Tea Review: S'mores Oolong Tea

S'mores Oolong Tea Reviewed by: Rebekkah
Type of tea oolong, loose-leaf	Flavor aspects Sweet, chocolatey
Where I got it Teavana	Cost $10/2 oz (sale right now at $2.50/2 oz)
How I brewed it 2 tsp in 12-oz mug, brewed for about 2 minutes with water from a coffee machine cooled for about 1 minute	Rebrewing notes Not so great
Review There aren't many flavored oolongs that I think are really worth the money. Nor are there many chocolate teas that I go head-over-heels for. And this one is sadly about on par with both of those. Don't get me wrong. I love chocolate, and s'mores, and this tea is made of reasonably high-quality ingredients. And this is a nice-tasting tea on the whole, especially at its sale price--in fact, I would recommend purchasing it if you want to give someone a gift who might enjoy a single-steep oolong with a touch of chocolate flavor. I mean, the price is right, and it does taste pretty good as long as you like watery chocolate. It's a cute novelty gift, but not much more. But I don't recommend buying this tea at full price, because at the end of the day, like most chocolate teas made with a lighter tea, it's just watery chocolate. The chocolate drowns out the oolong flavor, and yet is weak and wimpy compared to actual hot chocolate. It is good chocolate--real chocolate that melts when you brew the tea, and real marshmallows that also melt into the tea, giving it a genuine sweet and chocolatey taste. It's just that it's 2 tsp of chocolate (less, actually, once you take into account the tea part of the spoonful) in a mug of hot water. So, watery chocolate. (Note: I suggest brewing hot chocolate in steeped black tea if you want to add a tea flavor to your hot cocoa. Black teas, too, on the whole do better as chocolate teas than other types of tea, being more robust in flavor, and are sometimes worth the investment.) As far as being an oolong, well, one of oolong's huge advantages is the number of times you can steep it, and another is its flavor, and you lose both in this iteration. So... Not worth it at full price, in my book. Decent taste, but not as good as hot cocoa; oolong isn't rich enough to stand up to chocolate's flavors, so you don't really taste the tea, either. Nothing wrong with the tea product (good ingredients and reasonable general flavor profile), it's just better in concept than in application. Picture of tea from Teavana site