On Pumpkins & Chocolate

Would you like to hear about the bright idea that *didn't* make it onto the blog this week? It is this: I was going to carve a simple teapot shape into my pumpkin, plop a tealight inside, photograph it at night, and inspire tea lovers everywhere with what a tea lover's jack o'lantern ought to look like. Alas, I could not find a nice round pumpkin with a pretty stem attached (and I inspected lots of them), so I decided I'd do without rather than show you an ugly pumpkin. Fortunately, my sweet mom found me a pumpkin teapot on one of her yard sale jaunts last week, so I am not pumpkinless today after all.

I am also not tea-less today. I was walking down the tea and coffee aisle at Publix earlier this week (pure habit), and I hit the brakes when I saw an elegant looking black package with some new Kalahari Cafe tea, a brand I'd never seen or sipped before. The varieties all looked so decadent I had a hard time deciding on one of these Chocolatte tea varieties, but I finally decided I could wait on the Raspberry Truffle and got the Hazelnut Mocha instead. It was an excellent choice.

Talk about a dessert tea! If you read the ingredient panel, you see "Dark Roasted Cacao" listed just before "Organic Black Tea." This tea also contains cinnamon, licorice (which I didn't detect), chicory, cardamom, ginger, cloves and natural hazelnut flavor. The taste is wonderful, and interestingly enough, it is manufactured by Kalahari USA in Atlanta, just up the road from me. I easily get two steepings from a single teabag, so if you're looking for a nice chocolate flavored black tea, I highly recommend this one. It's going to go quite well with all that candy my workplace is going to be giving away today!