Tirol Chocolate – Royal Milk Tea

Milk tea is a very distinct flavour. Royal milk tea especially, is a pretty popular style of milk tea in Japan. Mixing black tea with lots and lots of milk, to give it a very creamy, rich texture. The flavour varies depending on exactly which leaves are used, but most black teas tend to be earthy and smoky in flavour. Add in a ton of milk and it takes away most of the edge you get from tea alone, like the bitterness.

Tirol is no stranger to tea based flavours, and in my experience they usually nail those types of flavours. This particular flavour is a somewhat seasonal one, but it makes an appearance each year as far as I’m aware. Like a perennial flower that blooms every summer.

I don’t recall if these come in the smaller size, but I see these in the bigger single pieces. The more flavours I try, the more convinced I am that the slight bigger and taller size is superior for getting the best of the experience that Tirol tries to deliver. There’s also something pleasing about seeing that name pattern stamped over the top of the chocolate. Either that or it’s nostalgia talking.

The outer layer is what tastes like the tea part of the combo, while the inner layer a softer chocolate that tastes like cream or dairy, and the two come together to deliver a nice chocolate texture that sort of melts in your mouth as you bite into it. Part of me was expecting the entire piece to just be a solid block of chocolate through and through, so this is somewhat of a pleasant surprise.

The flavour of the outer chocolate and inner layer coalesce into something akin to an earl grey milk tea. Royal milk tea is usually black tea, so I guess earl grey comes to mind since it’s the more common one I have experienced. I am by no means a tea expert, I just know the general taste profile of black teas. This does a great job of capturing that, and to an unsophisticated tea flavour palate like mine, I would consider this bang on.

I can see why this flavour returns every year – it’s a really solid flavour that delivers exactly what you expect. This flavour falls into more of a “simple done right” category than anything gimmicky or fancy. I guess that explains why this flavour returns every year. You can bet I’ll be grabbing some of these the next time I see them.