Night of the Iguana Chocolate Chai

I’m desperately trying to taste this tea, but my allergies are getting in the way! Every once in a while I get a little hint of flavor and aroma and it seems like a yummy tea but I won’t be able to properly rate this until I can breathe!

I have a bag of this but it has no brewing at ructions of any kind..any help would be appreciated.

I think this is the same Night of the Iguana Chocolate chai that I am currently drinking. I ordered it from Bonjour Gourmet but it has the same description.

It’s a decent chocolate chai. The different between cocoa and tea is that tea is NOT cocoa, but it has a chocolate taste. When I brewed a cup I made sure to leave plenty of room for milk and let it brew at least 5 minutes so it would be nice and strong. I added a little sugar because chocolate needs sugar. It’s not very spicy for a chai, maybe i need to shake the pouch upside down some more so the spices can get mixed up more.

I don’t know if I would buy this tea again, ETS chocolate mint has a more chocolatey taste, but I don’t feel like I wasted money on this tea either.

I resteeped the leaves and it still has a hint of chocolate.

A pleasant tea with a small undertaste of chocolate and a sense of something nutty at initial sip.

What I don’t sense is spice, cinnamon, pepper, chai. I steeped a bit longer than recommended, and added sugar after initial sips to see if brought the spice complexities out. It did not. Sniffing the mix, it has a chocolate smell but not spice or chai.

Drinkable but it does not deliver what it advertised, so I cannot wholly recommend

Sipdown no. 91 of 2018 ( no. 447 total).

I tried this two different ways today, which basically took me to the end of the 1 oz I had. So there will be no iced experiment with this, unfortunately.

First, I steeped it as I would any other black tea (212 for 3 mins in the Breville). One note about that: I had already set aside a couple of tbspns for the stove top so I was short some. I made up the difference with Golden Moon French Breakfast on the theory that since I’m using that for the extra black tea on the stovetop, it would provide a direct comparison — the next best thing to not having to make up the difference with some other tea.

That cup was a decent spiced black tea. Not much in the way of white chocolate flavor, which may be partly explained by the French Breakfast, but otherwise a sort of middle of the road spiced black tea.

Then I tried it again on the stove top, wondering whether I’d end up with a spicy mess since I didn’t shake the packet yesterday. The answer is: not really. Yes, it’s spicier, a definite pepper on the tip of the tongue sort of spicy. And this time, I didn’t get much of a chocolate flavor, white or otherwise.

But otherwise, an enjoyable chai. Just not quite as enjoyable on balance, as, I think, some other chocolate chais I have had. Bumping it down a tad.

And with that, project chai sipdown is almost over. That was quick! Once the The O Dor Bollywood is gone, I’ll have two chais in my stash — my two favorites. So while I won’t need to do a sipdown project, I’ll still be able to enjoy chai — especially when the weather gets colder.

When going through my cupboard to see if I had any other chais, I also noticed that I have a couple of teas that, while they aren’t lapsangs, have lapsang in them. Kusmi Samovar and Harney Russian Country. Not that project lapsang sipdown would or should have caught these, as they aren’t in the same category.

Thinking about my next projects now. I plan to continue working my way through my white tea stash, trying to improve my palate for those. That should take a while. I noticed when I was going through the cupboard that I have quite a few full sized white tea packets or tins, and I’m not through with my samples yet, either.

But that project was already underway. So now I have to pick another new one.

I see three ways this could go: project matcha sipdown, project oolong sipdown, or project pu-erh sipdown.

Right now I’m leaning toward oolongs because I think I have the most of those. Though I’m also thinking that a matcha here and there would be an interesting change of pace on weekends.

In typing this, I’ve just talked myself into oolongs, with the occasional foray into matcha and pu-erh.

Tasty and unique like all of the Tea Table’s teas, however I think I personally was hoping for a bit more spiciness in the tea.

Not an expert on Chai, but this is one of the better ones I have tried. Neither the chocolate nor the spices are overwhelming, but it creates a complicated mix. I will buy it again. I like to take a travel mug of tea with me to work in the mornings, and some tea just don’t survive being the mug (I think it’s the lack of oxygen). This one survives just fine and still tastes good an hour later.