Velvet Potion

This was another mini tea tin I picked up at the Silk Road in Victoria. The name has such promise and a chocolate and vanilla tea sounds great, doesn’t it?

I had some problems getting the lid off the tin and had to enlist the help of a guy in my office who pried it off with a screwdriver.

Sadly all of the hype and the effort did not make this tea palatable. I barely taste any chocolate and there’s a slightly medicinal taste to this I can’t quite explain, it reminds me a bit of bitter orange. Overall this is pretty yucky but I’ll manage to finish off the cup, not sure I can make myself drink any more of this. Into the compost it goes :-/

I should have fixed this last night when I was having my bad tea night, I wanted chocolate tea and the three I tried kept turning out watery and flavorless. Rather than enjoying a relaxing cup of tea I spent hours trying to diagnose my problem, testing water temp, finding multiple thermometers to verify my results, and making lists of what my problem could be since it obviously wasn’t my water. I just hate giving up on a tea and managed to find three in a row that I just gave up on. It left me in a bit of a sour mood which I solved by binge eating kettle corn (that is absolutely not going to help me fit into my dress for the wedding I’m attending next month.)

Thank you JustJames for sending me this in our swap, it helped me start off my day on the right foot. You’ve also helped me find a viable option for my chocolate tea tin that has sat empty for the last three months.

I can’t even begin to explain the flavor of this tea, but I can tell you what it is lacking, and that is artificial chocolate flavoring. That immediately makes this tea a viable option for when I need a chocolate fix. Most of the chocolate teas I’ve tried use the same flavoring agent to obtain a chocolate flavor, but it ends up tasting like low quality chocolate, for a chocoholic like me that just isn’t going to work.

The raw cacao & nibs give this a slight chocolate taste, but if you’re wanting milk chocolate out of your chocolate tea you will be disappointed, because this isn’t it. The vanilla beans lend a slightly sweet flavor and the “exotic spices & essences” make things interesting. I do wish Silk Road went into more detail about what the exotic spices are since I do have food allergies it makes it hard to avoid what I can’t have if it isn’t clearly on the label.

The last thing I want to note is that my tin said to pour 2 cups of water over 1tsp tea. I didn’t do that, it just didn’t seem like enough tea so I used 1t per 8oz. I’m glad I did because I don’t think I would have enjoyed this at a weaker strength. I also think this would make an excellent tea latte.

I had high hopes for this tea, I think vanilla added to anything makes it better! I wish that the vanilla was more noticeable and that they added chocolate flavour rather than powder as it made the tea a little chalky. It reminded me quite a bit of David’s stormy night but better quality. I started out my tea journey loving spicy teas, mainly cinnamon, but now I find that I am getting bored of them. This tea is still good, but not re-stock good.

Not a bad tea, though on it’s own I find it a little plain. I enjoy it very much in a tea-latte style with steamed milk, and a bit of vanilla and chocolate syrup; makes it taste like a red velvet cupcake! :) overall quite tasty

A sample from ashleyelizabeth Surprisingly, the most difficult thing about this one was opening the tin! I had to prise it off with a spoon handle. Having achieved that much, I gave 1.25 tsp of leaf 3 minutes in boiling water. The dry leaf is quite a pale brown, and covered in spice dust — it looks chocolatey and wonderful!

To taste, this is rather like a spiced, mild hot chocolate. The chocolate itself is a dry, almost dusty cacao flavour, and it’s fairly weak. It’s deliciously creamy, though, especially with a touch of milk added — the vanilla really shines here! The real star, though, is the spicing. Cinnamon is the strongest flavour, but I also get hints of cardamom and maybe ginger. It doesn’t taste at all chai-like, though — it just makes for a very pleasant combination with the chocolate and vanilla, rather like an exotic truffle! This isn’t the most chocolatey tea around, but as a blend it’s lovely to drink. A great early evening treat.