Trick or Treat! This is a tea I picked up from a trip I took to San Diego back in fall of 2017 now, where I had High Tea at a quaint little shop that also sold tea and British collectibles and food called Shakespeare’s Corner Shoppe. Most of their tea blends were wholesaled, but they had a handfull that were unique blends they created that were named after famous British royalty, characters, or pop icons, and this is one of the ones I picked up.
This is probably one of the most chocolately teas I own, so it fits in nicely with my dessert tea theme this month! It’s a Ceylon black base, but they’ve added both milk and white chocolate, cocoa nibs, maple syrup (there is a certain maple sweetness mixed with the strong chocolate flavoring of the tea from the aroma), blueberries (because Willy Wonka!), vanilla, orange peel and lemon balm for a touch of citrus, and safflower and cornflower petals. It sounds like a lot going on, but the flavor comes out as chocolate blueberries! Which probably still sounds very odd, but somehow works, if you are in the mood for a very sweet, quirky dessert tea.
I can still make out just a hint of the black tea base, and it probably would be a hint bitter with some astringency if this tea wasn’t so darn sweet, but since I don’t like harsh, bitter Assams/Ceylons, I’m fine with that. This isn’t a subtle chocolate tea; it’s very rich, sweet, and fudgy in flavor, and the sweetness does have a maple note to it which I really like. About midsip and then lingering on the finish is a really sweet blueberry flavor, that mixed with that touch of maple really reminds me of blueberry pancake syrup, a really syrupy sweet blueberry note. I’m not really getting any citrus, though I wonder if they are helping bring the black tea base to the forefront a bit more, since Ceylons tend to be a bit citrusy.
Black teas aren’t the sort of thing I indulge in late at night when I tend to want a sweet-tooth hit, so I think my place for something like this is for those Fridays when I know it isn’t donut day at work… like today.
Flavors: Blueberry, Chocolate, Malt, Maple, Pancake Syrup, Sweet
Sounds delicious! (: