chocolate drinks

---

How does something so lusciously indulgent require a bit of taming once it’s found its way into tea? 

We reveal why this “tiger” gets feisty in a teacup. 

Get acquainted with the chocolate tea!

“Chocolate tea” is a relatively broad term used to categorize a tea, tisane (herbal tea,) milk tea, or other drink that has infusions, flavorings, and parts of the Theobroma cacao (cacao plant.) Chocolate teas have an interesting variety of ingredients used that may surprise you.

To help you better understand just how diverse this tea can be in ingredients, we have listed a few interesting versions sold in retail online and in brick and mortar tea shops. 

This tea is made with black tea and is infused with chocolate and vanilla flavorings. You’d be surprised at how close flavor infusions hit the spot as far as taste. Some may use green tea rather than black tea to create this drink.

There’s nothing yummier than a mint patty in a teacup. This tea is made with black tea, and just like many other chocolate teas, a flavor infusion of chocolate and vanilla goes in along with peppermint leaves. 

Chai tea is one of the most enjoyed teas, and when you pair that with chocolate, you have a wonderful drink. Chocolate chai pu’erh is made with a pu’erh tea (which is highly fermented) infusions of ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves. A chocolate flavoring is added, and also cocoa nibs (dried cacao beans cut into small pieces) and chocolate chips.

This tea is a boba (bubble) tea that can be prepared in many ways. The base of this drink may contain a true tea (black, green, oolong, yellow, white) or be a tisane (herbal tea.) Some tea shops use powder mixes to make the milky bubble tea and add various toppings. However, regardless of what base is used or toppings added, bubble tea contains black tapioca pearls, ice, and bubble tea mixture. To create a chocolate milk (bubble) tea, any number of forms of chocolate (flavored powder mix, flavoring, syrup, liquor, chips, cocoa powder, etc.) are added.

This tea is considered a tisane (herbal tea) and is made from the leaves of the honeybush tree. Cocoa nibs (bits of dried cacao beans) and an infusion of chocolate flavoring are added. Honeybush trees are woody plants that are native to South Africa and closely related to Rooibos.

Now, this is an oddly curious tea that may well be worth trying. Someone took a very popular Earl Grey tea and elevated it with chocolate. It is made with a black tea base and has infusions of papaya, rosebuds, rose petals, and bergamot. Cocoa powder and chocolate flavoring are added. This tea is chocolatey and orange in taste.

For an herbal (tisane) version of chocolate tea, cacao shells (the outer shell of roasted cocoa beans) are brewed and enjoyed. Oddly, this particular tea may have a chocolate aroma, but the taste is similar to barley tea which is vegetal and earthy.

How do they get tea to taste like chocolate? Well, each type of chocolate tea is flavored in a specific way to produce that chocolate flavor. Flavoring a black or green tea, for example, is done using different methods and ingredients compared to an herbal version (tisane) or a bubble (milk) tea.

Just because something is marketed as “chocolate” doesn’t necessarily mean it has genuine chocolate in it. Some chocolate teas flavored with certain forms of chocolate are the real deal and do contain genuine chocolate. If you see a tea with cacao nibs, cocoa powder, or chocolate chips, you can rest assured you’re getting a good quality flavored tea. 

A true tea (such as black or green) is naturally astringent because of tannins (a naturally occurring compound in the tea plant.) When infusing one of these teas with chocolate, it’s important to use the right form of chocolate. The more bitter the chocolate, the less it will complement the tea and cause added bitterness to the tea’s existing astringency.

In the “chocolate industry,” the percentage of cacao and cocoa butter defines whether a bar of chocolate is dark, milk, white, etc. The higher the percentage of cacao, the more bitter the chocolate becomes.

So, if cacao nibs and cocoa powder have such a high level of bitterness, why is it used to flavor tea? Because they give the strongest flavor to your drink! But the trick to taming the bitterness of the bitter cacao and astringent tea is to add milk to your tea.