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Whee! This tea is courtesy of Angrboda. I’m very excited to try this little tea that gives her such oddness! This is also my first TeaSpring tea so all sorts of fun is going on over here. TeaSpring suggests 2g per 5oz so I’m doing 3.2g for my 8oz cup. It also suggests a one minute steep time for the first and second steep, which seems a bit… different. But I’ll give it a shot!

Can I just say how insanely cocoa-y the leaves smell? It’s seriously like opening a box of baking chocolate and taking a sniff. And after steeping? It smells like brownies. No, really. It’s a pretty light colored cup but that’s not too surprising considering the steep time and it is actually a little darker than I thought it would be. It looks like a perfect match to the Steep.It background color when the timer has hit zero. As the cup cools, it’s starting to smell a little less brownie-like and a little more fruity. Maybe figs rolled in cocoa powder?

The taste is amazingly full. I’ve had teas that smell like this and I’ve always enjoyed them, but this is really something. There’s a roasty note in there that reminds me a bit of Hojicha. And there is a rich mid-note of dark chocolate and cocoa. Then a sweet and slightly tart fruity top note that makes me think of plum skin or maybe cherries. And finally there is a very soft floral note that sort of whooshes in at the end, lightly coating my mouth and making me think of lilacs or maybe lavender. And the main taste differs in each sip. Most of the time it is the chocolate, but then the fruity, floral and roasty all make appearances at center stage, too, though it seems the fruity and the floral seem to come in together.

Second Steep: 1:00. This steep is a bit lighter than the first one but TeaSpring told me to and it worked pretty nicely for the first steep, so I’ll keep listening. (Of course, they also say that after the second steep to increase both time and temperature but how do you increase the temperature over boiling?) Smells a little more figgy and a little less chocolaty. The taste is similar to the first steep but not quite the same – all the players are there but they seem switched around a bit. The chocolate note hits first, then the fruity, then an occasional roasty taste, and lastly the floral note chases everything. And holy monkeys. I just did that slurpy thing and got hit with insane amounts of smoke. Like who-just-lit-up-? smoke. That’s totally unexpected.

I think next time I’ll increase the time by 15 or 30 seconds on the second steep but this is still a pretty awesome tea. It just raised the bar for any other teas with a similar cocoa/figgy taste. It is something that I will definitely need to order in the future. Thanks Angrboda!
3.2g/8oz