Another from AZZ’s generosity. Though I saw mixed reviews on this one I still went into it optimisticly, yet this optimism was soon tempered once opening the bag to smell the dry leaf- a strong artificial cinnamon smell that you often find with scented candles. The color of the liqour was a deeper brown and the wet leaf smelled slightly more appealing than it did dry.
First drink I was surprised, intrigued actually. There was a certain degree of complexity right away. The nutty tones mingled nicely with the dark chocolate ones. It’s so nice when flavors can play well together and no ‘time outs’ need to be administered. The slight astringency was easy to overlook when considering all that my mouth had to process. The chili was so faint it was barely detectable, which I was glad since I’ve not had chili in tea yet and didn’t want to be overwhelmed by the spice. The bold black flavor played well in this drink for me too.
My wife loved the tea and stated “this may be my favorite so far”…which she ended up saying three times today in all. To be fair she is even newer than me and so I try to bring her along as much as possible. I must also note that, in general, when I list low to moderate astringency in a tea she tells me she doesn’t find any at all. Again I’m an astringency weenie.
We liked it, my soon to be sixteen year old as well, though the wife liked it most. This tea made it on her "one to buy’ list until,that is, she tried another tea. That is another note altogether isn’t it.
tunes-Richie Havens=Freedom/Eleanor Rigby/Motherless Child/Here Comes The Sun
Makes me wonder if I’m intrepid enough to toss in my own dried chilis into some of my scraps of chocolate tea.
Hey, try it! If you don’t want to infuse the chili … maybe just put the dried chili in the tea for a couple of weeks, and then retrieve the chili and see how it turns out.
There you go … I hadn’t thought about tossing it in dried!
This sounds delicious!