I had to get some of this tea – I love spicy food! This tea seemed pretty cool idea.
Dry, this tea is 100% smell of those cinnamon heart candies sold during Valentines day. I was tempted to just reach in and chomp on the leaves (I had a hard time finding those cinnamon heart candies in stores this year).
Seeing the little peppercorns floating the in the steeper was a sign of spicy things to come!
Taste wise – well… cinnamon! As it goes down, you can feel the heat going down. For a 3 minute steep, you get a warm blast of cinnamon and heat. The more I drink this cup, the more cinnamon I taste.
For you cinnamon/spicy masochistic folk try steeping the tea longer, or what I did at work, just add the leaves to a travel tea glass and leave them there. As time went on, the cinnamon came out a bit more and the heat came out TONS more! By the end it was like my mouth and throat were on fire! HELL YEAH – I was awake all day at work, not sure from the green tea caffeine or the heat of this tea. It scared my coworkers.
So – if you love cinnamon and those cinnamon hearts, give this one a try.
Me? I find this tea not really multi-dimensional. It’s just cinnamon and heat. It’s cool, but I wish there was more to it. I don’t think I’ll buy more – but I will try it as a latte or boil it down for awhile to make concentrated chai syrup and see how that goes (I’ll review it again if I do).
I’m thinking this tea would make a crazy Spicy chai latte.
