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“This sample packet contained a really interesting mixture. Bit chunky pieces of roasted chicory that looked like tree bark or mulch, red peppercorns, and what looked like little chocolate chips...” Read full tasting note
“OK purists, shutter your eyes now. This is not real tea. This is a melange of roasted chicory, chocolate, pepper, and ginger. It brews up black like coffee with a strong ginger smell. In my teens I...” Read full tasting note
“Okay, I’m not ashamed to say that I was deeply intimidated by this tea. When my TeaFrog box arrived, the only thing I smelled when I opened it was chocolate and spice — and it was all coming from...” Read full tasting note
“Ok… this tisane looks like fecal matter droppings. ’Nuff said. This isn’t exactly a fruit or an herbal, but that’s the closest listed on the chart so that’s what I’ll go w/ even though 1/2TB...” Read full tasting note
Ingredients: Chicory Roasted, Chocolate Pieces, Cacao Pieces, Red Peppercorns, Ginger Pieces.
TeaFrog ships high quality tea to anywhere in North America. Founded in 2006 by Mike and Melanie, TeaFrog endeavors make quality tea accessible to more people, as well as educating the community about the benefits and the myths of tea.
This sample packet contained a really interesting mixture. Bit chunky pieces of roasted chicory that looked like tree bark or mulch, red peppercorns, and what looked like little chocolate chips among a tan colored substance that must be the ginger. The dry mix smells like spicy mocha. It makes a thick looking brown liquor.
The aroma of the tisane smells like chocolate, coffee and pepper. I’m not really picking up on much ginger here. The taste is similar to the aroma. Lightly chocolately, lightly coffee-like, with a zing of pepper that stands out most of all. The ginger hangs on to the chicory and mellows it into a sweet coffee-like flavor with a ginger overtone.
It’s a really interesting flavor, one I haven’t come across in a tisane before. I could see wanting it every now and then, especially during colder months. It’s a little too unusual and slyly intense for more than occasional drinking, at least for me.
OK purists, shutter your eyes now. This is not real tea. This is a melange of roasted chicory, chocolate, pepper, and ginger. It brews up black like coffee with a strong ginger smell. In my teens I was quite taken with herbal experimentation and this smells like one of my experiments. It brings me back to my mispent youth. It tastes fairly close to coffee with a ginger chaser. It’s not terrible and I can see it as an option for evenings when I want something dark without the caffeine.
Chicory, isn’t that that stuff they used during the war to make replacement coffee? I’ve never had that, I’m imagining something kind of earthy and woodsy.
If you are talking about Europe in WWI and WWII, then yes, roasted chicory was used as a coffee substitute. It basically tastes like a milder form of coffee, not woodsy or earthy at all. In New Orleans they have a chicory-coffee combination that they serve that is very good.
Yes, that’s what I meant. I forgot coffee wasn’t difficult to get everywhere. :) I’ve never had it myself, but I know of at least one place in the city where I work where you could get Richs Replacement Coffee until recently. It was the most common brand in Denmark during the occupation and it was even sold in the same package design as in the forties. But they’ve stopped making it now, I think. People would mix it with real coffee and stretch the beans that way. I think I’ll try and keep my eye out to see if I can get a sample of it and see what it’s like.
@Angrboda I had to ask my beloved (who is a military historian), “Suppose you were Danish and were talking about using chicory as a coffee substitute in ‘the war’. Which war are you talking about?” He immediately said, “World War II” and then corrected himself, ’Well, World War I also. She could be talking about either one. Hmmm. Denmark, huh? Probably World War II. The real question is how she feels about Brussel sprouts. That would tell us which war."
He’s very handy to have around.
There are three kinds of coffee substitutes: those made from roasted grains (typically barley), those made from roasted roots (like chicory); and those made from roasted fruit (figs are popular). When you pick up Rich’s, check to see what they’re using.
I did mean WWII, yes. Since we were occupied by the germans, that’s the big one for us. Interestingly, during that whole climate todo in Copenhagen, the police had to borrow police cars from Sweden and Germany to cover everything, and while the swedish police cars still said ‘Polis’ on them, the ‘Polizei’ on the german cars had been covered with the danish ‘Politi’. Even now over 60 years after the end of occupation, they couldn’t have cars with ‘Polizei’ on them driving around in Copenhagen. Too sensitive when there are still people alive who remember the occupation. And as for Brussel sprouts, I don’t much like them. I think they’re too bitter. But then I’m not one for most sorts of cabbage anyway.
I passed the shop today where they had it, but I forgot to stop in and check the package. I think it’s a 250g package or something like that. Bit too large to buy in case I don’t like it. :)
Anyway, I think it must have been either of the first two, or possibly a combination. I think the fruit variety would have been even harder to come by.
@Angrboda That’s a fascinating story about the German police cars at the conference in Copenhagen. I’ll have to tell my beloved. He will be interested to hear it.
As to the Brussels sprouts, he maintains that anyone who lived through WWII in Germany and the areas occupied by Germany hates Brussels sprouts because they were amongst the few foods that were available to the populace in the late war. I personally think that this is just his gambit to avoid eating Brussels sprouts, which he hates and I love. But since he is the historian, I can’t say much.
