The South Bend Chocolate Company - Chocolate Spoon + Chai - June 2, 2015

Chocolate of the Day: 

The South Bend Chocolate Company
Chocolate Spoon (+ chai tea)
Good
Weight: .25 oz. (7 g.) in 1 spoon
Calories: 38 calories (estimate) for 1 spoon
Cost: $N/A - gift from a traveling friend (Thank you Toni!)
Purchased from: N/A - gift from a friend

Today was Day #8 of Chocolate Tea and Beverage Theme Weeks.

I love chai tea. Achieving the right blend of cardamom, cinnamon and pepper and other ingredients infused in hot milk/water yields a seductively fragrant and flavorful tea.

It's all about the cardamom for me. I bought a fresh bag of green cardamom pods at Patel Brothers, a small local shop, and enjoyed the aroma on the car ride home. Adding a small amount of chocolate can work as well.

I used today's Chocolate Spoon from The South Bend Chocolate Company (South Bend, IN) to stir and incorporate chocolate into this rich spicy beverage. The warmth of the tea gradually melted the chocolate adhered to (the spoon end of) this single-serving gold plastic spoon -- resulting in a blend of two wonderful, and wonderfully compatible, flavors. The chocolate was pleasant and sweet.

It's best to use this chocolate spoon for hot beverages. If you try to chill your tea or pour over ice, without fully melting/incorporating the chocolate, you'll get the liquid-equivalent of warm, soft, chocolate chips. OK, maybe that's not so bad, but our eye is used to a more uniform appearance.