Chocolate Covered Strawberry

I broke my taste buds… no seriously. This tea, tastes nothing like chocolate and strawberries as I drink it…but if i hold it in my mouth and swish it around under my tongue…then it’s like HELLO chocolate and strawberries. It’s weird. I’m disturbed. i also know it’s just me…‘cause i made the other half try it and he’s like ooh chocolate and strawberries. So I’m just not going to rate this tea. Apparently i’m not allowed to taste it properly haha

okay, I am finishing this sample up today and I really like it – I upped the score a bit and put it on my shopping list. Because of course I need MORE tea! :-D

I’m usually fond of Della Terra teas chocolate blends, but I’m not so sure about this one. I can taste and smell both the chocolate and the strawberry, but it’s not quite making buddies with my taste buds. The strawberry aspect reminds me of the strawberry flavored Flintstones vitamins that I used to have when I was a kid. Although that was one of my favorite vitamin flavors back in the day, it isn’t translating well in tea form, especially combined with the chocolate flavor.

It’s not bad; it’s just not for me. I’m glad I had the chance to try it in my chocolate try me pack, but it’s not repurchase-worthy for me.

Like so many of my fellow Steepsters in the USA, this Monday will be spent scampering off to the grocery store for Thanksgiving Dinner ingredients.
My daughter called this morning to inform me that the body count for dinner at her home will be 20 people, 10 children and 10 over the age of 15. Oh my! I’m so glad she has a big house and an acre out back for the 6 non-infant boys to run around and play on a beautiful warm Autumn day. It will be warm here!

As the only Elder, I am required to bring the food memories my daughter can’t live without. Fortunately, that’s easy. She makes my mom’s turkey stuffing and has the antique gravy boat. I create her favorite yam, apple and pecan casserole layered like a lasagna with butter, maple, brown sugar and spice.
This year I’m making the kids ice cream pies. Pumpkin and candy cane peppermint pies for fun. And tea of course.
(I’ll save my prize winning Apple Pie for Christmas when we’re just family and have RIBS!)

Off shopping I must go! But first, TEA! Dessert tea puts me in a good mood. (All tea puts me in a good mood most of the time!)

I made a small pot of Chocolate Covered Strawberry tea, looking forward to several sweet cups.
Right off, this isn’t a tea that I would drink without adding sugar or sweetener. Some dessert tea’s you can omit sweetening, but not this one. The strawberry flavor is released when sweetened and is the dominant flavor in the tea.
I found the taste sour from the artificial flavoring so I added some cream to soften the tea and make it creamy. This helped.

Another thing that I have trouble with is the chocolate. The strawberry flavor is strong and the chocolate is hardly there at all. (I’ve had trouble tasting the chocolate flavor in all the Della Terra Chocolate Tea’s though, maybe the artificial flavoring and my taste buds are at odds with each other)

This isn’t an awful tea, don’t get me wrong. It’s more of a strawberry tea in my opinion.

I think some of the other tea’s I’ve tried have been more successful.

Off to shop!

I drew you all a hot pink teapot: http://instagr.am/p/Oh9H6yJa7A/ (ok now this works, excuuuuuse me for missing the shift key on the J, instagram)

I’m going to go to bed soon since I have to stop at not one but three offices on campus tomorrow on the first day of classes which should be a total blast. I can’t even get the most important thing done until later in the day which really annoys me but whatever. I’ll get everything done eventually. So I am drinking black tea despite my sleepiness. Oh well.

I’ve tried bunches of chocolate covered strawberry teas and I have to say this one might be the best. I steeped it for 3 minutes and it is perfect. The chocolate flavor is excellent, and I have to say as a member of the always-more-chocolate club, that is the highest of compliments. I actually don’t want more chocolate in this one.

The strawberry follows the chocolate flavor, and tastes just like sweet berries. This is great without any additions but I think some sugar would make it even more of a dessert tea!

i’m back at my work desk after having traveling for two weeks and running 3 marathons:
Paris, France – http://instagram.com/p/XzzkguIc0E/
Rotterdam, Netherlands – http://instagram.com/p/YFsdacIc1Q/
Hamburg, Germany – http://instagram.com/p/YXxvjgoc9Z/
it was a wild and unforgettable ride.

and i brought back as much tea as i could possibly carry!!

i’ve tasted half of them so far, and every single one is great. i’m so happy with my purchases.
but for me, the Della Terra chocolate teas are also something special. there’s something about them that i can just drink cup after cup after cup. no additives, no frills, no need doll them up.

just deep tea.
ya know?
deep.
tea.

