Another very well blended tea from LP. Flavored teas can be totally awesome when made with quality ingredients, and this one is certainly an example of such. The dry leaf smells like a bar of good chocolate. Once it’s brewed, I smell more of the maltiness from the black/dark oolong base.
My first steep was about 2.5min, and yielded a wonderful cup of tea. It was malty and honey tasting with a pleasantly light chocolate finish. Going into this one, I was afraid that the chocolate I smelled so heavily on the dry leaf would dominate the flavor, basically giving me hot chocolate. Thankfully that was not the case. As the cup cooled, I started to pick up a subdued flavor of dark fruit – I’m thinking maybe currant but it was hard to tell.
Next steep was 3m. The chocolate taste was a bit lighter but certainly still around. It mixed with a toasty/roasty note to make this steep taste like friggin chocolate cookies. It was nuts. Very tasty. I still got a bit of that fruitiness as it cooled.
I pulled two more steeps out of this tea, with times of 5m and 12m. The 5m steep was a slightly lighter version of the previous, while the final steep was sort of an echo of the tea. Most of the ingredients had given about all they could, so it was just some light malty sweetness for the most part .
The balance between the tea base and the added ingredients is excellent, producing a very interesting experience in the cup. I again commend the skill of the blender!
Flavors: Black Currant, Chocolate, Cookie, Honey, Malt, Toasty
