Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Ovation Teas
Tea Description:
Black tea blended with peppermint leaves, cacao nibs, raspberries, and peppermint candy with chocolate raspberry flavoring.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Just look at the picture! Yes, seriously – that is what this tea looks like! Huge, whole, dried raspberries, large chunks of cacao nibs and bits of peppermint candy and leaves mixed with black tea leaves. This is one of the most appealing looking teas I’ve ever seen!
But really, they had me at Chocolate. All I had to see is Chocolate in the name, and I was immediately interested. Then I saw raspberry and mint, and I knew that this was something I needed to try!
The first few sips while the tea is still piping hot, fresh out of the teapot, I find to be pretty much MINT and not much else. If I really focused on the sip, I noticed hints of raspberry which were particularly noticeable at the finish and in the aftertaste, and a touch of chocolate. But the mint was the main focus of those first few sips.
Once the tea cooled for a couple of minutes, the other flavors began to shine through. The black tea base is noticeable for the first time after a few minutes of cooling, and it tastes rich and full-flavored. There is a hint of astringency toward the tail that sort of melds with the mint and the berry in a way that it becomes difficult to tell which is causing the astringent effect on my tongue: is it the mint? or the raspberry? or is it the tea? I find that the more that I sip, the less noticeable the astringency becomes … and it really wasn’t all that strong to begin with!
The sip begins with the distinct note of peppermint. It tastes cool and fresh and very crisp, like breathing in the fresh, cool air of winter after snowfall. The chocolate is also there – from beginning to finish – and I like that it seems to be ever-present. It is a lighter chocolate taste, and of course the chocoholic in me would like there to be more chocolate, but, the tea drinker in me finds the way the three flavors come together with the taste of the tea.
The raspberry comes in toward the tail of the sip, and lingers into the aftertaste. Also lingering in the aftertaste is a chocolate mint taste, like the aftertaste one would experience after consuming an after-dinner mint.
A very enjoyable collaboration of flavors. I like this very much! With those first few sips, I was a little worried that there was too much going on and that all I’d end up tasting is mint … but everything comes through in a very nice way. Two thumbs up!
Wow! This is the perfect one! Chocolate Raspberry Mint from Ovation Teas seems to be very interesting for tea lovers like me and my wife. I love to try this one so soon!