More random tea that is newly available in my grocery store. This one came in a Talbott Tea sampler box with six different teas, two teabags of each. The teabags are quite alright – they remind me a lot of Lupicia’s but they don’t seem quite as silky. They do have about as much tea per bag as Lupicia’s though. 3.1g for this one. Good job Talbott.
The smell reminds me of ROT’s Strawberry Chocolate herbal. I don’t think that one is a great tea, but I like it enough to buy it from the grocery store when I need something herbal-y so it’s decent enough. I suppose there are worse things to smell like.
Hmm. I think the ROT tastes better. At least it tastes more chocolate strawberry. This is mostly tea with a faint (super-faint) note of strawberry towards the end. The aftertaste has a sort of musty sock thing going on that, if you tilt your head and squint, might be considered somewhere in the chocolate family. Not a good part of the chocolate family but still, I’m feeling generous so I’ll count it.
The tea itself isn’t offensive or anything. It’s smooth and a little silky and mild with no astringency or bitterness. That’s nice. As it cools, almost to room temperature, more of the strawberry and chocolate flavors come out but it’s still not overly noticeable.
I can’t help but think that this wants to be a plus-chocolate type Marco Polo but it just doesn’t make it up there. Once it cools down quite a bit it’s closer in taste to the flavor of the ROT, but 1) honestly, that’s not something to aspire to and 2) the aftertaste still makes me think of wet socks. Not wet dirty socks, but still, wet socks.
So yeah, nice try but for once I think I prefer an herbal.
