Xocatlatl Chai

You know, I was all relaxed and calm, enjoying a very mellow tea and just letting my week kind of melt away… and then I tried typing the name of this tea into the search bar. Xocolatl… no… xocalatl… no… xocatl… no… xocotlatl… no… XOCATLATL! I’m pretty sure I could have just rolled my face across the keyboard a few times and come closer. Ugh.

Anyway… so, we bought a huge list of samples from SerendipiTea, taking advantage of their $2.50 samples. Only, they seem to have sent us 1 oz samples. So it’s like we got a bunch of free tea that we weren’t expecting. Well, plus they sent us a package of a free tea that we weren’t expecting. So, double bonus. Overall, really pleased with this order… but it seems too good to be true, so I’m wondering if there’s some sort of mistake either with our order or their website.

So, there’s a lot going on with this tea. The aroma smells mostly of cinnamon and mint, and if there’s anything else hiding between those two, I don’t smell it. Overall quite pleasant.

Drinking this tea, I’m really reminded of the expression ‘Jack of all Trades, Master of None’. The flavors of this tea are all very, very subtle. A little cinnamon, ginger… start tasting the mint and the vanilla… and somewhere after the swallow you get a hint of chocolate, along with the lingering mint flavor and a teensy bit of the ‘woodsy’ kangaroo taste.

I don’t really taste the black tea in there at all. I might notice if it was gone, but I’m definitely not feeling like it’s there… if that makes any sense. But then, you could probably say that about any one particular flavor within this tea. The various flavors really blend together well, but they blend together in a very subtle, passive way, which Missy thinks may be because she only steeped it for 3 minutes. I just think there are so many flavors, that none of them can be strong. By your powers combined… Xocolat… xocalat.. xocl… nevermind.

Anyway, there’s some sort of weird disconnect between this tea, and the description of this tea on their website. It’s totally different, it’s like you’re talking about two different teas. The website mentions nothing about ginger, cinnamon or clove (but it is a chai, after all). And the bag doesn’t mention that there is kangaroo in it (which is so totally apparent).

I don’t know, it’s all very weird. My understanding is that SerendipiTea is a bit of a small shop though, so it might just be a matter of not keeping up with variations. I’d say it would be something to watch out for… but I like their teas too much to be that put off by it. If I didn’t already have a relationship with their tea though, I’d probably be pretty upset.

Am I objective enough to lower the rating for that… nope, not really. I’ll send them an email though :)

We got our samples from SerendipiTea today. Yay! I was surprised that the samples appeared to be bigger than what I expected. They also tossed in another sample I didn’t order. SerendipiTea also employs Santa’s reindeer to deliver tea. They were incredibly fast. I’m quite impressed with my experience.

So I put this on my shopping list a long time ago. I looked at the name while we were deciding what to get for samples this month, and though that this would be a spicy, chocolate chai. I was wrong! It happens once or twice a year. It’s a chocolate chai for sure, but no peppers. It’s still pretty good but I have other chai that are good as well. I think of it as a sweet, creamy chai really. Vanilla, mint, ginger, chocolate and yogurt all combine to make it sweet and creamy with out the addition of milk. The other chai spices seem to be a bit overwhelmed by the sweeter spices. Rooibos shows up, but the black tea is hiding.

It’s a dessert tea, but I think I like Buccaneer more.