Chocolate Almond Allure

Nom,nom,nom…that is all…see previous notes…two cups this morning…

HELLO AGAIN OLD FRIEND!!!! We’ve been reunited (and it feels so good!)

Thanks to WONKS I have a tin of this! I’m ever so grateful! Thank you!!! I have been craving this one and missing it very much! Because it’s so memorable and because I have missed it so and it’s tastes just as amazing if not more amazing that before (I had this 2 years ago!) I am upping the rating to 100. YES! 100…many of you know it’s rare if I rate something with a 100…I think I have less than 20 individual teas on here that I have given a 100 rating to and this is now one of them.

Black tea, cocoa AND Chocolate, caramel, and Almonds…TO A TEA. YUMMERS!~

Sending the last lil bit to Azz

backlogging from last week…

backlogging from this morning :)

My 3rd & 4th cups of the day…see previous notes…

I used a teaspoon of this, and a teaspoon of Vanilla Comoro to make a “half-caf” type evening tea. It was absolutely delicious – nutty vanilla chocolate! – but oof. I was tossing and turning and tossing some more! When will I EVER learn?

Today is a lot cooler than it was forecasted to be, and a bit rainy, so I am hanging out at home, catching up on all the tasting notes I missed during the time period where I couldn’t “see more” notes. I rarely drink tea on the weekends for some reason, and certianly it is rare in the warm weather because I don’t have air conditioning.

But today I got home from birding this morning and I just really felt like having a pot of tea. I have two tins of this so I keep one at home and one with the rest of my stash. I really haven’t been drinking a lot of flavored tea lately. I had a disappointing cup of rose black tea yesterday that I didn’t even log because I’m not quite sure why it was so disappointing… possibly it was just old, possibly some of my tastes are changing and I just wasn’t as impressed with the base tea anymore.

I am glad to say that this one is still a favorite. I think the base tea on this is very well done, with perfect complimentary chocolate, caramel and almond flavors. Delicious and comforting.

The good news is that my jet lag seems to be subsiding. The bad news is that I seem to have picked up a cold bug on the plane. I have felt swollen tonsils and a cough since my second flight Monday, but it wasn’t very bad and I was hoping it would just go away. But this morning wasn’t very pleasant and I actually almost fainted at one point! So I am staying home today. Luckily I have a spare tin of this for home, so I have an nice pot of tea for the morning. One of my faves, and it’s comforting when I feel crappy.

Whenever I have to get up really early in the morning, I often feel wide awake when I first get up, but then a cLille of hours later I’ll crash and feel exhausted. Definitely happening this morning. I’m hoping my travel mug full of this tea will wake me up and get me ready for standing at the endless line at the Chinese consulate to pick up my visa.

Apparently I didn’t do a great job cleaning out this travel mug after the last time I used it with Todd&Holland Double Bergamot Earl Grey. Fortunately I like the flavors together and this reminds me that I wanted to try blending my own chocolate Earl (I’d use this tea [which would actually make it chocolate almond Earl] or the Tea Spot’s Organic Chocolate “O” for the chocolate part) since I wasn’t impressed with Upton’s. The bergamot left over in the travel mug didn’t last long, though, and for the most part this was just the tasty tea I rely on.

Another tea I have little to say about at this point. I love it, it’s one of my faves, and you can see other tasting notes to see why. Short story is that it’s chocolatey, almondy, caramelly, and has a nice black tea base that plays well with the flavors.

I feel like I’ve been leaning toward black teas lately, especially my favorite flavoreds, and today I realized that it might be because in a few weeks I will be in China and I subconciously think this will mean no more black tea. Of course it will likely not because I am going to try to pick up a couple teas including a gongfu black right when I get there so I can have them for my 3 week stay in Beijing. True, I won’t have flavored teas except for florals. I am glad I’m at a much better place in my tea journey than if I was taking this trip last year… at this time last year I didn’t like (nor was I interested in) any unflavored teas at all, really, and a trip to China would have just resulted in lots and lots of jasmine teas. Fortunately that’s no longer the case, and that’s definitely due to swaps on Steepster and Teavivres samples, which have been like a mini course in Chinese teas. Now my biggest problem is fitting it all in my luggage…

I was running low on this one, but I now have a good supply in my cupboard thanks to my swap with Wonks. Thanks! This really is one of my all-time favorite teas.

An aside: why are there never any tea groupons or groupon-style deals anymore? I used to come across them very frequently, but it’s been totally dead for a while now. I was thinking of it because I discovered this tea company via a Groupon. Not that I need to be buying tea groupons now, but still. I miss them. I’m a deal addict and I haven’t bought a groupon in ages because there hasn’t been anything interesting.

This is another tea that I love and haven’t had for a long time. It is just so chocolatey with a lovely nutty almond accompaniment. Actually this is a tea I would consider a really good chocolate tea (though it’s not plain chocolate) and I would want to try mixing it with an Earl Grey. I love that this tea is just chocolate flavored with cacao nibs, no chocolate chips or pieces which I feel like can muddy up the flavors and make it seem like you are drinking watery hot chocolate. Wow this tea is good. It’s been so long and I’ve tried so many teas in the intervening time that coming back to this one is a bit of a surprise… a happy one! The chocolate is rich and not too roasty, the almond flavor is almondy without being overly marzipanny (not that I would mind if it was). I don’t think I ever realize that there was caramel flavor in this one as well, but it totally makes sense. The caramel doesn’t stick out as a distinct flavor, but adds to the richness and slight sweetness, mimicking some really caramelly black teas. Bumping this up to 99 because it is just that good.

Another tea that obviously fits my recent chocolatey/nutty/rich tea kick. I also could use a fair amount of perking up this morning, so a nice full-bodied black tea was definitely in the cards. This tea is just so delicious! Glad I have a full tin of it that will last me for a while.

I don’t usually have two cups of tea in an afternoon (unless it’s resteeping a jasmine pearl or nice oolong), but I wanted more chocolate tea, dammit, and I didn’t want reduced chocolate flavor from a resteep of Florence. At least this is healthier than diving into my chocolate candy stash here at work.

This will always be my first chocolate tea love, and my tin seems to be getting dangerously low. Nevertheless I brewed up a cup and immediately I was rewarded with a rich, sweet chocolate aroma. Florence is chocolatey, but it’s tempered by the hazelnut or something; for whatever reason, this one just seems even more chocolatey to me. It doesn’t even have chocolate chips like some chocolate teas, just cacao nibs. Anyway, yum!

Another one of my favorite teas. I haven’t had this one in over a month, mostly because I look at the tin, consider it, then don’t drink it because I don’t want to use it up too quickly! But today I decided it had been too long since I’d brewed it, so now I’m happily sipping away.