Having now had a number of chocolate teas, I’m returning to the first one I tried with the express purpose of seeing where it fits among the others I’ve tried over the past few months. Ok, that and the fact that my compulsiveness is kicking in and it’s starting to bug me that I have some notes without ratings. I’ll be fixing that for all of them sooner rather than later.
This one is fitting quite nicely into my afternoon. It’s got a rather mild chocolate flavor, not the baking chocolate I’ve tasted in a number of teas, nor a sweet milk chocolate, but somewhere in between. I’m thinking dark chocolate, sort of semi-sweet. It does chocolate well. That is definitely the flavor that is front and center.
Sometimes I think I’m getting a rose note, other times it seems like one of those things where you think you saw something then decide you didn’t really, it was a brain blip of some kind. I get that feeling mostly mid sip, when the tea is right up against my soft palate, and I’m guessing some of the rose heads straight up into my nasal cavity. Then again, not sure it needs a lot more rose. The petals are pretty and add romance, but I’m not sure the tea is trying to be a rose flavored tea. (Maybe LiberTEAs can answer that?) I understand the reference to vanilla, it’s that chocolate/vanilla continnum I’m finding to hold true with a lot of flavors. Seems like there’s a place where they merge and become virtually indistinguishable.
The tea base is smooth and I get some sweetness from it. After tasting a number of chocolate teas, I feel I can say this is a very nice one.
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Morgana: no, this is not trying to be a rose tea, the roses are added for appearance sake only. You might taste just a hint of rose occasionally, which is to be expected with the addition of rose petals to any blend because they do have a distinct flavor that translates. But, a true rose tea is one that is scented at the source (usually where it’s been harvested and oxidized) because it is only at that young stage of the tea leaf that it can fully absorb the rose essence. The same is true with Jasmine. The young tea leaves are layered with the flower petals and they absorb the essence.
Morgana: no, this is not trying to be a rose tea, the roses are added for appearance sake only. You might taste just a hint of rose occasionally, which is to be expected with the addition of rose petals to any blend because they do have a distinct flavor that translates. But, a true rose tea is one that is scented at the source (usually where it’s been harvested and oxidized) because it is only at that young stage of the tea leaf that it can fully absorb the rose essence. The same is true with Jasmine. The young tea leaves are layered with the flower petals and they absorb the essence.