Ingredients · Flavouring

Chocolate

Theobroma cacao · Malvaceae (mallow family)

Chocolate
Chocolate chips or pieces — cacao that has been conched, sweetened and set, which is a different ingredient again from nibs or powder. Two products carry it. In a hot infusion it melts rather than steeps, which means it sweetens the cup as well as flavouring it, and leaves a little fat on the surface. That is not a fault; it is what makes a chocolate tea taste rich rather than thin.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partConfection
KindFlavouring
CaffeineContains a little caffeine
TasteSweet roasted chocolate; it melts into the cup rather than infusing, adding richness and body

How to use it

Give it a stir — it melts rather than steeping, and the pieces will sit at the bottom otherwise. Best in a blend meant to be drunk hot. It sweetens, so taste before adding sugar.

With food

Mint. Orange. Raspberry and cherry. Hazelnut and almond. Chile. Coffee. Sea salt. Cream.

With spices

Chile. Cinnamon. Cardamom. Vanilla. Peppermint.

With tea

Rooibos, matcha and black tea, which are what this shop blends it with.

Its story

Where it comes from

Made rather than grown. The cacao behind it is described under cacao and cocoa; our lot names no origin and no cacao percentage.

What happened

Solid eating chocolate is barely two centuries old. For the three thousand years before that, cacao was drunk — by the Olmec, the Maya and the Aztecs, ceremonially and daily, unsweetened and often spiced with chile. The bar came out of nineteenth-century European industry: pressing the cocoa butter out, then adding it back with sugar. A chocolate tea, oddly, is closer to the older form than a chocolate bar is.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

Explore

Other ways in

Ingredients Every plant, seed, bark and salt in the shop on one page — what it is, why it is in the blend, and where it comes from. See them all Collections Every shelf in the shop on one page — teas by leaf and flavour, spices by kind and cuisine. Open any shelf to see what is on it. Browse the shelves The Showroom The whole shop on one floor — every tea, spice and blend, filtered by what you are after, with the basket beside you. Open the Showroom Elsewhere Seventeen short trips — a place, a moment, a feeling — each with the teas and spices that get you there. Take a trip