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The cinnamon. Oh god, the cinnamon. This is almost entirely cinnamon and I couldn’t be happier with that. I love cinnamon! And I love this. I had it straight without sweetener and steeped it for a good six minutes. Turned out lovely, the perfect drink for winding down in the evening. Nothing complicated here, just cozy and warm like a favourite sweater.

I was so excited to try this, but it let me down. It has everything I like, so I don’t know what happened, I have a feeling it has to do with the nitpicky preparation I see others have described. I tried two times to make a cup of this, first with four minutes, and then with only two, and both times it just turned out bitter and bland, I couldn’t make out much in the way of spice. What a let-down. After those two disappointments, I made a cup of Coco Chai Rooibos, which hasn’t disappointed me yet.

I’m thinking maybe in time, when I’m better at preparing a drink consistently, I’ll give this another shot. It really feels like a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”.

Just brewed this up. I steeped for about 8-10 minutes because I got derailed even after noticing it was ready. Uh oh. So from here on out, consider this a cautionary tale.

Immediately the smell was like someone had steamed a fist full of grass clippings and put a drop of vanilla in it. I couldn’t smell any bergamot. I decided to truck on, added my bit of honey, and waited for it to cool enough for me to have a sip. At the very least this would be memorable.

So bitter. So very very dry and bitter. It isn’t the tea’s fault though, I shit the bed on this one. Down the drain it went. Such a stupid waste. I shall try again.

EDIT:
I made a successful cup, but I won’t rate this yet because I’m sure that the euphoria isn’t entirely the tea, but in part that it doesn’t taste like it was swabbed from an armpit.

I tried to get a second steep out of this today, just for the heck of it (read: was in a hurry, still had it in the infuser from earlier, winged it). Unsurprisingly, it was super bland. Oh well, live and learn.

I’m still pretty obsessed with this tea and wish it had caffeine so it could be my morning cup. Such is life.

When I first steeped this I could immediately smell the chili pepper and got nervous. As it turns out, that was silly of me. I quite like this. It’s very spicy, but I do love my spices, so I was quite all right with that. Perhaps not as much orange as some might expect/hope for, but it’s noticeable. Quiet, but noticeable. It’s creeping on -30 Celsius today and this feels like the perfect drink for it.

The more I drink it, the more I think about those yummy little candy cinnamon hearts.

I got this on my hunt for a morning pick-me-up alternative to my standard Earl Grey (which is an alternative to my formerly-standard chest-hair-sprouting coffee). It was nice enough, it did its job, but just didn’t leave much of an impression outside of “yup, it’s a Chai” (which is a positive thing, don’t get me wrong). Perhaps next time I’ll tweak my preparation, but I think a large part of what it’s “lacking” for me is cloves. Still have a few cups to get out of it.

Yum! So very accurately named. Sweet enough on its own I think I could have done without my standard addition of honey. Oh well. I’ll know for next time! Cakey vanilla-y goodness, really nothing more to be said, it’s tasty! I actually finished this sample a couple days ago, which is unfortunate because now I won’t have any left for my actual birthday. Bummer. Definitely something I can see myself buying in the near-ish future though.

As a tea newbie, seeing trail mix as a tea was really strange to me. It was nice though! Didn’t get much of an apple taste from it, just a nice nuttiness. The colour was a cute touch too.

I’ve always been what I’d call a super casual tea drinker. Always coffee and occasionally if my mood was just right I’d have a chai or an Earl Grey, but it was never anything I really raved about. For Christmas I was given a lovely mug that, incidentally and unknowingly, had an optional steeper built into it. Feeling like treating myself, I purchased a 12 tea sampler from David’s Tea.

That was my “mistake”. Hooooly hell, it was love at first sip with this. I’d always found that I didn’t really love teas I was drinking before, it was more like I loved the idea of a chai and was always let down by grocery store teabags of it. And this just nailed it, what I’d been always hoping for when I had chai before, it’s spicy and smooth and just lovely. I returned and bought a tin of it immediately.

I prepared it with just a slightly heaping teaspoon. I should probably come up with a more consistent method than just “eyeing it”, but I can’t argue with results so far….