Chai Wallah Margate – Chocolate Orange Black
Happy Easter, tea friends! I’m continuing my Easter-weekend-chocolate-tea theme with Chai Wallah Margate’s Chocolate Orange Black.
I was really looking forward to this tea because chocolate and orange is an epic flavour combination. There are some people who say otherwise. In 2006, food critic – and then editor of Waitrose food magazine – William Sitwell caused controversy when he became “incandescent with rage” over Sophie Grigson’s Very Orangey Chocolate Refrigerator Cake and declared “the addition of orange to chocolate is an abomination”.
He’s wrong of course. If you require evidence of the awesomeness of orangey chocolate, I refer you to orange Matchmakers, orange Smarties and – of course – the iconic Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
Chai Wallah Margate describes their chocolate orange tea as “a must-have for chocolate orange lovers”. So it was a bit of a let-down to discover that this tea doesn’t actually taste of orange. The ingredients are Sri Lankan black tea, cocoa nibs, apple pieces, rosehip, hibiscus, liquorice and cocoa shells with orange peel at the end of the list right before the natural flavours.
So with all those flavours in the mix, there’s a lot going on. The dominant flavour here – more so even than cocoa – is hibiscus. It’s a perfectly pleasant cup of tea but it’s not what I was promised. I wasn’t prepared for something that was not very chocolatey and not at all orangey.
I shan’t let it dampen my spirits though. It’s Easter! I have extra days off work! And later today I shall celebrate the festival of the pagan goddess Eostre in the correct and proper way – by attempting to consume my own body weight in Cadbury Mini Eggs.
Today’s featured book is Medieval Holidays and Festivals by Madeleine Pelner Cosman. According to which the three most important aspects of Easter in medieval times were: painted Easter eggs, Morris dancing and Mystery Plays.
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