Zocolatte Spice Herbal Tea

ChOTE (Chai of the evening……)

I decided to use this as a chai spice mix again, but this time with an unloved rooibos blend in my cupboard. I used 3 actual tsp of Zocolatte Spice and 2 actual tsp of Bourbon Street Vanilla Rooibos from EnglishTeaStore.com. I used my usual chai method, and this is good. It is vanilla, mocha-ey, and cocoa-ey, as well as spicy and a little peppery. Really good….even better than with black tea added as far as I am concerned. This totally works. My current rooibos chai (from Upton) is just a little heavy on the anise for my taste to be drinking on a regular basis.

Rating as a chai spice as used above….at least an 88.

I am very disappointed. Very. I believed this to be the reincarnation of a Specialteas tea that I thought had disappeared forever. I was wrong. Teavana took the idea of this lost tea and made it something bad…then gave it a silly name. How could you do this to me, Teavana? I feel so betrayed.

The basic ingredients are the same as Specialteas’ Spicy Chocolate, but the proportions are way off. Waaaay off! And even before I compared the ingredients of the two teas, I can see where Teavana went wrong. too much chicory root and not enough cinnamon. I am unreasonably upset. Probably because I had such high hopes. Sigh. My cup smells like medicinal tea. That aside, it is lightly chocolatey and a bit spicy, but mostly, it’s chicory. I think I’ll prepare the tea differently next time and see if it’s better. I used the chai stovetop method this time, which worked on Spicy Chocolate, but not this.

Unfortunately, I bought two pounds of this at 75% off, thinking I had struck gold. Sooo, in light of my stellar reviews, anyone want to swap?

Edit: a lot of sugar and a splash of almond milk makes this palatable. I guess I can drink this…

muppetlove sent me some of this! Thanks a bunch!

This smells like a cross-between or combo of coffee, tea, carob, spice, cream – of sorts.

The liquor has various colors and textures that make-up for a murky medium brown with orange-ish hue.

It tastes like I am sucking on a dull coffee bean. There is a hint of spice but it’s not overly intense. There isn’t much of a chocolate taste, really, but the end-sip is sort of sweet and a tad creamy so maybe that is where the ‘chocolate’ notes come in.

This one is alright…not overly memorable but it was drinkable-enough.

VERY glad I got to try it tho! Thanks again!

TSTTB Tea #3!

I made this last night for our little 2 cup pot of evening tea. There was just two perfect teaspoons left, and my memory of Teavana herbals told me you need extra leaf BUT I went ahead and made it anyway. Sadly it was weak even though I tried brewing it longer than usual to compensate. Not much chocolate or spice. Ah, I knew I should have put a spoon of my own rooibos chai in! I’m kicking myself.

I believe this is the first Teavana tea I’ve consumed; I got it in a trade with DaisyChubb rather than buying it myself. Let’s just say that I have strong moral objection to the company’s business practices so I’ve decided not to give them any of my money – not that I don’t appreciate the tea, Daisy. ;)

This is an interesting mix – chai spices without the ‘chai’ and mixed with chocolate basically, though it smells totally awesome. The result is a little bit light for my tastes, though I could see this going well with a sweet dessert or something similar. I was expecting it to have a stronger chocolate flavour than it actually did, there are some mild bitter cocoa hints but the flavours seem to mostly be from the spices. I swear I’m tasting chicory root in there as well, though it doesn’t seem to be listed with the other ingredients. Hmm.

Zocolatte Spice? I think I love you! At least, while I have the four ounces of you that I have. Chocolately, spicy delicious. I like you better than the Azteca Fire that I tried. As Amy oh said in her tasting review, I bet you taste amazing with black tea. Maybe I’ll try that next time.

I prepared a giant travel mug of this to take with me while I took the dog to the emergency vet, and promptly forgot it. It was still warm when I got home; warm and delicious. The chocolate and ginger were the most prominent flavor notes I could detect, though since this is a backlog, I’ll need to have more to make sure. I remember liking it though. It hit the spot after my vet visit.

Tea #12 from the ‘Here’s Hoping’ teabox.

I made the mistake of reading the reviews before trying this tea, so I was set not to like it. Turns out, though, that this is a decent herbal. The chocolate adds plenty of sweetness, and the spice is there, but it is also fairly mellow. This seems like a great tea for those late nights when I want some chai but I also want to sleep at some point. That being said, I think this would be awesome added to a mid-grade Assam. Seriously yummy.

Hi, this will (hopefully) be one of my last Teavana adventures for a while…

I tried this blend this afternoon at work. My immediate thoughts were: this isn’t bad, it actually tastes like Spicy chocolate as promised. But… it really needed SOMETHING.

So, on my way home I had a semi- intelligent thought. What if I added some black decaf tea to this? I stopped off and got some Decaffeinated Evening Tea from Ahmad Tea. When I mix the two together, I get a wonderful dessert tea.

So apparently I realize now that the secret to making Teavana tea great is by adding actual tea to it???

Goodnight!

I dunno why this tea is rated so mediocre-y, it’s one of my favorite decaf blends. I mean, it’s full of coconut, cardamom, pink peppercorns and cacao nibs or something! It’s kind of an ugly, murky color, but it has such a wonderful scent, like mexican hot chocolate or cake. Tasty on its own, delicious with milk and sugar.

Not bad, not bad at all to me. This tea would be great to cook with, like a marinade for steak or chicken. Hmm….