Another of my TeaFrog samples from a previous Steepster Select.
I’ve been running around all day: kids swimming lessons, my workout, my haircut, younger kid’s friend’s birthday party, and finally got home. I’m really tired, but somehow it seems a little pathetic to go to bed at 7 p.m. So I thought I’d try some black tea to wake me up a little.
In the sample bag, the tea smells delicious. It’s a sweet chocolate smell, a milky chocolate. I was thinking chocolate liqueur, and then I realized it’s pretty similar to the smell of chocolate syrup. I can see chocolate chips in among the dark brown leaves.
After it steeps, the aroma becomes less sweet and less intense, and takes on more of a chocolate baked goods quality. The liquor is lighter in color than I’d expected. It’s a sort of bronze color.
Yum. Tastes like…. chocolate! It’s very chocolatey. More chocolate than tea, by a lot. It’s interesting because it’s like drinking a grown up version of hot chocolate, by which I mean hot chocolate stripped down to its essence. No milkiness, no creaminess, no frothiness, no chewiness, but a lot of the same essential comfort flavor of warm chocolate without all of these. It’s kind of surprising.
As for the cream, I don’t taste it independently, but I understand it. It’s the difference between a baking chocolate flavor, and a sweetened chocolate flavor. It’s as though the chocolate here has been sweetened with lactose, though I can’t taste a cream flavor. The tea itself shows up more in the aftertaste than elsewhere; it has a sweet, mild flavor that goes well with the chocolate.
Most of the chocolate teas I’ve had have other flavors in them as well. This may be the first solo chocolate I’ve had, and it will be a good benchmark as it seems to be a solid, standard sweet chocolate flavored tea.