He might be on to something, actually. My dad likes it and I don’t know about my mum. It’s not something that was ever served in my family. I’ve never seen my grandparents serve it either as far as I remember. On my mum’s side, my grandparents were only children at the time, but on my dad’s side my grandparents are some ten-twenty years older, so I could imagine that they at least had eaten enough brussel sprouts to last them a life time.
With the exception of my dad’s mother, all my grandparents are out of farmer families, though, so they’ve likely had a bit of an advantage there since they could grow the vegetables they needed themselves and they had cows too so they probably almost always had butter too. A while ago we came to talk about it somehow and my grandmother told of how the german soldiers would come up to their house to buy eggs and milk and such, and how in hindsight it had probably been pretty problematic to trade with them. What if the resistance movements discovered it, would they consider it some form of collaboration? Or, on the other hand, did they dare say no to the occupational force? She said they never had any trouble though. She must have been barely ten or so at the time, and if she was alone in the house she would hide when they came and pretend no one was home because she didn’t dare talk to the soldiers.
It’s difficult for me to imagine the occupation and what it meant to the daily lives of people then, in spite of having learned about in great detail in school and a number of films and tv-series and what not having been made about it. It seems like it’s so long ago, but it’s still less than a lifetime for some people.
Okay, I’m not ashamed to say that I was deeply intimidated by this tea. When my TeaFrog box arrived, the only thing I smelled when I opened it was chocolate and spice — and it was all coming from this one sample bag. I wrapped the sample bag (unopened) in a second bag and put that in a cannister, and still that entire corner of my kitchen was overwhelmed by chocolate and spices. I made myself a cup tonight because it seemed like a good night for it, but also in a bit of self-defense!
I was surprised, then, to find that the steeping tea smelled hardly of chocolate at all. The predominant spice when dry had been ginger; brewing, the peppercorns met up with the ginger and began taking over. I was too impatient to steep it for very long, and began sipping it from a spoon right away. The tea itself is a reddish-brown, not dark but rather murky in a way that matches the spicy scent.
Hot, it tastes almost entirely of peppercorns, but it’s very smooth underneath (is this where the chocolate comes in?). There’s a peppery tingle on the tongue and a gingery tingle at the back of the mouth — this is not a tea that’s sitting still to be drunk! And I was quite right to wait until I had an evening to savor it, because this is a tea that demands my full attention while drinking. As it’s cooling, there’s a little more chocolate flavor coming through, almost like the peppercorns, having made their point, have decided to graciously back off a step and let the other ingredients have their say.
ETA: A second steeping, at five and a half minutes, brings out rather more chocolate; I would still call this a pepper tea with chocolate and ginger flavors, but it’s an interesting change. It’s also distinctly darker from the longer steeping.
And now the quandary: I want more of this tea, but I’m not sure I dare acquire an entire tin of it lest my entire kitchen wind up smelling as though my spice rack and my cocoa powder just staggered in together after a wild night on the town.
It must be something about chocolate. I stash the tea in my room and now my rooms filled with a chocolaty aroma. I’m not complaining, it’s delicious =]
Now there’s an idea! No reason the tea has to live in the kitchen, after all….
Now if it was in the kitchen, my tea would all vanish =P
I love this description Cait – specially the end part about your spice rack and cocoa powder staggering in ;)
I would suggest actually getting a tin of it – the tins that we use seal pretty well and not only keep the scent in but keep it fresh too! Of course, when you do open the tin for a cup, you are sure to live with the blended scent for a few hours at least ;)
Oh, thank you for the comment — and, of course, for making the tea in the first place! ;) I probably will go for a tin of it, because not only did I really enjoy this myself but I want to make all of my friends try it. (So, y’know, sample packs: they really work! ;) )
Ok… this tisane looks like fecal matter droppings. ’Nuff said.
This isn’t exactly a fruit or an herbal, but that’s the closest listed on the chart so that’s what I’ll go w/ even though 1/2TB doesn’t look like much since the chocolate pieces are so big.
Suprisingly this brews up quite dark- dark brown liquor w/ reddish tones. And it definitely smells like the ingredients. I can detect the red pepper, but it doesn’t burn my nose, it’s mostly chocolate and ginger.
I was expecting this to be flat w/o any tea in it, but it’s actually quite smooth. I think that’s cuz of the ginger and the red pepper. It’s almost coffee-ish in some ways, but still different enough to not be called coffee flavored. Would most likely be good with milk.
I made this tonight after feeling overly full from a savory stuffed pumpkin. The look of the dry pieces is as pictured. It smells gingery and peppery and like chocolate before brewing. I brewed at 180 for 5 minutes. The tisane smells more like chicory and ginger. It tastes initially like chicory but the chocolate smooths it while the pepper and ginger give it a slightly spicy note but some of the chicory bitterness lingers on the tongue though not in a bad way. It isn’t sweet like other tisane a I’ve recently drank but is very nice if you don’t want sweet. I think it is a tisane for people who also enjoy coffee.
Still in my sample basket, hopefully I’ll crack this one open soon…