Maker: Harney & Sons [product link]
Type: Flavored black
Brew: 1 rounded tsp / cup, boiling water, 5 min
Notes: Also known as their Chocolate Hazelnut tea

The best thing about Harney & Sons tea is that they have a great tea base for any of their teas. The leaves are nice and big, even when dry and furled up. If they have any fault with most of their flavored black teas, it’s that they prefer flavor infusion over including real ingredients nestled in the tea. It’s not much different with Florence, which relies on chocolate and hazelnut flavor infusion.

Sometimes this method works, as for many of their black teas (including the sublime Paris), but sometimes it’s a bit less successful. The only reason this isn’t a 5-star tea to me is that the chocolate and hazelnut flavors are weaker than they should be, so they’re felt mostly on the aftertaste rather than during the tea drinking itself. Compare this tea to their Chocolate Mint, which includes real mint leaves alongside chocolate-infused tea; the combination works quite well. For some reason, Florence’s chocolate/hazelnut combined infusion doesn’t bring out the best in either.

At least Florence’s base tea is of high quality, so waiting around for the aftertaste to kick in isn’t a bad affair. But there’s a reason this is less popular than Paris.

Rating: 3/5—More than adequate, but could be much more.