I got this tea as a sample from David’s Tea back in Spring; it sounded quite interesting so I’ve been saving it for a “rainy” day ever since. Course I’m one of those people who has a habit of saving single servings of tea for that “perfect” day and then never actually steeping them but today… today is definitely a good day for this one.
Dry this tea is quite chunky from the hunks of chocolate and small pieces of cinnamon stick. There was a definite scent of chocolate that came as soon as the bag was opened and the coconut was also present, just underneath the hint of cinnamon. There was however a slightly odd high note in the aroma that I couldn’t place, not off-putting but just… odd.
Steeped the liquor is a light brown, a bit on the murky side with all of the debris floating around (bits of cinnamon and the remainder of the dissolved chocolate). Scent-wise the chocolate loses out to the cinnamon and the coconut takes on a bit of a “roasted” scent. Intellectually I know the vanilla is in there too but I have a really hard time picking it out.
I ended up having to steep this one for quite some time to get the full flavor effect, coconut and cinnamon were the first (somewhat) weak flavors that I noticed prior to the extra-long steep. Fast forward a few more minutes and the flavor became much more robust with a nice warm hit of chocolate to mellow out the cinnamon. The coconut helps to round out the flavor profile, but I still have a hard time finding the vanilla in it. The black tea this is based on is also quite nice as it stood up well to the additional flavors and didn’t get overly bitter with the extra-long steep.
Overall, this is quite a nice smooth tea, the flavors are subtle in the end but all the better for it I think. It’s just too bad that David’s Tea is discontinuing this one for now… hopefully it will be back soon.
