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“July Sipdown Prompt – World Chocolate Day This tea was a gift from Nicole – many thanks! I don’t have many chocolate teas. Ashman hates article chocolate flavor. He says many of them smell like...” Read full tasting note
“Agh, a double miss! Starting to wonder if I should try any more tea tonight or if I should cut my losses and try again tomorrow. I thought cacao sounded lovely. It smelled lovely! But the flavor...” Read full tasting note
“I got this sample in a Sips by box. I’ve only had plain cocoa shells once before, and they’re pretty delicious! I sweetened it and added milk, and it’s pretty close to hot chocolate. Even better in...” Read full tasting note
“#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #235 overall / Tea #15 for June Friday 6/11 - Mi Cacao caffeine-free cacao tea 10g hot tea plain. Never had this before but gotten multiple times over the years from Sipsby...” Read full tasting note
Our tea comes from small family-owned farms in Ecuador, known for their famous “Arriba Nacional” cacao trees. These small farms grow, harvest, and prepare the cacao at their own micro-wet mills where they naturally ferment the beans using banana leaves. The beans are then left to dry on elevated tables, using solar dryers in order to protect against the rain. We use the shells of these beans as the base for our cacao tea. It’s completely natural and without any artificial preservatives, flavors, or starches. Organic. Sugar-free. Gluten-Free. Vegan.
Serving Size: 1-2 tsp per 8oz water
Temperature: 200°-210°F / 93°-98°C
Steep Time: 6-8 minutes
Company description not available.
July Sipdown Prompt – World Chocolate Day
This tea was a gift from Nicole – many thanks!
I don’t have many chocolate teas. Ashman hates article chocolate flavor. He says many of them smell like mildew to him and after he said that, I completely get it. Sometimes chocolate flavored teas appeal to me, sometimes not. But he and I BOTH enjoy real cacao nibs, and that is all we have in this one!
The steeped liquor smells like a melted candy bar. Years ago I wouldn’t have enjoyed this because my brain would have expected the sugar and fats and such of candy or frostings, but now I like it.
This came out a deep golden yellow. The mouthfeel is a little coating, almost oily but not in a bad way. It is mostly just the feel of the body of the tea. I don’t know if milk and sugar would make it seem like hot cocoa for me or if it would ruin it, because I am enjoying it as is.
Next I want to try adding this to a plain tea that could use some dressing up, or to a chocolate tea that could use a boost.
Edited to add: I couldn’t resist. I had to see if it made a nice cup of hot chocolate without caffeine. Heated some milk, steeped for six minutes, added sugar. It is so delicious, Ashman and I both drank some and loved it. I put the normal amount of sugar I would put 8n a cup of hot chocolate and it was a little much, so this is a good way to get caffeine free and lower sugar hot chocolate this fall and winter. Definitely something I want ti look into ordering.
Delicious and satisfying. Thank you, Nicole!
Agh, a double miss! Starting to wonder if I should try any more tea tonight or if I should cut my losses and try again tomorrow.
I thought cacao sounded lovely. It smelled lovely! But the flavor was… my partner described it as, “you know when you mix up a cup and a gallon and accidentally add a gallon of water to the hot chocolate instead of a cup? But you burned the hot chocolate first? And then you stir it with something that’s kind of meat but not really like a slim jim?”
While I’m not sure what he’s on about with the meat part, I think the rest of it is pretty spot-on.
sipsby advent, day 8*
(sipsby packages this in no particular order, so your order may be different than mine)
I got this sample in a Sips by box. I’ve only had plain cocoa shells once before, and they’re pretty delicious! I sweetened it and added milk, and it’s pretty close to hot chocolate. Even better in some ways because it tastes really clear, authentic, and high quality. The resteep was strong as well. I might have to buy some of these!
#tiffanys2021sipdown Tea #235 overall / Tea #15 for June
Friday 6/11 - Mi Cacao caffeine-free cacao tea 10g hot tea plain. Never had this before but gotten multiple times over the years from Sipsby boxes. I LOVE THIS TEA!! I am normally not a chocolate fan but this was soooo good, can’t wait to dig up all the other packets I’ve gotten.
