Mango Diablo

Dry Leaf Nose: Chilies with ripe tropical fruit.

Liquor: Golden with a slight green tinge.

Flavour: Very ripe mango with a hot chili background. Naturally fruity, sweet and hot!

I don’t know why I never noted that I only had enough for a mug of this one. I would have probably tried it way sooner then!

Out of curiosity does anyone live near an Earth Fare? There’s one here in Chattanooga and I’m very curious, especially because they have amazing email coupons. I just signed up yesterday and I have one for a free chicken or box of veggie burgers, two free pineapples, and $1 each jelly, peanut butter, cookies, crackers, and something else. I’m sure I can’t use them all at once but man I wish there was one of these by me! I’m guessing because in Atlanta there’s a ton of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s they don’t think they have a market. I’ll probably check it out tomorrow or Friday and hope I don’t find a bunch of stuff to take back with me.

Wow…this one is a bit too spicy for a tea. I love the pepper mango one from Gurman’s, it has the right balance and you can taste green tea. This one, I really can’t taste tea. There’s maybe a little bit of this graininess to it, but I don’t know where that’s coming from.

I love spicy food, but this is just unpleasant.

I’m going to let it cool down before I give up on it, it already seems like it becomes more tolerable as it cools. It still has a bite but it doesn’t cover your tongue and make it feel like you can’t taste anything else like it does hot.

I tried this one with trepidation, having decided that for me, chili and tea don’t blend in my favour. And yet I have to try everything that hits the wall, so I trotted home with my 6g and brewed it up.

Both dry and brewed, it smells absolutely amazing. The mango smell is dominant and is strong enough that I started to get excited. A good mango tea is delicious and this was full of potential.

As I sipped I first got a mouthful of mango, and damn but it was delicious. Fruity and sweet and perfect. And then the chili kicked in, and yup, it packed a punch. If I liked chilis in tea this would be an amazingly perfect tea for me. But sadly I want this one without the kick. If it was just the intense mango I’d be ALL over it for summer.

Rating it based on how well the tea lived up to expectations. I’d rate it lower for my personal preferences but the tea is actually delicious if that’s your thing, and I don’t feel it is fair to rate it down because I didn’t like that it met the description.

Sip down #1

The dry notes smell like mango candy. Once steeped it smells like mango and peppers. Maybe this will be the first tea to deliver the spice. I love how you can see the chili strings and seeds in the leaves.
The first hit on your tongue is peppers, not spicy, but peppers. As the tea hits the back of your tongue and your throat you get the spice from the peppers. Oh deliciously spicy peppers. The hit of mango is very light and lingers on the tongue.

I am so glad I finally found a tea that promises the heat. This is going back into my cupboard. The only downfall of this tea is that I feel the mango could come out more strongly.

You’d want to avoid this tea if you’re prone to heart burn

EDIT: as this cools to about room temp, the first taste on the tongue is of mango and the spice looses some of its power.

The mango is really good….but I am a wimp when it comes to spicy food, so I found it too spicy for me.
However, it delivers what it promises.
I will still give this a fairly good rating since it really is good.

Sample kindly sent by Dexter3657 – thank you! I’m still hoarding a bit, but also trying to enjoy the teas without worrying too much about imperfect brewing. :) I did decide to wait on the Laoshan Village Chai though, as that would really make me sad not to do right. Anyway, this was a really fun tea! I liked the mango flavour, and had forgotten about mango and chili, which is one of those combinations that sounds odd but really works. The tea was definitely quite spicy but didn’t defeat me. :P Nice green base too, and overall I enjoyed it a lot. Not necessarily something that makes me unduly sad that David’s doesn’t ship internationally, but something I’m glad to have tried and look forward to drinking the rest of the sample. Another great choice, Dexter – thanks!

Hrmmm… not really sure what to say about this one.

The pepper on this is interesting. It hits my throat well before it hits my tongue, which doesn’t seem to make a lick of sense.

It’s very mango, which is unfortunate, as I’m not very fond of mango. Ashmanra once sent me a sample of a pepper mango (I can’t remember from where!), and it tasted more pear-like, and it was fantastic. This one does not taste more pear-like. Due to my general displeasure at mango, I don’t think it’s quite fair for me to rate this.

Unlikely that I’ll buy this one again ;)

This one, thankfully, really satisfies my anticipation that it would be 1) interesting and 2) spicy-sweet. It’s flavourful, and I really like the mango flavouring DT uses. Each sip starts off juicy mango and ends with a little kick (I went with only 2 minutes for this on the suggestion of the employee who sold it to me). The chili is just right, boldness-wise.

But, I don’t often find myself in the mood for spicy teas. I like them, but don’t usually want to make them after that first try. I don’t see myself actually reaching for this too often, but it does what it does well.

I had the pleasure of smelling this tea in the store, I wanted to buy it but one of the guys took the canister away and I forgot it. I had to order the 250g bag online without ever tasting it so this one was a very big risk. I was afraid of the chili threads because I’m not a huge fan of spice but I wanted to expand my horizons. I’m glad I did! This tea was good. I’ve been having sinus and ear issues lately and the chilies made everything tingle and open up. It is sweet on the front of the tongue, but going down it has a slightly spicy, tickling sensation; it was very pleasant. I had a few sips of this hot and it was good, but it was also very good iced.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this one but I’m enjoying it. It’s a nice mango flavour with a little kick of spicy at the end. Much better than mango madness where I didn’t even taste mango.

Update: Not so great cooled. I’ll be sticking to hot for this one. I wish I could find a genuine MANGO tasting tea.