Praline De Champagne

ooh! fancy with the new steepster setup!

i love the smell, i love the swirly chocolate nutty heart chips and the slices of strawberry, i love the packaging and the ever generous spirit of MissB for passing it on to me because of her allergy to strawberries…. but i don’t love the tea!

i have oily dots across the top of my tea and an almost salty/savoury nut twang on the back of my tongue. i don’t taste any strawberry. the oil makes it seem very thin. it was a beautiful idea, and had a very pretty visual, but i do not like the tea and i will not recommend it now that steepster is prompting the question specifically. RIGHT up until the drinking everything was great.

FLAVOURS IN ORDER: SALT, nuts, chocolate (dimly), wood

This tea sounds soooo fancy! I kept mixing up which one this was, as it just smells like chocolatey tea to me!

Praline De Champagne as dried tea leaves looks impressive and Valentinesy. Sexy black leaves, heart shaped chocolate, chunks of strawberry – YUM! And pralines in it? Oh man – I can pig out on this tea without the calories.
Interestingly the sales guy mentioned that this tea has more calories as well as the act of drinking tea burns more calories (concept I know of called negative calories).

There is a rooibos version, which they had a sample at the store – but I found it too rooibosy overpowering, thus I went with the black tea one. That and I like my caffeine… and black tea.

So, I’m home making a cup of this tea. I try to get a nice scoop to get a bit of everything – this proves difficult as the strawberries are HUGE slices so I can see additional cups I make might lack the strawberry flavour. There is a fair amount of chocolate bits and pralines, but alas, I could see at the end I’ll just be drinking black tea. I think it would be nicer to have smaller chocolates and strawberries for flavour spread, but visually what they did here is nice.

Leaves steeped – very strawberry smell, hint of chocolate and a sweet sting of candy sweet like praline. 65% of the chocolates has melted down. Hot damn I’m ready to chug this beast (hopefully not burn my face off)

Taste wise – smooth caramelly, tart strawberries – not too sweet. Nice aftertaste of black tea and tart strawberry. Not so much chocolate taste, it’s more in the smell. Pretty simple yet effective.

Valentines tea? Check. This be a great tea to buy to impress that special someone that likes tea. Or make a pot in a clear teapot, making sure to show them the leaves first.

Me? I’m still sad over the huge chunks of chocolate and strawberries being gone when I’m at the end of this tea and I’m stuck drinking black tea with praline stumps. With that said, I think this tea would go over great steeped for bigger batches (heh, to share with someone).

Since I drink quite a bit of DAVIDsTeas.. lets compare this to “Love Tea #7” another strawberry choco tea. Praline De Champagne is more smoother with the pralines and stronger strawberry taste (pending, as I made sure I had a chunk of strawberry in this cup) and a stronger after taste of tartness. Love Tea #7 has MUCH more chocolately flavour and a floral punch with the rose reducing tart a bit.
Presentation wise, Praline De Champagne wins… but that I think taste should win.

So – not bad of a tea. Simple, strawberrly, praliney without the crazy sweet. I think this tea is ment to be shared to ensure optimal flavor spread vs for a single person. For me, since my fiance hates tea, sinful teas like this is like curling up with a bucket of ice cream, without the guilt. I don’t think I’ll buy more once my 50 grams is gone.

This tea might make a good latte though… mmmmm

Latte to go at Tea Desire!

I was in the area following busing back after my interview, and I stopped in to by my Step Mom’s Christmas present. When I asked what she wanted she said sort of slightly more natural tea that I like (like as in no artificial flavours/colours) so I picked up 50g of Ginseng Oolong for her. I know that she tends to like oolongs more than other tea types, and she really likes to resteep her teas and this one definitely lends itself to multiple infusions. Plus, ginseng is sweet but very natural tasting and lastly, selfishly, I could steal a little sample baggie for myself so I could try Tea Desire’s version personally. You know, to make sure I wasn’t giving her total crap? Yeah, that’s it…

I also picked up an Adeline infuser mug for her with lilacs and hummingbirds on it since I know she’s using teaballs right now, and this suits her style and will produce better cups (especially for oolong which needs major expansion room).

This tea latte though wasn’t that exceptional. It’s pretty much just a chocolate strawberry tea and in that regard I’ve had much better. The balance between the two was really off; there was so much more chocolate than strawberry, and it was like a bitter bakers chocolate flavour with a dry nuttiness – and I think it’s impressive, but in a bad way, to have anything come off as really “dry” in a latte.

All that said it was drinkable, and perhaps I shouldn’t totally blame the tea, the “Tea Barista” making it was a trainee, and it’s possible she did oversteep it when she prepared it. So I’ll be lenient with my rating.

I actually own the rooibos version of this tea. It is quite good.