Rosemint Cacao

Oh lordy, all this snow we are getting in the Pacific Northwest is killing me. Every day we’ve been getting buried all over again. When I was home over the holidays and could stay in, it was managable, but now that I have to drive to and from work every day… oof. It’s been putting me in a mood.

Pulled this as my nightly herbal, hoping it soothes my nerves and warms my body. Smells like… rose, mint, and cocoa. Yup.

Teabag left in cup treatment. Tastes like… Rose, mint, and cocoa. Mm-hmm. I’m actually surprised I’m picking up the cocoa notes so well… I could do with even stronger chocolately notes, but what is here is lovely, sort of a dark chocolate bitter-sweet note that fades to something sweeter and slightly fudgy in the aftertaste, probably thanks to the sweetness of the floral. The mint is bright and crisp, with a lovely cooling menthol sensation after the sip. The rose is noticable, and pairs nicely with both the cocoa and the mint. It is not overpowering or perfumy, but does leave that distinct rose-floral-taste-with-a-peppery-aftertaste note in the cup.

Lovely evening tea.

Hey, guess who’s having a cuppa? This girl!

Anyway, this is a sample from the lovely derk, and I had to google the brewing instructions. I was shocked to find it says one tablespoon per 8oz, so that meant the entire sample was going in one cup. Oh well…

I was shocked a second time when I added the brew basket to the water and immediately the water turned brown. I guess there is straight up cocoa powder in this? Weird. Does that make it hot cocoa, instead of tea? Or a hybrid of both? Don’t know.

Anywho, taste is… there. Like, it doesn’t taste like plain water, but, it also doesn’t come anywhere near in the vicinity of “Pop”. I’ll try adding a splenda.

Well, either there wasn’t enough leaf in that sample for the size of mug I own (12 oz) or this is just really poop tea. It tastes like if you put a quarter teaspoon of mint hot cocoa in a gallon jug of hot water, and shook it. There’s next to nothing to it. I’m getting a sharp mouth tingle from the mint, but I can’t really taste the mint itself. I can’t really taste anything, actually. Maybe I’m getting sick? Do I…? I dunno, they say that one of the symptoms is losing your sense of taste and for as strong as the tingle is from this, you’d think I’d be able to taste the mint properly.

I used the entire sample in one go, so I guess we’ll never know.

Here’s another one I picked up from the co-op this evening, a tisane blended by Tap Twice, a San Francisco tea company. On their website it sounds like they encourage people to contact them to meet up and drink tea. Maybe when my social side picks back up I’ll drop them a Herro.

I must have sniffed 50 different jars of teas and tisanes at the co-op and this one was like WOWZA. I bought enough for two sessions and will definitely be picking up more. It’s a straight-forward tisane – cacao, peppermint, rose petals and damiana. The aroma and tastes both are a perfect balance between the ingredients. Nothing tries to take center stage and somehow the peppermint tastes so pure. Kind of fluffy, sweet, no bitterness or astringency. This tisane will be a mainstay.

(Western, 1T, 8oz, 200F, 3/5m)

Tap Twice also has a good-looking selection of Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese teas in their online shop, sometimes with questionable tasting notes like ‘wisdom’ lol.