Florence

This is one of the many teas I had on my vacation that I didn’t get a chance to log. Thought I should try it again before logging it :) This is a wonderful chocolate-y treat for a Sunday afternoon. I taste more chocolate than I do hazelnut which is a bit of a let down. Still all in all a good chocolate tea.

I received this tea from a friend in my “get well” care package. So I thought I would give it a try tonight. The dry leaf smells super sweet like cannoli filling. In my cup it does taste sweet, now that I added in a little extra sugar and a drop or so of half and half. I like it. It reminds me of hazelnut/chocolate cannoli filling.

Pretty bold to take the name from Harney & Sons and use it to make the same type of tea! Like a designer imposters fragrance (anyone else remember those from the 90s?).

And yet, having tried both…I like this one much better. Sorry, H&S. I feel like hazelnuts are tricky to get right in a flavoring unless you’re working with a creamier beverage. Harney’s Florence didn’t quite nail the hazelnut flavor for me, and I recall it being more pushed to the front than in this blend. It was one of the few teas of theirs that I struggled to finish when I went on a buying spree a few years ago at the Soho store.

This is quite lovely though. The dry leaf is very strongly scented, rich chocolate layered over hazelnut, and the scent practically fills the house once it’s brewed! Powerful stuff. The taste is similar – the rich milk chocolate leads, then the hazelnut comes right in. It’s very much like the sensation of biting into a chocolate-covered hazelnut, which I’m sure I’ve done having spent a great deal of time in Oregon hazelnut country!

This tea was a gift from a visiting friend, and I’m definitely going to look into purchasing from this company.