Thé au Chocolat

Smells lightly of chocolate, though I don’t see any of the promised cacao nibs/powder. Lupicia says this is inspired by dark chocolate, but to me this is definitely on the lighter side. I get more of a light caramel/vague chocolate note versus a rich, deep dark flavour.

It’s fun and playful, more of a child’s tea party tea than a sophisticated adult drink. Certainly not offensive- it’s easy to drink, but when something is advertised as a dessert tea, I want it to be indulgent and memorable. Not words I’d use to describe this. To me, this is “nice,” or “fine.” I’ll finish the bag but I wouldn’t repurchase since there are better dessert teas out there.

I drink all my tea straight but I suspect some some cream and sugar would provide some much needed richness and round it out.

Sipdown no. 20 of 2021 (no. 640 total).

In comparison to the other teas I have bunched around the 84 rating, this isn’t among the the ones I like best. So I’m bumping it down.

It has the same general chocolate issue that I had with the orange chocolat from Lupicia, which is that the chocolat has rather less depth and natural sweetness than others and I prefer more depth and sweetness. However, this is less noticeable in this tea than in the orange chocolat. Wonder why?

Bumping it down but not as far as the orange chocolat. It is not a bad chocolat tea. I just prefer some others.

There is definitely a note of bittersweet chocolate to this tea. It would be more to my tastes if it was more sweet and less like bittersweet choclate. There id definitely a chocolate note. I amnot really sure what type of chocolate they add to this. Still it is fairly tasty. As I recall last time I ordered from Lupica they were out of this and I had wanted to try it. Got it yesterday in what was my second or third order with Lupica. I like their teas so I will order again.

I brewed this one time in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for three minutes.

Last of my The au Chocolat tonight. Very smooth tea. Nice cross between tea and coffee. Perfect on a rainy fall night.

I walked away from the brewing and came back to nice tea anyhow, which is a huge plus. With turbinado sugar, it tastes of dusty cocoa with a tea-tannin kick (my fault), and “chocolatey” on the nose during swallowing.

I’m rebrewing this bag currently to see what the tea tastes like after the first flush of cocoa washes out.

So, I got this in the monthly TTB club from skysamurai’s box. It smells like a chocolate truffle out of the bag. (It’s a tea bag, which I’m learning is much more convenient when you want to cram a lot of tea into a small box.) I was on the Lupicia page looking at teas, when I realized that I hadn’t tried this yet. I wanted to know if I would prefer the Marron Chocolate or the Au Chocolat, but to figure that out I have to try this tea first.

The tea is dark and smells of cocoa and raisins. I opened a splenda packet before trying the tea, so now I’m waiting for it to cool and trying not to spill the splenda all over the table before I sample the tea unsweetened. In the meantime, I guess I could figure out the teas I do like at Lupicia.

I was actually on the site to see if they had more Napa Blanc, which they did. I’m excited about that. My tea journey has been a bit incongruous, but I’ve gone from unflavored and unsweetened to flavored and liberally sweetened and back. I don’t drink many sweetened teas, but I know that certain flavored teas cannot be fully appreciated without the addition of something like splenda or sugar. I tried the decaf muscat for instance, but wasn’t enamored by it. I like the grape flavor, but when I brewed that I probably left it in the water too long. I think the potential for bitterness is too high with a black tea, but in the Napa Blanc, you don’t have that overpowered flavor from the green tea. Plus, it’s green tea.

I haven’t really had much green tea in a while, as I’ve found out that I prefer black teas on most occasions. I tried the Te De Frutas as well – a black tea. I don’t know if I enjoyed it as much. Perhaps I should consider what sample to get once I order the tea…

Anyway, this tea has a strong cocoa flavor that’s enhanced by a sweetener. I think I might prefer the chestnut flavor in the Marron Chocolate. I like this tea. It might be better if I steep it less – It turned the water dark as soon as I poured the water, so perhaps it doesn’t need to steep for very long. It’s pretty satisfying, though. It might be good with milk too. I ended up buying the Marron Chocolate, however.

The Lupicia base, that I don’t usually love, actually lends itself quite nicely to the rich chocolate flavor of this tea. It smells amazingly like rich milky chocolate and at times it tastes like milk chocolate but mostly it tastes like a thick dark chocolate. I don’t know if I would want this in bulk because I just don’t reach for chocolate teas that much but I certainly wouldn’t turn down another cup. 224.

Backlog from last night

Sil sent me this in a swap a loooong time ago. Don’t know why I’ve been hoarding the Lupicia teas so much. I have about half the sample left now.

I remember trying Harney & Son’s chocolate blend “Florence” a few weeks ago and enjoying that. This one was kind of similar, but the chocolate flavour was far more prominent in the scent here rather than the taste. Florence had more true-to-life chocolate flavour, and I liked the note of hazelnut there.

If I had to choose between the two, I’d go with Florence over this.

I received a sachet of this in the Lupicia mailer this month. I thought it would be a good morning tea for V-day. I wasn’t expecting much as chocolate in tea doesn’t usually turn out to great, but this isn’t a bad cup. The black tea base seems to have just the right amount of astringency to bring out the dark chocolateness of this tea. I am not sure it would be one I would purchase on my own, but definitely wouldn’t turn down a cup or two of this tea. Since I at home in my PJ’s I drank half the cup and then added a bit of milk and sugar and it made it into a nice breakfast treat.

This is a smooth, dark, chocolatey blend – very well done.

The dark aroma reminds me of when I open up a dark chocolate candy bar; the black tea is in the background but you can still taste it behind the chocolate.

In general I don’t eat chocolate that often, and dark chocolate even less, hence the grade~ this is an excellent chocolate tea, I’m just not into chocolate teas as much as other blended teas. I would definitely recommend this to chocolate fans!