Checkmate

Still awesome. I’ve been using a slightly lower steep temp than recommended to ensure the white doesn’t go bitter.

Thank You to TeaNSympathy for a very intriguing sample.

When I opened the bag, the aromas blew me away! The tea smelled AHHH….MAY…ZING!! If I could do backflips, I would’ve rounded out a couple. :)) I sensed the aroma of coconut and vanilla, and there is a chocolate aroma to this blend. Could it have been coffee? I have read and seen blends where coffee is blended with tea. Maybe it was roasted mate. I remember drinking roasted mate, which gave me a similar sensation when drinking it.

Then I read the ingredients. I couldn’t believe it! There is no chocolate, coffee, or roasted mate listed. Maybe they just didn’t list all of the ingredients?! Yet the choco-coffee, mate aroma is there! Coconut is the obvious and dominant aroma. Then there is the chamomile. Any chamomile I’ve ever had didn’t look quite like the flower in this blend. And I didn’t recognize any part of the aroma as chamomile. The teas listed are Bai Mu Dan and a black tea-probably an Assam. At any rate, these aromas are a dance for the senses (or sense).

The cup aroma was a coconut concoction, filled with choco-nutty goodness, and a sweetness, all of which emanated from the cup. The flavor was really good. Delicious….yes…but, not to the extent the dry aroma would lead you to believe. Still, coconut and that choco-nuttiness played on my tongue! Bai Mu Dan whites tend to have a nutty character to them. The creamy sweetness was brought forth by the chamomile, but I can’t believe when blended, it is responsible for this tea’s chocolate notes.

Check Mate’s shortfall for me is the lack of strength in the base teas. The wonderful coconut and chamomile overpower the base teas for me. Yes, they are present and noticeable, but I just prefer more balance between the teas and the other ingredients in this case.

It is really a very nice, quite delicious dessert tea. If the game of Chess was strictly based on aromas, I would concede to Check Mate, and a match well played. But the base teas didn’t bring their A Game, so I’d have to call this one a draw, and demand a rematch. In this case a rematch (another cup of this tea) is an event worth savoring!

Cupped and Reviewed: Tuesday, March 13, 2012.

This is is super yummy (Not as 100% awesome as I was expecting… see my note on Cranberry Pear!), however, what a cool tea!

They classify it as a white tea, and although it looks black and I can’t pick out the white tea, I will trust that it’s there. lol.

The smell is divine, and the taste… tastes like chocolate! It’s kind of crazy.. the girl who sold it to me said she was allergic to chocolate, so I thought this tea must have been made for her! Of course, not for our favorite mew brew because of the coconut :( So that is a sad note.

I find it slightly light on flavour, but that may have been my steeping time. All in all, a very unique tea, but not my favorite. :)

I have always been curious about this tea! I love the idea of ingredients tasting like something else entirely.

Brewed up, I get a coffee-chocolate smell. I don’t really like chamomile so this is promising.

I can taste chocolate, but I’m also really glad I can definitely taste the base teas! It’s not hot chocolate heavy on the chocolate flavor, but it’s there.

Thanks for the sample, Krystaleyn!

This doesn’t taste so much like hot chocolate, as it stated in the description… more like a kind of caramel?

I mean, I can taste the hints of coconut & chamomile, but not really the chocolate flavour that they are supposed to create. This is not to say that’s a bad thing, this tea is rich and creamy tasting, without the addition of milk or sugar. I am sure you could make an interesting tea latte out of it if you felt so led—might have to try that next time.

The mixture of white and black tea lends an interesting body to this tea, with the black bulking up the flavour of the white, while the white ensures that the black doesn’t turn too bitter. I would have thought that mixing white and black would lead to the white being overwhelmed considerably, but somehow in this tea is just works! How do they do it? I have no idea…

Okay second cup of this from my sample pack I picked up a couple days ago. I’m really enjoying this one, but I’m not really sure why. I can taste both the coconut and chamomile – I think it’s the chamomile I’m enjoying. It’s a interesting mix.

Happy New Year :)

Made this tea and added a few generous spoonsfuls of instant hot chocolate. DEEELICIOUS.

Received this in a swap from Vanilla Beans
I’ve been wanting to try this for a while, alas I have no nearby store. But when I get to one, watch the f out!!!

I didn’t realize this was a white blend (or rather I forgot) until I read the reviwes. I used boiling water & it steeped much longer than I usually would. I was in a rush to get to work & it steeped all the way there.

Anyways… babbling
This is super yummy. Chocolate but not overly so, I’m thinking the other flavour I am getting is the coconut, but I’m not sure. Eitherway everything works really well together. I loved how the chamomile flowers perked back up after steeping. Very pretty.

This had a light fragrance of coconut and pipe tobacco. This is a bulky blend so I used 3 tsp to ensure I had a representative mix of all components.

This brewed to a very light champagne color with a faint slick from the coconut oil. This tea has been compared to chocolate a lot but I didn’t get that at all. I found the flavor to be simply coconut with a slight tart, grassiness from the teas.

This was really mild and would pair well with a light dessert but would be lost in traditional American or English breakfast fare.

Mastress Alita’s sipdown challenge Saturday, October 9th: National Chess Day Tea#1

additional notes: Obvious choice for the day!  Not only is it a black and white blend, but it is definitely a chess themed tea!  I really liked this one over the years and wish it would come back.  Next time it will be a sipdown but it’s bout time.