A rich, malty Fujian black tea blended with cacao shells & nibs, vanilla & vegan caramel essence to create a delicious ice cream shop treat for your teacup!
Tea of the Week for August 28, 2023!
To continue with my ice cream-y inspirations this summer, I wanted to create something that captured my love of a thick & delicious Chocolate Malt treat from my favorite ice cream shop.
And, with one of my more recent tea hauls (shipment of mass quantities of tea) I bought an incredible Zheng Shan Fujian Black Tea. It’s rich, flavorful with notes of malt (very malty) chocolate & a pleasantly sweet finish. The perfect base for my chocolate malt dreams!
To this remarkable tea, I added some cacao shells & nibs since the only thing that’s better than some chocolate flavor is even more chocolate. Then I added some vanilla & a little bit of caramel essence (don’t worry, it’s vegan!). Finally, I added some malt essence (don’t worry, it’s gluten-free!)
Wa-lah! We have the kind of Chocolate Malt that dreams are made of! (At least, my dreams!)
This tea is more Chocolate Malt than either vanilla or caramel but it wouldn’t be the same or nearly as good without the vanilla or caramel. SO GOOD!
ingredients: black tea, organic cacao nibs & shells, calendula petals, organic vanilla bean & organic natural flavors
to brew: I know I say this a lot, but you definitely want to shake the pouch before you measure this tea. The tea leaves are very full & large, leaving little room for the vanilla bean, cacao shells & nibs to rest among the leaves. As a result, they do what they do & sift to the bottom of the pouch. Trust me when I say: you want those components to be part of your measurement – so give it a shake!
Use 3g of leaf to 12oz of nearly boiling water (205°F) & steep for 3 minutes. Strain & allow tea to cool for at least 10 minutes to allow those flavors to develop. Enjoy!
serving suggestion: to be honest, I only tried this tea served hot. I tend to prefer my chocolate teas hot, especially when blended with vanilla & caramel. I loved this served without any additions – it had a really lovely dark chocolate flavor – like a dream chocolate ice cream (but hot! lol) with a vanilla caramel swirl. When I tried it with a little bit of sugar (about ½ a teaspoon) – this brought out some of the sweeter qualities of both the chocolate & the caramel & gave this much more of a Chocolate Malt (Ice Cream Shake) experience. That is to say that this is a tea that goes both ways & it’s exceptionally good however you want to serve it.
Malted ChocoMate was one of my favorites from the Frank 52teas days … this sounds like a really nice companion.
That’s one of my favourites as well! I’d drink it as a consolation prize after a sleepless night :P