Black Chocolate

Wow… I was in the mood for something creamy tonight and couldn’t decide what exactly I wanted. So I began to look through samples and I found this that seemed to meet my current criteria of “something creamy”. Special thanks to Indigobloom for sending me this to try!

It smelled deliciously sweet. In fact when I sniffed it I got a noseful of sweet followed by a hint of chocolatey goodness! By all means this was a good thing! My mouth was watering while I scooped out my teaspoons to steep it.

While it steeped, the steam smelled like a miny chocolate factory in my tea cup. The smell got stronger and stronger until it was finally time to sip it. Wow…. Creamy, chocolatey sweet, malty, slightly astringent, happiness in a teacup. With sugar added the chocolate flavor became more prominent and the maltiness was covered up a tad. Delicious. The only tiny flaw that it had was a strange chemical taste that lingered in the aftertaste. Other than that, it was great!

I believe that this is the best straight chocolate tea that I have tasted so far. They captured the essence of hot chocolate and made it blend in so well with the tea that I am sure that if milk where added it would be shockingly similar to the real thing!

I only wish I had more of it….. Oh well… ^{You can’t always get what you want, but if try sometimes, you get what you need!} ; )

First Review. I Love Dark Chocolate! I buy a certain brand of dark chocolate that has sea salt on it… and I put the candy bar in the freezer…so that every night I can break off a square and eat it slowly all by myself…umm. I love this salty, creamy dark chocolate!

My tea cupboard was lacking a chocolate tea. I ran into a review by IndigoBloom some time ago about STE Black Chocolate…and my son Aaron was bringing me some tea from their store in San Francisco…so ah ha…I decided to put this on the “get me this one too” list.

I am fussy about my chocolate. I still was skeptical about a tea that could deliver the kind of REAL dark chocolate flavor rich enough and authentic enough not to make me gag! I was NOT looking for cocoa. NO milk chocolate. DARK CHOCOLATE ONLY PLEASE! I want a chocolate to play with… ( to add some chili, some maple bacon, some lapsang souchong, salt etc….mad scientist at work!).

Excited for tasting this morning, I brewed a nice big 24oz pot. The pour was dark and promising. First gulp…CHOCOLATE! Not malt or mocha…DARK CHOCOLATE! Yippie (sorry)…but I’m so glad that this measures up to what I desired. Rich, dark chocolate that is deep enough to add sweetening and cream to (which I did of course). There is a little malt but it is natural and very subtle, a chocolate maltiness… not the sort that resembles yam or graham crackers. Thankfully, there is no bitterness, tannin or acid. The finish is smooth vanilla. I went back later after the pot was empty (didn’t take me long to swig down 24oz of this black velvet!) to taste the cold drippings under the brew basket. The rich liquid was still not bitter.
I’m going to have to order more of this tea! 1oz will not last long!

If you notice the new picture by my name, that’s Rocky Mt. Bighorn Sheep…a little picture I took on Wed.

More Traveling Tea Box tea!

There is a Spice and Tea Exchange in Asheville, NC? Really? I have read reviews for their teas, but pictured them only being in some exotic, distant locale, like California. LOL! But Asheville is in my state, though a good five hour drive away or more.

This is a far simpler tea than the Chocolate Chili Chai I just tried, but I really think I like it better. I am getting a nice Keemun flavor, which is already chocolatey, with the addition of some chocolate on top of that.

I try to drink all my tea plain, and I like this one sans additions. For those who add milk and sugar, I feel sure this tea would go over the top to decadent dessert tea status.

Very nice.

Mmmmmm. If I’m ever craving a chocolate fix, this is the place to go!!
It’s like drinking cocoa tea! So yummy. Trouble is, I so badly wanted to try this with a spot o’ milk… except when I opened the fridge, someone drank the last of it this morning! oh well, something to look forward to next time. I’m sure it will be worth the wait :)
I’m surprised that with this being a black and all, I am really enjoying my cup. When I had intended to sample this with milk, I had divided it into two cups… one of them with some agave in it just to see if it made any difference. I think it did, but not in a good way. In fact, I prefer it without. Nonetheless, when the missing dairy incident occurred, I combined the two samples and so now I have agave in it. Maybe the trick is to just use less.
Somehow, I can actually taste the maltiness and the astringency!! Once in awhile I get blessed with a “good” tea day and well it seems this is one of ‘em! hallelujah!!!!!
Only my friends here on Steepster will understand how happy this makes me :):):)
Maybe it’s the cocoa? or the fact that I had a cat-scan yesterday (I dunno ‘bout anyone else but whenever I go get tested/to the doc for some medical issue or other, the problem seems to miraculously clear up on it’s own! ha. Am I a hypochondriac? it’s possible!!)
In any case, the chocolate is nice and deep. Rich, like I’m eating cake. It’s better when piping hot, but then I find most teas like that. The astringency comes out more as it cools. Heck, I don’t mind. I can taste the astringency!! :P

First smell (dry) was awesomely chocolatey. On a second sniff, I noticed something a little smokey. Glance at package “Ah, it’s Keemun.”

Did a 2 1/2 min steep in boiling water. Color is red-brown, smell seems more leathery than chocolatey now. Tastes complex, lots of layered flavors. Malty chocolate with a kind of leathery, scotch-like background.

I dig it, but it’s probably not going to be a repurchase for me.

Tea of the afternoon…..

Thank you so much to Indigobloom for this one.

This is a really nice chocolate tea. The notes are of dark chocolate which I think works so well with a tea base that is not particularly sweet on its own. I think this would stand up to milk if you wanted to add some. Very good, and it is always good to know what else to buy when you are getting your fix of Coconut Oolong!

Usual Mug method.

This is the flavour I expected DavidTea’s Super Chocolate to be! It’s a dark chocolate flavour with hints of black tea and definitely delightful. It was a great way for me to finish off dinner tonight!

I love chocolate flavored black teas, but I feel this one is only average. I do not taste the full bodied, smooth and satisfying feel on my tongue that I prefer when I drink flavored black teas. To me, the chocolate tastes artificial and the tea bland, perhaps as if it was not the freshest of the fresh. I usually only purchase this tea if I have run out of other more preferable chocolate teas since I have a TSTE store close to my house.