Mango Diablo

This one is really fun. It’s spicy and sweet, and not too much of either. Using green tea as the base helps with the flavor profile – I can taste both distinctly. I’m using this as my wake-up cuppa. I barely slept last night thanks to migraines (one went away and then another took its place), so I need all the pick-me-up I can get today!

At first, I wasn’t too keen on trying this one, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to taste it. I actually love the Mexican treatment of mangoes with a bit of salt, lime juice and hot sauce. It’s sweet and tangy and hot and very refreshing! Hopefully, this tea will capture that deliciousness.

Brewed, it smells mostly like mango. I’m not sure what kind of green it is, but the savory aroma makes me thing Chinese. I could be wrong. The peppers might be messing with me. The taste of this is only lightly mango. I’m actually a bit disappointed in how light the mango flavor is. As you swallow, the spiciness burns a bit going down. Very nice! I happen to be a fan of spicy food. (One of my favorite snacks is toast with avocado and a healthy drizzle of sriracha) I would say that the spicy level here is just right for a tea. Hotter and you’d lose the mango. THis is a good balance. But again, this is coming form a spicy lover. I can imagine some people finding this too spicy. On the other hand, my spicy loving friend would probably enjoy this. :)

Overall, quite a nice tea. It’s different from any other tea I’ve tried but it’s very enjoyable. Next time, I think I’ll use more leaf to see if I can make the mango pop a little more. Maybe I’ll even try a bit of lime juice and sugar to make this taste more like that yummy Mexican mango thing!

Trader Joe’s has these amazing dried mango slices that are soooo juicy, and they roll them in cayenne pepper for the tastiest spicy/sweet combo I’ve ever had. I was kind of hoping that this tea would taste like that, and Krystaleyn sent me some in our swap! I’ve been wanting to try it for a while but there are so many teas I have to get through ;~;

This is a juicy tea, and has a really strong mango flavor. I did steep mine for extra long, because I’ve found that DAVIDsTEA blends tend towards the weaker side of things. There is a nice green tea flavor, but it’s not that strong—mostly this is just mango-y. The chili, though, is disappointingly lacking. I wanted spicy, and this really isn’t—there’s a bit of heat after the sip that lingers in your mouth, but it’s not spicy enough for my taste. There are really big chili threads in this blend so I thought I’d have more oomph. It’s tasty for sure, but I think the name is a little misleading… there’s definitely no Diablo in here!

I decided it was time to clean up my DavidsTea stash. Drink up the second cup of samples I don’t like (to give them a second chance), and categorize things a little. So here’s the first attempt!

I didn’t like Mango Diablo the first time I tried it, mostly due to the sweet pepper taste which I loathe, although I did feel it met the mark in terms of a mangoey, spicy green. I brewed up only a half cup (so I don’t have to suffer through it too much if it’s as I remember), and so I can send the final cup’s worth off to Amanda (so this is pretty much a sipdown). I wish I could refer to my previous note while writing this one, but apparently Steepster is down right now, so I’m stuck writing this in Word. Sigh.

The aroma is sweet from the mangoes and spicy from the chili pepper threads. There must be a hint of a bell pepper-ish aroma coming out too, because I don’t enjoy this smell. Upon sipping, there’s first a bit of a sweet taste before BAM! the chili spice hits you. I actually quite enjoy this spice level, but would greatly prefer it mixed with chocolate. Really, in my opinion, it’s not all that spicy, but I can see some people objecting (even though it’s explicitly stated that this blend is spicy!) The mango does blend in nicely, and the green tea lurks in the background, clearly offering a base for what would otherwise be a watery tea, but not really coming out in the flavour.

Like I thought earlier, I personally think this blend is a success. I just hate bell peppers and feel like I can taste them in here, which makes me dislike the tea.

