Yogi tea and cookies

I didn't really have any time for tea tasting today, but I went to my book club and got to try something new to me anyway. It was Yogi Tea's Mayan Cocoa Spice. The list of ingredients took up about half of the back of the teabag wrapping, so we'll just say there was chocolate, lots of spices, vanilla and stevia. I couldn't find tea or rooibos in the list, so I guess the roasted chicory was the tisane base. I assume the Mayan is a reference to the South American indigenous empire's use of chocolate, which was then taken to Europe by explorers

Right off the bat, I loved the smell – it was just like the dough for my great-aunt Ettie's molasses cookies, a heady mix of the round comfort of cinnamon and clove with the sharpness of dark molasses. Aunt Ettie was the only one who made these huge cookies just right. She always baked them at 500 degrees and stood in front of the oven waiting to grab them out the instant they were done. I have the recipe and I have made them a few times. They taste really good, but not like hers – I haven't had the nerve to push the heat up to 500.

Back to the tea – it smelled divine and tasted the same. Very sharply spicy and warming. The flavor was nicely rounded, but I could discern very little chocolate, despite that being one of the dominant ingredients. Perhaps the chocolate was what gave it such a rounded flavor. Unfortunately, I found the stevia made it too sweet and the flavor lingered in my mouth long after I was done with it. Probably small quibbles, but there they are.