Snowball Hot Cocoa (formerly Snowball)

See my full review on Sororitea Sisters, where I talk about Hostess Cakes and tea:
http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/01/01/holiday-blend-alert-snowball-from-bluebird-tea-co/

A bitter tea with strong toasted notes and a mild coconut finish. The flavour is more akin to a heavy dark chocolate, than a light fluffy snowball. However, it’s still a fairly comforting brew, that becomes a lot smoother and creamier with the addition of milk. The coconut could be stronger, but overall it’s a decent brew that is an unusual Christmas tea addition, due to the inclusion of coconut.

The last few days I already had a sore throat, but this morning I got up feeling a wrack! Fortunately, I could sleep a couple of hours longer, took a paracetamol, had a nice hot shower and this enabled me – just – to face the day. Slowly but surely trying to get things done…and then, a nice comforting tea comes in handy!
Snowball is a sample the nice people from Bluebird Tea co. added to my order and I thought this tea would be the perfect “comfort tea”…and it sure is! I used to like a good cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows, but it seems as though I grew out of it. Here I´m having this tea and as far as my – limited for feeling ill – taste buds tell me, this IS hot chocolate with marshmallows. The coconut adds nicely to the blend as well.
I´m not sure whether I´m still into having this type of tea on a regular basis, but today it did what it needed to do. For people who like chocolate drinks, this is by far the best tea based drink I have had up to now; for Xmas tea fans, this is a nice alternative w/o the spices. Contrary to other reviews, I don´t feel it´s necessary to add milk to the tea.

I currently have a big tea problem. Picture uncharted tea rapids whose vast force hasn’t found release in over a year. It’s all wild, untended terrain here. Poor tea.

Anyways, I’m going to try and use Steepster to work my way through this while also attempting to salvage tea appreciation.

This tea, which was poking out of an overflowing cupboard screaming from torture and neglect, seemed like as good a place as any to start. Also, “snowball” effect. Let’s channel that.

While coconut and chocolate teas are usually far from my favourites, this cloudy looking concoction was very easy to drink. Adding milk gave it some textural depth, which the chocolate, marshmallow, and coconut mentally tease me with, but there’s enough going on that it’s decent without milk too.

The last cup I had cooled quite a bit before being found in the house again, and it was still decent. The coconut flavour here was particularly strong.

It’s only mid-morning and I’m already totally harassed. I HAVE TEA THOUGH.

To cheer myself up, I went for the most temptingly delicious sounding Bluebird Christmas tea – Snowball! Anything with three kinds of chocolate, two kinds of coconut, marshmallows and pink flowers has to be a good thing, right? And it’s tea as well. This totally reminds me of those Tunnock’s marshmallow snowballs, as I expect it’s supposed to. The intial sip is mostly chocolate (quite dark, rich chocolate I might add), followed by the sweetness of coconut, and then the creamy over-the-topness of sticky marshmallow. It’s liquid deliciousness. It’s another pretty blend, too, with the pink cornflowers and white coconut – tastes like a snowball, looks like a snowball. Is this perfection in a cup?

I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and left it approximately 3.5 minutes. I added a splash of milk just because, really. I figure it only helped with the creaminess. I think next time I might give this one a slightly shorter brew time, because it’s really quite sweet and borderline overpowering by the end of the cup. It’s an amazing dessert tea, though.

Really enjoying this one :)

I’m not sure whether it’s harder to write good reviews or bad. Sometimes, when something’s good, it just feels like endless enthusing about how great it is threatens to get a bit boring, but when you have to be critical, you don’t want to risk slipping into the territory of just being mean.

Case in point: I’m reviewing two tv shows at the moment, and one (Yonderland) is pee-myself-laughing good and terrifically clever, while the other (Partners In Crime) is frustratingly meh enough that I’ve shouted at the characters a few times for being bloody stupid. That’s never a good sign. It’s always a struggle to balance being constructive about what hasn;t worked in a show and just ripping its guts out – and as somebody who writes other things besides reviews, you don’t want to be remembered by a potenital future collaborator as somebody who thought their episode of something was a bit pants.

But seriously? Yonderland. Are you watching it? I suspect it would be basically everybody’s favourite show if it weren’t tucked away on Sky – I wouldn’t be able to watch it if I weren’t sent the episodes by the show’s publicists! SO GOOD.

As for this tea? It falls decidedly on the Yonderland end of the scale; that is to say, it’s jolly lovely. I am really, really wary of any teas that list coconut as a main flavour, but it actually mostly gives a sort of creaminess to the final product that works really nicely with the chocolate-marshmallow flavour. It’s one that sort of demands being consumed with milk and sugar to bring forward its confectionary nature, and it’s not for those who prefer their teas to taste mainly of tea, but as somebody with a relentless sweet tooth, something sugary and silly and really well done like this is exactly what I want sometimes. It’s a keeper, for sure.

The advent tea for today is….. Snowball!  I had no idea I was close to a sipdown here, which means I’m now out of stock on Snowball.  Oh no!  I really thought I had more of it around here.  It’s another I would buy again.   I didn’t measure the leaves, but made sure to dump them in the BIG mug. At least the coconut can’t get any older when it’s gone.  It’s usually satisfying to finish a coconut tea, no matter how much I love it. And only a 77 rating from me… hmm…
2022 sipdowns:  122
Holiday Tea 2022 #6: Bird & Blend – Snowball
Holiday Tea 2022 #7:  52Teas – Molasses Spice Cookie Honeybush
Holiday Tea 2022 #8:  Angry Tea Room – Pomegranate Oolong