(52teas (Anne) 2022: 220)
My goodness, this is spicy. Enough so that I can’t finish my cup tonight because spice-related heartburn. However, earlier sips, while spicy, were also a delightfully real, bright raspberry flavour. I just wish the spice was a little bit lighter! (I’m hoping it was just a coincidence of ingredients and subsequent cups will be more tolerable).
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The spice comes from the little bits of chili pepper in it – so you want to be sure to shake the pouch to redistribute the ingredients so that you don’t get a bunch of chili peppers in one measurement. I cut the chili peppers (in this case, there are two types, smoked chilies and cayenne chilies) in to pieces (I don’t use chili powder or pre-cut chili flakes – I get the whole chilies and cut them myself. (I do this to remove a good portion of the seeds so that it’s not TOO spicy.) Anyway – that’s the way I would recommend approaching this (and other teas spiced with chili from me). If you’re still hesitant with the spice – look closely at the tea before you steep it – and remove some of the little slices of chili peppers.
Thanks for the advice! I may remove some of the chili pieces next time – it was just a bit too hot for me but the flavour of the tea was so lovely!
yeah – I often get comments about the opposite – that it’s not spicy enough – so with this one in particular, I remember thinking, if I’m gonna call it “picante” – it better have a good kick of spice. So I cut up more chilies than I typically do. (Example: when I made the Mayan Chocolate Chai – I had several people contact me to tell me that it’s not as spicy as Frank’s version of the same tea – and the reason is that instead of using cayenne powder, I used whole dried cayenne peppers and sliced them up – the cayenne powder is obviously going to be spicier because the powder is intensely spicy – but I didn’t like the idea of using cayenne powder.)
At least with the cut up chili peppers, if someone wants something with less spice, they can see the little pieces of chili and remove some of them. (Just be sure to wash your hands after you handle those chili peppers – don’t touch your eyes!)
The spice comes from the little bits of chili pepper in it – so you want to be sure to shake the pouch to redistribute the ingredients so that you don’t get a bunch of chili peppers in one measurement. I cut the chili peppers (in this case, there are two types, smoked chilies and cayenne chilies) in to pieces (I don’t use chili powder or pre-cut chili flakes – I get the whole chilies and cut them myself. (I do this to remove a good portion of the seeds so that it’s not TOO spicy.) Anyway – that’s the way I would recommend approaching this (and other teas spiced with chili from me). If you’re still hesitant with the spice – look closely at the tea before you steep it – and remove some of the little slices of chili peppers.
Thanks for the advice! I may remove some of the chili pieces next time – it was just a bit too hot for me but the flavour of the tea was so lovely!
yeah – I often get comments about the opposite – that it’s not spicy enough – so with this one in particular, I remember thinking, if I’m gonna call it “picante” – it better have a good kick of spice. So I cut up more chilies than I typically do. (Example: when I made the Mayan Chocolate Chai – I had several people contact me to tell me that it’s not as spicy as Frank’s version of the same tea – and the reason is that instead of using cayenne powder, I used whole dried cayenne peppers and sliced them up – the cayenne powder is obviously going to be spicier because the powder is intensely spicy – but I didn’t like the idea of using cayenne powder.)
At least with the cut up chili peppers, if someone wants something with less spice, they can see the little pieces of chili and remove some of them. (Just be sure to wash your hands after you handle those chili peppers – don’t touch your eyes!)