Day 21 DavidsTea 24 Days of Tea calendar – Hot Chocolate (pu’erh) I just wrote a more-verbose, in depth review, but it got eaten when I foolishly clicked on the “suggest a flavor?” link at bottom (will explain why in a sec). That button launched my gmail in this very same window, killing everything I had written. So, yeah, word of warning to all: do not click on that link until after you’ve saved your tasting note. Bad, Steepster, no biscuit. No need for that link to behave that way. Grrrr, fustrated now.
Didn’t help that I was already frustrated by this tea. It smelled very promising in the tin, but turned into a fakey, awful stevia bomb in the cup. In fact the flavour I was about to suggest was ‘stevia’ since it is a very specific flavour of sweetener that, when overused as DT sadly often does, ruins what could be otherwise perfectly good teas. (Note: I’m fine with stevia when it’s balanced, flavour-wise, in better blends than this one.)
Not sure why the decision was made to use stevia to sweeten this. I mean, there’s already chocolate in it, so why not just use sugar? It would still be far more diet-friendly than actual hot chocolate and it could have been a really tasty mug of tea. I powered through this, mostly b/c it was first thing in the morning when I drank it and I needed the caffeine to get my butt in gear. But, I will never drink it again. So it’s not totally unpalatable, just kind of inexcusable.
If you’re down with the stevia (and lots of it…) then you might love this. If you think stevia tends to taste artificial or just plain bad, this tea’s a solid pass.
Flavors: Artificial, Chocolate, Sweet
