Good Earth, Cocoa Tango

Good Earth Description:
As unpredictable as a newfound romance – and just as spicy. Cocoa Tango™ blends together the sweet and sensual flavors of cocoa with the heat of chili peppers, making for a tea experience that will leave you breathing heavy with satisfaction and wanting more.

Ingredients:
Black tea, cocoa beans, natural flavors, chicory root, natural chocolate flavor with other natural flavors, natural vanilla flavor with other natural flavors, chili peppers, cardamom, peppermint, rose petals, steviol glycosides (stevia).

Sample Provided by Good Earth

My Review:
Today I travel back to my roots in a way. I haven't reviewed a tea bag product in a while. More importantly I haven't reviewed one that I could actually find locally. In my early tea drinking days, there were very few choices in our small rural town. Today the choices are a little better. I have seen Good Earth tea on our grocers shelves. This is my first opportunity to give one a try.

The first thing that catches my eye, occurs before I even open the box. The net wt is 40.5g and there are 18 tea bags in the box. That means there is 2.25g per bag. To put that in perspective, Twinings uses 2g per bag. Stash generally has 1.6g, and the last Republic of Tea I sampled had a wimpy 1.33g.

Inside the box, the bags are individually wrapped and sealed in aluminum envelopes. Once opened I immediately smell chocolate. It is somewhere between powdered hot cocoa mix and milk chocolate. It is fairly typical of bagged chocolate teas in scent. Putting the bag in my mug I notice the string is plenty long enough so the tag won't end up in the mug.

I steeped 4 minutes, removed the bag for pictures, and then returned the bag to the mug. This is bad practice but I did it as a test. Throughout the entire mug it never became bitter. I noticed this contains stevia. Ordinarily I would object to pre-added sweetener, but truth be told, I can't tell when tasting.

At first I am thinking this tastes like a pleasant simple chocolate tea, and it is pleasant, but I was wondering, where are the chili peppers? I love spicy foods and I was expecting this to be a pepper blast. It is not. It is more a slow building heat that never goes over the top. This starts sweet and chocolaty and ends with a warm heat. If you are afraid of chilies in your tea, don't be. If you love some spice, wait for it.

I am definitely not one of those tea people who can't or won't enjoy a bagged tea. I found this trip back to my roots very enjoyable, and happy day, I still have more for later.