Monday, February 11, 2008

The Au Chocolat

Tea: The Au Chocolat 5504
Vendor: Lupicia USA

This is another one of the black flavored Teas from Lupicia. Like the cookie tea it has a very appropriate and very strong smell to the leaves.

Also like the cookie tea, this tea has a large number porus particles. This tea smells a lot like chocolate. Brewing the tea smells a lot like chocolate as well. The liquor has a very dark color to it, that seems almost like coffee in color.

My first thought of this tea is that it was sweet, but not that sweet. It also was not an umami sweetness to it. This really was not much of a surprise to me though, umami is relatively unique to green teas. There was no bitterness to it and a low level of astringency to it.

My first thought to this was that it was disappointing as well since I could not taste very much of a chocolate taste to it. I decided to try this with a bit of sugar and cream. When I added in the cream and sugar it changed the flavor completely, it tastes much more like a cup of hot chocolate than before. This is making me reconsider the cookie tea, which I will probably re-review later with some cream and sugar.

Rating: 8/10

Conclusion: Without the cream and sugar this tea was rather unimpressive. When I tried it with the cream and sugar it was very tasty. While I don't think of this as a spectacular pure tea, it is a nice change.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting. I go to Lupicia but I tend to avoid the "weird" flavors like this chocolate one. This post makes me want to try some out!

Eric said...

It's a rather interesting flavor. I would suggest trying it out if you stop by there. They will sample anything you like for you, although I don't know if they keep any dairy on hand to go with it.