Raspberry Truffle

Dessert tea for breakfast! Yup, it was one of those mornings.

The raspberry in this is perfect; not tart but not too sweet either. I’m not getting much chocolate but I am getting a nice rich creaminess. I’m curious to try this sweetened, or even iced (potentially the ultimate raspberry iced tea?) Of the fruity-chocolate teas I’ve tried, this one is the best and most natural tasting (but that’s not surprising, is it?)

Thanks TastyBrew for letting me try this!

I can’t believe I didn’t try this the moment I opened my Butiki order. Seriously, it’s so many things I love put together! Chocolate and raspberries and black, oh my. However, after a bad experience with Adagio’s Raspberry it wasn’t a flavor I really wanted to go at again for a while. It’s a shame, but sometimes a bad cup can temporarily “ruin” a whole type of tea for me—like after an icky green, I don’t want any other greens for a week or so.

I was feeling chocolatey the other day though so I decided to finally give this one a go. I love the huge chunks of raspberry and chocolate chips, it’s nice to see right up front the ingredients listed. The chips are teeny tiny though and my cup brewed up surprisingly clear (a pale amber, clearer than I expect from even a regular black), so I was worried there wouldn’t be a big chocolate punch. I was so wrong! This is REALLY chocolatey, not just in taste but in feel as well. It’s kind of heavy rich and and you can almost feel the chocolate coating your tongue.

The raspberry is subtler, coming in at the end of the sip with a hint of berry sweetness. It’s definitely not as strong as I thought it would be, and I was surprised (but pleased) that chocolate seemed to be the dominant flavor. Well… that might be a bit inaccurate, since I think the base black was the dominant flavor. It’s strong and at the very beginning of the sip it’s all you taste. Personally, I like when you can pick up all the nuances of the base tea—if you’re going to do super heavy flavoring, it doesn’t really matter what you use, but with this tea (and all the Butiki blends I’ve tried) the base really shines and compliments the other flavors. Definitely one of the best chocolate teas I’ve tried!

Thanks to Will Work For Tea for this sample. This tea cements the fact that I need to order from Butiki. Fabulous tea. Creamy, fruity and sweet.

I am in the middle of packs and packs and packs…for the move and ooooooh I found a wonderful parcel among the parcels…. I re-dicover the box from Kansas …the one I received from our lovely Azzrian full of tea samples! This is Christmas after Christmas again !

I decided to taste this one …because of raspberry my favorite fruit.
J’adoooooooooooooore les framboises.
This framboise is really natural and delicate, absolutely not tart.
Chocolate is really not my madeleine in tea but I have to recognize the 2 ingredients work perfectly together and the chocolate doesn’t overpower the tea base neither the raspberry flavour.

I appreciate this tea, really and would be happy to taste it again but I am not really in love with despite all its qualities.

I was expecting more framboise (but as said before I love too much framboise)
I love so much framboise I can’t say rapsberry …the French word is more romantic to my ears inversely to pumpkin (the French word citrouille is just so…incredibly weird !)

A very good Butiki teas job

Here’s another tea from the EU Travelling Teabox. This one is a Take, even though it’s a chocolate-y tea and I haven’t ever had much in the way of luck with those. It’s a texture thing. If you flavour a tea with chocolate it’s generally chocolate-y in such a way that my brain automatically expects a thick hot chocolate texture as well. And then I get disappointed when I don’t get that texture, which in turn reflects poorly on my experience of the tea.

I know I’ve had a couple of chocolate-y teas where the flavouring worked for me. I know this because I can remember feeling surprised by it, but I can’t for the life of me tell you which tea it was. That is how rare it is for me to come across a chocolate flavoured tea that works.

I decided to give this one a go, however, because it also has raspberry. Like vanilla and caramel, I’m very attracted to berries. Especially red berries, be it strawberry (which isn’t really a berry), raspberry (also not really a berry) or cherries (also not a berry) or what have you. (Not tomatoes, although they are actually berries. Don’t be silly).

I am also very attracted to berries in sweets and puddings. Chocolate with berry in it tends to make me want to try it and I currently have my eye on a tart with white chocolate and cherry that I want to try and make soon.

Therefore, I figured this tea was worthy of a go. Probably especially because the name says ‘truffle’ and not ‘chocolate’, which somehow doesn’t seem to raise the same chocolate-y expectations.

