Usually with a tea and chocolate pairing session, you would take a sip of tea to warm the tongue before moving onto chocolate – but I find that Montezuma’s was such a high percentage of cocoa that it was actually better to start with the chocolate.  This softens the rich cocoa and enhances all of the flavours.

Tease Tea has a big focus on empowering women, and they create blends to support lifestyle goals. The tea company was started by Sheena Brady who started blending teas out of her tiny condo in Toronto whilst also balancing a full-time job. The business is all about all-natural, ethically sourced teas that are wheat, GMO, and dairy-free. They work with local tea packers who source from the best and most sustainable tea gardens around the world – and you can really taste it in their brews!

Golden Slumbers

Type: Rooibos tisane

Ingredients: Rooibos, cacao, calendula pearls

Brewing: 1tsp, 3-5 mins

Appearance: Bright rooibos with pale yellow calendula flowers, becomes a brown-red liquid

Smell: sweet, Turkish Delight

Taste: Sweet with chocolate undertone, full-bodies with fruity sweetness

Paired with Montezuma’s Like No Udder Orange

Montezuma’s vegan chocolate orange bar is absolutely DIVINE and was the perfect match for this brew. The chocolate is sweet but not overtly so, with a delicious tangy orange lingering taste. This mixed with the rooibos tisane created a delicious balanced brew, enhancing the fruitier flavours along with the chocolate undertone.

The pairing started off strongly with these two, as the rich flavours of both mixed with the fruity flavours, combing a taste that enhanced both beautifully.

Turmeric Tonic

Type: Herbal tisane

Ingredients: ginger, turmeric root, carrot, beetroot, calendula, pineapple pieces

Brewing: 1tsp 3-5 mins

Appearance: So pretty! When dry, its all of the ingredients, coming together in an orange, pink, purple, and red rainbow. The liquid is a very pretty beetroot red.

Smell: Divine! So sweet and fruity. Wet small is purple ice lolly.

Taste: Very sweet, exactly like smell, ice lolly, subtle spice. I ate one of the fruit pieces, and it was like jellied? Lovely.

Paired with Montezuma’s Absolute Black Orange & Cacao Nibs

100% cocoa is a STRONG taste, but when it’s done well, it turns out absolutely incredible – such as the case of Montezuma’s orange and cacao nib chocolate. It’s rich, it’s earthy, it’s dark, and it’s lightened nicely with the burst of orange.

Pairing this chocolate with the turmeric tonic creates a profile that is heavily contrasted, and yet in a way that brings out the best in both. The bitter richness of the chocolate counter-balanced the sweet spiciness of the pineapple, ginger, and carrot of the tea, and the tea brings out the dramatic darkness of the chocolate. It’s brilliant.

Shake it Off

Ingredients: Green tea, ginger, lemongrass

Brewing: 1tsp 2-3 mins

Appearance: Broken dark leaves with dried ginger bites, foggy yellow liquid

Smell: Hay, fresh, lawn cuttings

Taste: Quite subtle, dark hay, wet wood, oak, slightly bitter at the end but that was probably my fault

Aftertaste: Dried dark herbs

Paired with Montezuma’s Absolute Black Almond

This is another chocolate that just HITS you with the 100%, and yet it’s crafted so well that it tastes balanced and rich. The almond is subtle, and yet nutty enough to work well with this green tea.

The slight spice in the tea brings out the earthiness of the dark chocolate, and the choc brings out the sweetness of the green tea. They work together perfectly to complement one another, neither overpowering the other.

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