My own description of the flavor here
Amount of grounds:
2 tablespoons per 10 oz of water
Brewing time:
8.5 minutes
Additions:
None
Reusing grounds:
Not tested
Using grounds in food:
Not tested
General Thoughts:
General feeling about the roast
(This was against the first batch of Uber Dark. If I ever find myself with one more cup of Long Dark Tea Time and can compare it against the new batch of Uber Dark, it would be interesting to see how it turns out.)
Welp, Uber Dark can't claim "darkest" here. Both are very dark, obviously, but Long Dark is the darker of the two, both in terms of taste and in terms of color. As I've noted before, Long Dark has the really strong pungency permeating it, and it's quite bitter. Uber Dark lacks the strong pungency, and comes across a little sweeter and more like chocolate. I like the Uber Dark "black" perfectly fine, but I still really don't with the Long Dark.
Adding vanilla almond milk, Long Dark gets a little marshmallow toasty. I added too much almond milk to the Uber Dark for this comparison, and it got mostly washed out. It's not really roasty at all, and just kind of mildly chocolatey in comparison.
Even with messing up the addition of the almond milk, overall I like the Crio Bru's Uber Dark better, especially since it doesn't require almond milk to drink it. The stronger chocolate flavor just really hits home.
Long Dark Tea Time is way more roasted than Choffy's Ecuador French roast. The aroma of Long Dark is very pungent, but the roast overpowers it when it comes to flavor. It's not a "just ash" sort of darkness because it has that pungency to it, but it's still super dark and a bit bitter. The Ecuador French smells and tastes sweeter and is overall more chocolatey than Long Dark, which I was a little surprised by. I definitely wouldn't say the roast is non-existent, but when comparing it to Long Dark, it almost tastes like it's not there. Between the two, I prefer the Ecuador French roast by quite a bit.
After adding a little bit of vanilla almond milk, Long Dark almost gets a little of the toasted marshmallow flavor of Anakin. The Ecuador gets less pungent, a little sweeter, and the chocolate flavor comes out more. Also smells way more chocolatey. Adding the almond milk is definitely my preferred way to drink Long Dark, but the Ecuador's flavor comes out a little muddied this way. It's still really good, and I still prefer the Ecuador French over Long Dark, but it's a closer race this way.
I thought this was going to use up the very last of Long Dark Tea Time that I had, but it didn't. I still have one serving left, and I think I'm going to run that last one again Crio Bru's Uber Dark.
Since both Long Dark Tea Time and Choffy's Volta French roast have been known to be "all roast" to me, I wanted to compare them to see how similar they are.
Long Dark brews up darker in color than Volta, which makes sense since the grounds themselves are darker. In tasting them, both are very roasty, but Long Dark also has a strong pungency to the flavor that's not in the Volta. The Volta comes across as milder and a little more chocolatey, and since it's from the second batch of Choffy, it doesn't taste like a mouth full of campfire ash anymore. Woo!
I added vanilla almond milk to them both, and it brings out the chocolatey flavor of both, but the Volta comes out really subdued, almost closer to hot chocolate. Long Dark, on the other hand, has the strong pungency and roast level that still comes out as being really strong, even with the almond milk.
Since I'm noticing the strong pungency of Long Dark in this test, I think for my last serving of it, I'll have to compare it against Choffy's Ecuador French roast, which is also known for being pungent and roasty.
Long Dark Tea Time and Anakin are surprisingly similar at first, but the sameness dissipates quickly. It's been established that Long Dark is pretty much all roast, but Anakin has a lot of roast flavor, too. I was surprised that when drinking it next to Long Dark, it uncovers a tiny bit of the "buttered wheat bread" flavor from Big O. Yikes. I guess there must be a similar component between Big O and Anakin, which is a little scary and I hope it doesn't come out often. Also, the sharp and overpowering roast flavor that comes on so strong from Long Dark also makes Anakin taste muddy and undefined in comparison.
Adding almond milk to both mutes mutes the flavors of Long Dark quite a bit, but Anakin winds up tasting more chocolatey next to it. Long Dark is still all roast coming through, and I prefer Anakin by quite a lot.
Now I'm curious what Long Dark is like next to my other "all roast" variety, Choffy Volta French roast. I'm going to have to give that a try.
As noted in my first impression #4, Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul is much darker in appearance, both for the dry grounds as well as the brewed liquid. Before brewing, Long Dark was so pungent it was almost off-putting. I wasn't sure what I was smelling, but I wasn't a fan of it. On the other hand, Shadow's Silhouette was definitely more fruity and nutty and quite a bit lighter.
Once they were both brewed, I noticed that the smell of Long Dark was tamed quite a bit, but still very roasty, and I thought it smelled very strongly of coffee. I had Em come over and take a whiff, and she agreed that it smelled like coffee, but "not coffee I would pick." Haha!
When it came to the first taste, I was not a fan of either one when drinking them black. Long Dark is definitely more coffee like, and Shadow's Silhouette has some flavor that seemed slightly familiar but I couldn't place it. I think it does come across as more chocolatey, though. As I sipped them, I started to get used to drinking both of them black, but I'm unsure if I could drink either black all the time as the normal way to drink them.
When I got about halfway done, I decided to add my vanilla almond milk to them and see how they did. I may have added too much almond milk, though. The flavors got really washed out. Long Dark still had that tart and pungent smell, but the flavor was still heavily roasted and leaned only a tiny bit to that toasted marshmallow of Anakin. For the Shadow's Silhouette, the chocolatey flavor came out a little more and wound up much milder.
Between the two, I think I like Shadow's Silhouette more overall.
These two are about as different as things can get.
Big O really has that "buttered bread" taste that I just can't get get over. Just bringing it up to my nose makes me feel almost queasy, and adding almond milk doesn't help. I only drank about a third of the mug and had to pour the rest down the sink drain. I still have at least 3 servings left, but I just don't think I can bring myself to drink anymore of it. I gave Sam at least 2 servings of it, along with the other 3 Chocolate Alchemy varieties, and if he doesn't like it, I think I'm going to have to throw it away. I just have that strong of a dislike for it. I'm going to have to find a good way to cement it to the bottom of my ratings list. Preferably without adding fake reviews.
Long Dark Tea Time is pretty much "all roast" with little else going on. The almond milk takes the sharpness out of it, but it's mostly still just the roasted flavor. It's ok, and I like it this way, but definitely not a favorite.