Free sample from Angel at Teavivre. Thank you for this and apologies for taking so long to review it. Life does not always comply with one’s need to taste and write up teas, sadly.
I am always pleased to write about teas from Teavivre because I have never had a dud one yet, and this did not break with tradition.
The dry leaf gave off an instant chocolatey hit when I opened the packet. I tipped the whole sample into my 250ml pot and set to, starting off at a 1 minute steep and adding 2 minutes to the time for each of two subsequent steeps. The liquor was a dark red brown colour and tasted fruity and light when I first sipped it. A dark chocolate taste developed like a high cocoa butter content chocolate (up in the 85% range for the chocolate fiends). Like the chocolate, the taste was thick with cocoa and a bitter edge to it, but it also had an note of warm hay. This developed into sweetness in the aftertaste that I really liked. The resteeps were similar, although the depth of flavour very quickly dropped off despite the large amount of leaf I used. This is another tea that I would happily buy several packets of.
Flavors: Chocolate, Fruity, Hot Hay
