Fresh picked, chocolate-dipped with an Eastern twist.

Inspiration No. 22: You are amazing…you deserve great tea!

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This is a very interesting tea.

I’ve had at least one other Chocolate Strawberry Saffron tea, and the two teas very likely came from the same source, but I’m liking this one better … it could all be the result of a better batch, but, I just know that I am finding myself more impressed with this cup of tea than I was with my previous experience with a Chocolate Strawberry Saffron tea.

But, I do think I could be more impressed by this tea, too.  I’ll get to that a little later though.

This tea does deliver with what it promises:  I taste chocolate, and it is prominent; I taste strawberry, and it is sweet and tart, just like a fresh berry; and I taste the saffron which interacts in a very pleasing way with the chocolate, giving it a semi-sweet, bitter note that I find very enjoyable.

The chocolate in this blend comes from cocoa beans, white chocolate chips and dark chocolate flakes, as well as some flavoring, I’d imagine.  The combination of these, together with the saffron, creates a very creamy, rich, chocolate-y flavor that is bittersweet and also has just a hint of vanilla undertone that I really like.  It’s a pleasing, complex chocolate note.

The strawberry flavor is emphasized by the addition of currants to the blend, which seem to highlight the tartness of the berry.  The result is a strawberry taste that is tingling on my tongue in the aftertaste with that berry tartness.  I like this, because it offers a contrast to the sweetness of the chocolate, but I think that if the sweet chocolate notes were not there, I’d probably find this a wee bit too tart for my liking … so it is fortunate that there is some sweetness too.

As I mentioned before, I think that this tea could be improved and take it from something that is good and tasty to something that is rather exceptional.  The change would be in the black tea base.  I suspect this is a Ceylon, and here, it tastes kinda wimpy.  It is very thin in the midst of all these other flavors, and the end result is more of a highly decorated, yet thin hot chocolate rather than a flavored tea.  I think that by adding a Nilgiri or an Assam to the base, or perhaps even a Fujian Black tea, that it would give the cup some much needed body and flavor.  I wouldn’t want something too aggressive, because I like the flavors the way that they are, but, I just find myself wanting more tea out of it, because as it is … it is just too thin.  I don’t like thin hot chocolate, and I don’t like thin tasting tea either … and this seems like it’s stuck somewhere in one (or both) of those confining boxes.

A good tea, but not a great one.