Chocolate Mint by The Love Tea Company. . . .

Today we have a wonderfully minty black tea up for review!

This company’s website states that they donate 25% of their net profits to the Flagg Foundation for Mental Wellness, so buying this tea supports a great cause!

Another great thing about this company (in addition to offering great tea) is that their tea comes in cute little plastic canisters that you can either reuse or recycle. This is great if, like me, you’re getting tired of having to throw all those loose leaf tea bags in the trash because they’re made of paper (or plastic) fused with foil so you can’t recycle them or wash them out–or even if they’re just simple plastic bags, your city won’t accept them and you have to somehow recycle them separately (biggest inconvenience ever!). So this company is socially responsible and their tea packaging is eco-friendly (or at least convenient to be eco-friendly with . . . )!

For this tea session, I steeped 1.5 teaspoons of this chocolate mint tea in about 8oz of water (at just under boiling) for about 4 minutes. It smells nice and minty even before steeping, with a smooth creamy undertone from the chocolate.

While steeping, a reddish-brown cloud settles to the bottom of the cup. It starts to smell warmer and chocolatier. By the end of the steeping process, it’s reddish cedar-y in color, darkish but still see-through.

First sip: Very minty–like actual mint tea. There’s a distinct difference between a mint flavor from mint extract/flavoring and the actual flavor of actual mint leaves (mint leaves have some vegetal undertones and the possibility of bitterness if you oversteep, which the “extracts” don’t have). And sure enough, the ingredients list specifies that there are mint leaves in this, so kudos for that–we have actual mint here. And because the tea comes with bits of chocolate in it, this is a very naturally flavored chocolate mint tea.

 The flavor profile is excellent; creamy chocolate flavor is swimming underneath, with the sharp fresh mint above–steeping stronger might make the mint bitter, so be careful about that, but it’s not bitter at this strength. It’s friendly and welcoming, and does the chocolate-mint thing quite well. I can detect a teensy bit of tea astringency and black tea flavor.

With milk: it’s creamy, no surprises here. I use whole milk, which tames the mint quite a bit. It doesn’t bring out the chocolate as much as I was hoping, but it’s still quite yummy. I think next time I’ll need to be more careful to actually include chocolate bits in my spoonful of tea leaves.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this tea and we’re basically friends now. And I really appreciate the Love Tea Company’s social efforts and recyclable tea packaging, not to mention that their branding is really cute–I love the colors! 


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type:  Black
Where to Buy:  The Love Tea Company
Description

Did you know that February 19th is chocolate mint day?  The combination of chocolate and mint is one of the most delectable pairings known to human kind.   Its origins are unknown, but surely it was created a long, long, long time ago.  This scrumptious Black Tea Blend is a real treat, just don’t steal all of the chocolate pieces before steeping!  Brew up a nice hot pot and add a splash of milk and a dash of sugar and enjoy all of that chocolaty, minty goodness.  Surely February 19th must be the tastiest day of the year!

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!