It smells truffle-y and dark chocolate-y. Very dark chocolate, here. 70% or more. I can just about pick up a hint of berry-like tartness, but I can’t recognise it as raspberry in particular. It’s just ‘berry’ at this point.

Tastewise, it’s quite nice. It’s chocolate-y on the swallow and leaves a pleasant aftertaste. This is good because that actually means that it doesn’t fall into that little but-there’s-no-chocolate-texture trap. Well done! A chocolate-y tea that works for me!

Raspberry, though. Or even berry of any sort. Not so much. I’m having a really hard time finding this in the flavour. Every time I think I have it, it disappears. I think I’ve got a bit of it in the aftertaste and I think I’ve got a bit of it if I take a sip and hold it, but there’s nothing here that I can put a finger on and say ‘this note is fruity.’

If I didn’t know better I’d think it’s was just truffle. It is possible that I would be able to tell a difference if I actually had the same blend only without the raspberry to compare with, but I haven’t so I can’t.

Even so, it’s still very pleasant, so I’m keeping it.

For some reason, I thought I drank this already, so coming across it was quite nice. I dedicate this to the very polite chocolate shop bear, aka my spirit animal: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/bear-with-sweet-tooth-bre_n_1754082.html

I knew I was going to like this when I put it in my infuser. Chocolate chips! Big dried raspberries! I don’t understand why I haven’t ordered this one yet just from the smell in the bag of the sample.

Wow, this is incredible. The base tea is nice and earthy, and its followed up by the sweet chocolate and raspberry. I can’t help myself…it needs agave just out of curiosity.

I think I liked it better before because of the earthiness, now it’s sweeter and more like a raspberry chocolate bar. Though, really, there is nothing at all wrong that.

The only problem I have with chocolate teas is I always still want more chocolate after I drink a cup.

Actually, as it cools, it really gets more like a truffle than just a lowly chocolate bar. I need more of this now!

This came as a sample in my latest order from Butiki – thanks for the sample!

I was in the mood for something decadent. We got some bad news that my sweetie’s department is getting eliminated and we are both very anxious. I might have to cut back on tea spending for a while… boo

I steeped this at the recommended parameters – 210 F for around 4 minutes. I like the base of this tea but I felt like the flavoring was very light. After reading the notes I decided to add a bit of turbinado sugar and some soymilk. That seems to have helped bring out the flavor a bit. Perhaps if I had more to play with I could try using more leaf but I wasn’t terribly thrilled with this, although it is not altogether unpleasant or anything. Instead of a truffle it’s like a light dusting of cocoa with a faint peep of a raspberry….

Thank you Stacy for the sample of this yummy tea!

First off, this tea looks like a valentine! Pretty raspberries on a bed of black tea, with the cutest mini-chocolate-chips ever! I wanted to eat them, but I only got a sample, so I made little Terri (my inner child) behave & wait.

We (me & little Terri) brewed this one as directed, inhaling the waftings of chocolate & raspberry. She kept saying, “is it ready yet?” while we were blowing & blowing so we wouldn’t burn our tongue…then sipping. The tea base is strong enough to support all the players, but not so strong as to overpower them. All of the flavors are so nicely balanced, & my addition of stevia (just a pinch) really made the whole cup sing!

This is a tea that I want to swirl around in my mouth, like a somalier, & in doing so it made my mouth water, it was juicy! The underside of my tongue tingled from the raspberry, the chocolate rolled over the top, so that my tongue became a Truffle! Yum!

Sipdown. And just in case anyone wants to try, it goes amazing with bacon. I was making lardons (and caramelized onions) for my pasta tonight and I popped a few remaining lardons (bacon bits for those not in the know) in my mouth. Then I sat down and absentmindedly took a sip of this tea. Woot!

No, I am not here to request a bacon tea. I’ve tried them and I know how it goes, but man, maybe just fry yourself some bacon when you’re wondering, and sip at your tea. Taste buds party!

Also this is not as astringent now as I thought it the first time around. Bump!

Thank you, Stacy, for this sample!

This tea does everything except outright transform into a solid Raspberry Truffle upon steeping. The candied raspberry center that has seeped into the surrounding sweet and creamy chocolate walls is something I can taste very vividly. Yet, despite that convincing profile the cup still manages to be all tea- and a smooth and mellow one to boot. This is delicious. I missed not having new Butiki teas to try.

Out of curiosity I added some milk to my first cup and it tasted as if I hadn’t added a thing. It’s the same level of creaminess with or without milk. Sorcery and witchcraft! I’ll pick up more of this one day.