A big thank you to Della Terra Teas for including a HUGE one ounce sample in my order!
Well – my entire home smells delicious right now. This is one of those teas that is as good for making your home smelly yummy as it is to drink!
I think the strawberry flavor is delightful!
Its juicy!
There is a thin mouthfeel to this tea which is unexpected of a chocolate tea but the strawberry really shines through all around the tongue! Its sweet but tart too.
As for the chocolate – I would say that it is in the middle for me. I am a real chocolate snob and I do get a little bit of that chocolate flavoring but its not bad at all – its not AS good as some I have had but at least its not overly fakey tasting – although I wonder if the flavoring had been left out and only chocolate chunks/chips, were in it if it would be even better.
This is really refreshing and I am dying to make a cold brew out of it!
Good work Della Terra! Keep the amazing flavors coming!

It’s funny how different people perceive different things in the same tea. Bonnie felt that this is pretty much a strawberry tea1. Meanwhile, I’m having trouble detecting any strawberry at all, and am smelling and tasting only chocolate. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The fragrance of the dry leaf is that of baking chocolate. Like if you went to the baking aisle, grabbed a bag of chocolate chips, opened it, and stuck your nose in. I don’t smell any tea or any strawberry, just baking chocolate. I thought okay, it kind of makes sense, I guess. If there are dried strawberry bits in here, I should steep it so they can plumpify and release their luscious fragrance and flavour. I am half right: steeping the tea does make the brew smell like chocolate and strawberries (I still don’t smell any tea).

Unsweetened, the tea tastes chocolatey, but not in a Lindt way, more like in a dolla store chocolate way, y’know? So I sweeten it. This has improved the quality of the chocolate flavour, but only slightly. I still taste nothing else, so it tastes like watery hot cocoa made with baking chocolate. It’s possible that it’s too hot to really get the full flavour. I slurp it, experimentally, and I get a tiny, tiny bit of the sourness Bonnie mentioned. Normally I’d disapprove, but at this point I’m happy to taste any strawberry at all, sour or otherwise. There’s also a very tiny bit of bitterness, although I’m unsure whether it’s from the black tea or the type you might get from dark chocolate. If I were blindfolded, I still wouldn’t guess that there’s any tea in here at all.

As I continue to slurp, the aftertaste is a little bit fruity. At this point, I may after all guess that this flavour is “chocolate-covered something,” but I still wouldn’t be able to commit to strawberry. And this brings me back to the beginning of this note, in which I wonder about how we perceive things differently. Is this because of our different experiences and palates and expectations, or because the blend wasn’t well distributed in the teaspoon I used, so I just ended up getting basically a scoop of chocolate chips? While the former is interesting conjecture, currently I’m inclined to think it’s the latter. I’m going to hold off on my rating until I’ve tried another cup or two, paying better attention to leaf/berry/chocolate distribution next time.

Tea amount: 1 tsp/~4.75g
Water amount: 6oz/~175mL
Additives: ¾ tsp/~3.5g Demerara sugar

[Edit, the next day] The caffeine was causing trouble last night, so before I reached the point of no return (a Bad Place), I put my mug aside and finished it this morning. I was hoping that being cold would bring about some improvement in the flavour, specifically the strawberry bit. It did, but only a very little: I felt that strawberry tartness at the back of my throat, but I can’t say that I actually tasted strawberry. I hope my next infusion is better; otherwise, into the swap bin it goes.

1 http://steepster.com/bonniejohnstone/posts/140215

Almost all of my Black Friday orders have arrived, so I dumped all the teas in a bag and will be randomly picking one each day to try! I was excited that I have new teas to try when I woke up this morning and discovered that it is raining yet again. I managed to stay in the house all day yesterday to escape the yucky weather, but it’s inevitable that I have to run errands today. I really should be studying for my final that is tomorrow morning, but I am so easily distracted by all sorts of holiday-ish stuff and being curled up reading on my couch with my new perfect tea mug from Davids Tea!

This tea smells wonderfully of very sweet and tangy strawberry with a hint of rich chocolate. I was surprised when I took the first sip to find that there’s almost no chocolate flavor at all! The strawberry flavor is perfect – very juicy and not artificial, but the chocolatiness is completely missing. After I added milk and sugar, I could taste a tiny bit of what may or may not be chocolate in the aftertaste, but not enough to warrant putting chocolate in the name of this tea. It’s still a good tea, but I’m renaming it ‘Juicy Strawberry Tea’ in my head. :)

-Dry blend has medium black tea leaves and twigs with pieces of dried strawberries, pieces of green leaves, and small chocolate chips.
-Dry leaves smell of sweet and fruity strawberry with a hint of rich chocolate. Tea liquor aroma is of tart strawberry.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium orange color.
-Fresh strawberry flavor and finish. Light berry aftertaste with just a hint of chocolate.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Good tea. A thin cup. Juicy strawberry flavor with a very faint chocolate note.

This is a weird one for me. I taste strawberry (natural, and so much I swear I have seeds in my teeth), and I taste milk chocolate. There just isn’t a lot there. To be fair this tea had to follow the Day 1 Pear Tree Tea which was so fragrant and so unique, it’s possible everything else I drink today will pale in comparison.

Actually, I bet that’s it. I’ll hold off on a rating until I brew this again.

Right now it’s delish, but not something I would order again. Let’s see what time does for it…