#tiffanydrinkstea #tiffanys2021 #tiffanysfaves #tiffanyinthe614 #tiffanysteasipdown
Pulled this out of a Sipsby box and loved it! This is the best cacao tea I’ve had to date — a wonderful chocolatey flavor without tasting too sweet (or too fake). Fairly light, I liked mine with just a splash of soy milk.
Flavors: Chocolate
Got this in this month’s Sips By box. I’ve never tried a pure cacao tea before. The dry mix smells heavenly, like fresh baked brownies. Steeps up an orangey-brown color. The longer you let this steep, the better for the flavor— you can’t really oversteep it. You also have to let the water cool down quite a bit to get the full flavor. Tastes very earthy and chocolatey, just like you’d expect. Manages to taste just like chocolate without being sweet, which I appreciate, as I don’t like sweet teas. It’s pretty good!
Flavors: Cacao, Dark Chocolate, Earth, Nutty
Sipdown (635)!
It’s been a while since I last had a straight cacao tea/tisane so I was excited to see this included in VariaTEA’s sample package. I know from prior experience that you need to let these kind of tisanes steep for a really long time to get flavour, so I let this one steep for a solid fifteen minutes or so. It was definitely chocolatey, with a rich taste that was also buttery and surprisingly apple-skin like!? That last part threw me for a bit of a loop. The mouthfeel, despite the rich taste, was very thin though.
Not bad; good for a nice sweet treat. Like most cacao tisanes though, this is definitely NOT something I’d ever feel the nice to stock up on.
This came in my Sips By box this month. It’s my first pure cacao tea! I’ve had it as an ingredient in chais and things, but never on its own. I’m seriously craving sweets right now, so I hope this will taste the way I imagine.
The smell as I open the pouch is just like a fudgy brownie. A mouthwatering aroma. I wasn’t expecting it to be so enticing. However, the appearance is the opposite. The thin brown flakes remind me of fish food. Hmm.
As it steeped, the flakes sank to the bottom of my infuser. The water changed to a cloudy dark tan and I wondered if I added too much “leaf”. Steeped, the aroma is sharper and warmer. Like the way it smells when you take a chocolate cake out of the oven. I thought of going ahead and adding milk like other reviewers did, but I wanted to try it without first.
The flavor is not exactly what I expected, but it’s lovely. A little bit toasty, a little bit woodsy, and then rich chocolate. Lingering, satisfying chocolate, especially on the exhale. I just wish the flavor was a little more intense. I think if I were to buy a pouch of this, I would use even more than I did this time. It would be so fun to experiment with. Glad I got a chance to try this.
Flavors: Cacao, Chocolate, Cocoa
This is the 4th and last tea to come in my Sips By teabox for April. It certainly smells chocolatey. Overwhelmingly so. Perhaps unsurprising but I was surprised nonetheless.
I added milk and sugar in an attempt to make it desserty and it worked pretty well. The first part of the sip is a bit bitterish though that may just be me and my extreme oversensitivity to bitterness. The last part of the sip and aftertaste are very very chocolate. Wow. All things considered, I’d probably use this as an additive to other teas than just straight but this is certainly an interesting experience. It doesn’t say if it resteeps so I’m going to try later after my meeting.
Flavors: Chocolate
I actually recommend looking into other cocoa teas. I’ve had some good ones that were very chocolately and rich, and interesting enough as a simple blend (usually mixed with mint leaf or vanilla bean). Also works well with freeze-dried strawberry if you can find a strawberry/cocoa blend.
Yay,somebody else doing Sips by! I just got my first box. What do you think of it?
I’m pretty satisfied so far. It’s by far the cheapest box I’ve found and usually they have so much tea in them that I get overwhelmed but these boxes have a reasonable amount and I’ve only disliked one of the teas so far (inevitable). I haven’t worked my way through this month’s box entirely yet but I’ve enjoyed it so far. I’m thinking of buying a year’s subscription for my mom for giftmas actually.
Oh, there are other tea subscriptions like this? I’ve seen a bunch that you could get from individual tea companies, but this was the first I’d seen where it was lots and lots of companies.
One that’s been around a bit longer is Amoda Tea, which is out of canada but they ship to the USA. Slightly less tea (3 per box). I did it for a while until I got overwhelmed by tea. I think you have a bit less control over what you get though. Worth looking into though, if you like that sort of thing.