[Hey, on the plus side, since I’m writing this in Word, nobody has to sit through my repeated ‘ETA’s as I re-steep teas, because I’m just tacking them on in here! Always a positive side to everything…]

Second infusion, 82C/5 min almost smells a touchy perfumey, like roses. Which makes me gag a bit, because my stomach is already a bit irritated with me for whatever reason, and I have been poking around samples all evening to figure out what all I have, and of course I’ve opened multiple rose-scented packets… ick. Anyhow, the spice is here at about the same degree as previously, although the mango flavour is a little lighter, and there’s perhaps more icky bell pepper flavour. Decent re-steep, in my opinion. But I don’t want to drink any more of this, so that’s it for me!

Spicy. Mango… … …
Yep, that is all. No “tea”. Just overly spicy mango.
If you like a serious punch in your food, then this one might be for you.
However, the sample I had… it was so spicy that I couldn’t enjoy the other parts of the flavour. I like some spiciness in my food. In fact, I love me some jerk chicken or Tikka Masala. But those dishes are not ALL about the spicy. They have texture and other flavours.
Seriously, I think this should be labelled a tisane. Was there any camellia in there at all???
It might be interesting to cook with.

I DUMPED waaaay too much tea into my teapot when I was making this. You see, I was debating between finishing off the last bit of toasted walnut, and taking another crack at this one. In the end I just grabbed blindly because I wanted to stop the kettle before the water got too hot. I must have assumed I grabbed the other tea because I just inverted the open pack over the teapot and immediately realized my mistake. ACK!!!! Now what? I momentarily debated scooping some of the tea back into the packet, but since I had already heated up my teapot with hot water, I decided that was a bad idea.

I just re-read my last tealog about this tea, where I comment that I was hoping for more flavour. Well now I’ve got it! The spiciness is obvious, and personally I love this aspect- it’s so unique (although I can see how not everyone would like this). I still would prefer a more robust mango taste to accompany this spiciness, but instead I notice this flavor more in the smell and the aftertaste than in the forefront. The grassiness of the green tea seems to compliment the flavors and the whole combination reminds me of vacationing in some sunny tropical location with grass huts, and spicy food…ahhh…such a nice little teascape on this gray rainy day.

I really like this one. Really, really like this one. Nom. The juicy sweetness of the mango with a kick of chili? Yes, please! I haven’t tried it iced yet, but I am very eager to. I think this might be worth a tin to me.

This was a sample from one of the DAVIDsTEA orders we had. I thought I’d try it out despite Dylan’s dislike of mango. The last mango tea we had tasted more like pear, so it didn’t quite hit the mango hate button.

This does hit the mango hate button. It is very mango, mango, mango. Wait, let me say it again, MANGO! I like the chili follow up but I feel like I want more pepper less mango. The chili hits me in the throat and I want it to go, “Pow! I’m here!” on my tongue. I know there is green tea in here some where but I couldn’t say a thing about it.

Yay we got to go to Dartmouth today, aka try not to die on the bridge and make paying the toll worth it by going to Lush and DavidsTea. :)

I brought my ice tea cup thing (yay I remembered!) and got this tea to go.
The mango flavour is spot on! sweet, fresh, juicy mango – full of flavour. The spice – wow. The kick hits you at the end of the sip – for me it’s even a bit too strong – but spice lovers would looove it. This is the kind of spice I wish was in the Chocolate Chili – I think it would go perfectly with something rich and deep like chocolate.

I can taste the green base – it gives the tea a certain texture that I think works perfectly. If it wasn’t for acid reflux plus killing my throat with coughs last time I got sick for over a month, I don’t think the tea would burn as much as it is haha. I’m getting the spice pretty strong at the back of my throat, a wee bit too much for comfort, so I don’t think I’ll buy any – but I will enjoy this cup!

Very unique – nice kick and a great treat. I think it would be great with tequila and some mexican food.

I don’t know what happened to this tea but oh dear tea gods did I not like it this time around. The green tea was bitter, the mango tasted like a fruit roll-up and the chili was AWOL. The last time I had it, it was utter perfection so I am not going to change my rating but not good, folks, not good.