Organic Chocolate "O"

Many thanks to SimplyJenW for this tea!!!!

This is my “I’m done my final paper/poster/presentation wheeeeeeee!” tea treat! I thought it would be lovely to have a nice tea with some chocolate happiness infused throughout :) This does not disappoint. The tea base is excellent. The play between the chocolate roasty notes in the tea, and the added chocolate flavor is really, really, nice. I’m having it at work sans additions, and it is a pleasure to drink unadorned.

Thank you so much Jen! This is so lovely!

Sipdown! Thanks to QueenofTarts for swapping! Finished off the remaining sample by brewing up a nice big mug.

The dry form of this one is so pretty; beautiful, light little spindly curls for leaves. They open up nicely when steeped.

I don’t think this smells like chocolate. I think it smells (unsurprisingly) like a Chinese black tea. The color of the liquor is a beautiful dark mahogany-brown. Tastes predominantly like a smooth & malty black with notes of chocolate. (I think the base tea is also caramely, as I’m picking that up, but can’t imagine they’d add caramel flavoring without labeling it so.)

To be honest, if I was given this tea in an unlabeled/blind taste-test (without ever having tried it before), I’m not sure if I’d be able to tell you “chocolate flavored black.” Perhaps my palate isn’t developed enough yet (w/r/t tea; I’m aces with beer), but I think I would guess that it was an unflavored black that was malty and had caramel and chocolate-like undertones.

That said… ‘tis good. Very good. The base tea in this is wonderful. I just don’t find it overwhelmingly chocolatey, which could be a plus or negative, depending on your tastes.

ETA: Whoo-hoo, I might get down to under 50 in the cupboard today! So what if I have a shipment of 7 new teas due to come in tomorrow? It’s still a goal achievement for today!

Thank you so much to TerriHarpLady for this sample!! YUMMO!!
Funny, I tried this twice. First time, I wanted a chocolatey tea with milk, but it turned out a little sour. I wasn’t all that impressed. SO I held off reviewing til I could try again and so today I made it in my travel mug. Sans milk. I went in thinking I would add my bit of dairy after tasting a spoonful, but something told me not to. Cuz it is much better that way! Oh yes. Deeeelish.
It’s a dark chocolate, or maybe only partly milk chocolate taste, and very creamy after it cools down a bit.
When hot, it was downright dark chocolate, almost like laoshan black in that way. I should try a side by side and see just how much they differ!
This is something I’d keep around if I came across it, for sure.
Anyhow, thanks for the sample Terri, you rock!

On a side note, this work contract is just killing me. Most stressful period I’ve ever had, thus far in my life. Well, except for maybe the recession. Maybe.
So much so that I haven’t had a drive to drink tons of tea. I mean, I’ve had my tea but its more of an afterthought now, because I just don’t have time, atleast not during the day when I can have caffeine. Le sad.
That said, its also been one of, if not THE most valuable learning experience(s) in my career. I guess it all balances out in the ether huh.
The other day, I had in depth conversations with some friends and was so tired that the next day, I couldn’t remember any of it. Hmmm.
Also, I have tons of backlogs so stay tuned for some IB spamwalling ;)

The best way to start the morning? With chocolate of course! This is a really yummy chocolate black tea. It has an amazing base tea and the chocolate flavoring is subtle and brings out the maltiness in the tea. I am really enjoying my cuppa this morning. :-)

Work – 12:00 PM

Happy November, everyone! I’m officially allowing myself to listen to Christmas music now. (Yes, I know that it’s still almost two months away…) Christmas happens to be my favorite holiday, so I tend to start early with the holiday spirit. But hopefully not in a way that annoys other people!

Anyway, this tea was a sample size. I ordered several samples from The Tea Spot a few months ago for some reason. I think it may have been because I liked something I got in my Sips By box…?

This is super yum, by the way. It reminds me of the black dragon pearls from Teavivre that I tried a few days ago, but with an even stronger cocoa flavor. Delicious!

It’s thick and satisfying, with a great mix of malt, cocoa, and baked bread notes.

Of course, it looks as if The Tea Spot doesn’t offer this blend anymore… Typical…

Also, is the name meant to be sexual…? Seems a bit odd, rofl.

Thank you for the sale, Momo! The leaves here look like Laoshan black (with some additional gold in color) which explains the ‘chocolate’ in the name, but then there is a very sweet scent of chocolate, so it seems they also add some chocolate flavoring. That is evident in the unfortunate gasoline type flavor of the chocolate… I’ve experienced this before in a couple other chocolate flavored teas. I’m sure the black tea might have been fine on it’s own. It’s a nice tea, so I can kind of ignore the gasoline flavor. I just don’t know how much of the chocolate is the flavoring and how much is the tea itself.
Steep #1 // 4 min after boiling // 3 min steep
Steep #2 // 4 min after boiling // 6 min

Smells strongly of chocolate, and tastes of it when hot. Cold, it’s more tea than chocolate, while warm, I wasn’t a fan at all. Hot though, this was liquid chocolate awesomeoness.

Dinosara thank you so much for letting me try so many teas on my wishlist. This was something I’d wanted pretty much since day one on Steepster, and I’m really glad I got a chance to try it!