbott Teas, and I think this one is my favorite of their offerings that I’ve tasted. The aroma is chocolate-y and a touch chai-like with hints of cinnamon and cardamom. And that translates into the flavor well. A nice chocolate-y flavor, and a nice balance of spices. The almonds add a slight nutty sweetness to it too.

YUM!

Maybe after reading the favorable posts, had set my hopes too high. Or, maybe I need to use a lot more tea in my infuser.

With Indiana paralysed by an ice storm, I had lots of time to shop online and finally got around to spending the Talbott’s Groupon that I purchased some weeks ago for just such a day. The fearless FedEx delivery person dropped my box of tea this afternoon and within minutes I had ripped into it and was sniffing the intoxicating fragrances of my three choices (two being chocolate, the other cinnamon rose).

The hubby was outdoors breaking the 8 to 10 inches of ice that was making any thought of getting my car out of the drive laughable, and then shovelling the heavy chunks out of the way. What a man!

So, when it appeared he was nearly finished, I set the kettle on the stove and chose “Cocoa Cardamom Seduction.” And I even had a sheet of freshly baked cookies to go with the tea (it took a while to break up all that ice!)

The tin contained visible chunks of spice and tea, and the fragrance was mouth-watering; as pretty to look at as was its aroma while steeping in my favorite tea pot.

The flavor fell short of expectations, though. Seems to be all fragrance but just a mild black tea flavor. We added a little cream and sugar and it seemed to bring a little cocoa flavor forward, though this is not our normal tea service. I suppose I will try steeping another pot some other time, with more tea in the infuser and maybe for a longer time. There have been such fine reviews that surely I just need to experiment some more