Tasting tea infused chocolate bars

Nov 20

Nov 20 Tasting tea infused chocolate bars

The other day I was at a specialty wine store and stumbled upon a few interesting artisanal chocolate bars, including two tea-infused ones. On a whim, I decided that I needed to try them and purchased them. I was already familiar with both brands but had not tried either of them yet.

Tasting tea infused chocolate bars _ The Tea Squirrel

The chocolate bars I purchased are Fossa Honey Orchid Dancong Hongcha Tea Chocolate and Raaka Green Tea Crunch. I was mostly excited to try Fossa Honey Orchid Dancong Hongcha Tea Chocolate because of how specific the tea type used to infuse the chocolate is. Honey Orchid Dancong is a highly prized oolong from Phoenix Mountain (Feng Huang Shan) in China. In this case the tea leaves that would be processed as oolong were made into black tea (hong cha or red tea as it is described in China). This chocolate company speaks my tea language and that’s something even most tea companies don’t or can’t or don’t want to. It’s not surprising because Fossa collaborated with rare tea curator Pekoe & Imp. I had high hopes for this bar, like really high expectations. How did it go? Read on.

Fossa Honey Orchid Dancong Hongcha Tea Chocolate

Price: $12

Fossa is a bean-to-bar chocolate maker based in Singapore. They have an entire line of tea chocolates (9 or 10 bars if I’m not mistaken) featuring single origin cocoa beans, artisan teas for which they clearly state origin and even harvest and processing. So you know they’re serious about tea as much as they are about chocolate. This bar is out-of-this-world delicious. Tea flavor is extremely prominent and complex and they even managed to translate the mouthfeel of the tea in the chocolate bar. I don’t know how they did it, it’s magical. It’s floral, fruity and the typical notes of Honey Orchid Dancong come through really beautifully. The chocolate shines too without overpowering the tea flavor. Well, done, Fossa! I wish I could find a stockist for all of your chocolate bars here in Los Angeles.

Raaka Green Tea Crunch

Price: $8

Raaka is an artisan chocolate maker based in Brooklyn, NY. They specialize in unroasted dark chocolate which they make from scratch, with single origin cacao. Their Green Tea Crunch bar is made with genmaicha green tea (Japanese green tea with puffed brown rice) steeped into cacao butter and has crispy puffed quinoa. I loved this chocolate bar, the flavor of unroasted cacao beans is so fruity and bright but the resulting chocolate bar is very balanced and creamy. Nice texture from the puffed quinoa. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell there was tea in this bar. Otherwise, it’s absolutely delicious and I will be trying more from their line. I’d like to try their Rose Masala Chai chocolate bar next.