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“Got this as a gift from the wonderful and smart Carolyn! I love chais. And I love chocolate. And I love things w/ chili/red pepper. I have my chais 2 ways, w/ and w/o milk. I don’t sweeten my...” Read full tasting note
“HOLY CRAP. My throat is on fire! I just drank an unsweetened/milk-free sip of the tea and it’s ridiculousy spicy. Definitely need MILK. And SUGAR. (It did taste good though, once I got past the...” Read full tasting note
“TTB 1.2 I’ve heard a lot of great things about this tea but I admit I was a bit afraid of the cayenne included in this blend. The dry tea smells really good – mainly of chocolate but the cayenne...” Read full tasting note
“I’ve been awake for a few hours and just feeling kind of blah… when it occurred to me that I hadn’t taken the time to make myself a cup of tea. You see, my youngest is a bit under the weather and...” Read full tasting note
The Mayans worshiped a chocolate deity and every year, they sacrificed a chocolate colored dog to it. Kind of nasty. Not at all like this awesome tea.
It has been called “a delicious kick in the mouth”: Our traditional masala chai blended with organic cacao nibs and cayenne pepper! Hold on to your tastebuds, this tea has some BITE!
Ingredients: Assam tea, ginger root pieces, cinnamon, green cardamom, cacao nibs, almonds, cayenne pepper, natural and/or artificial flavors.
At 52teas.com, you will find unique, hand-blended artisan loose leaf teas: a new limited edition creation every week of the year. We pride ourselves on offering truly unique, one-of-a-kind tea blends that you won’t find anywhere else.
I was afraid this wouldn’t be spicy enough for me.
Well I shouldn’t have been worried. This is definitely a chai that is not for the meek. The chocolate is more apparent when sniffing the dry leaves then in the final brew but I can still taste it just below the ginger and cayenne.
Mayan Chocolate Chai is my comfort tea when I’m sick. It has magical powers against stuffiness and makes me breath when every over the counter drug has failed.
This stuff is magic. It’ll cure what ails you and perk up your taste buds at the same time.
This has been on my Shopping List for a VERY long time and LiberTEAS was nice enough to send it to me.
However…
It smells a like a cross between Ginger, Chocolate, Pepper, Cardamom, Earl Grey, Orange Glo, and bark. Uggg.
It seems I infused a slew of GINGER Root and not much else…until I get to the pepper! WOW! I’m drinking Ginger Root and Cayenne Pepper! OMG.
This is VERY peppery…
Sorry…not feeling this one…
Well, I AM feeling it…burn in my throat…but that’s about all! LOL
Glad I got to at least try it tho! LOL
Tea #5 from Traveling Tea Box C
My husband warned me.
He know’s I’m a wuss when it comes to spicy stuff.
Did I listen?
No.
FIRE!!!
Ha ha. This made me laugh. I added it:) I like the chocolate and spices but this was a little much and though maybe someone else would enjoy it.
While it wasn’t to my taste, my husband adored it! With each sip you could see him smile through the burn. So it wasn’t in vain!
Ha ha well good! Glad he liked it! It needs a home.
Spice, chocolate & chai? How can a sweets addict, chai loving, spicy food adoring girl not get this tea? Man tea my bum, move on over mama wants her spicy chocolate!
This smells like a typical chai, I always love when you can see all the spices. Mmmm & I can see the peppers. Num Num.
What the? The picture on the package says a touch of cayenne pepper. A touch? It’s more like a touch of chai & chocolate & MAJOR peppers.
Wow this is spicy, I really wasn’t expecting so much kick. It really is a punch in the mouth. I love spicy foods, but this, may just be too spicy for a beverage. I don’t even know if I can taste anything other than the spice.
This would probably be really great mixed with hot chocolate or another chocolate tea.
I have to leave this without a rating for now until I can decide how I feel about it.
I should preface this by saying that the way I’m use to getting chai is as a chai latte from the likes of *bucks and I’m pretty sure they use some sort of a mix instead of whipping out a teapot and loose leaf on the spot. :P So when I looked in my tea drawer and saw this in there, I thought I’d try it and go legit.
Out of the bag I get a spicy-spice smell more than a hot-spice smell. Cardamom, cinnamon, maybe the almond or cocoa in the background and then something that smells like whole peppercorns (versus the sharp peppery smell of cracked or ground pepper). Not bad.
11/2 teaspoons for about… 9-10 oz water? I should make a habit of measuring. Anyway, this steeps up with a nice spiciness filling the kitchen, and I’m kind of jazzed about trying something new. 4 minutes are up. The game plan is to try this on it’s own and then add dairy to mimic my lattes. Decant. Sniff. Sip.
WHOA.
For all the spicy-spice I smelled, I’m totally shocked at how the hot-spice grabs the back of my throat. I almost choked in surprise. I guess that’s where the cayenne was hiding. Of all the dried peppers I cook with, my ground cayenne adds more heat than any actual flavor in my opinion. It’s the case here too, I feel. Swishing, I get a tingliness at the back of my throat and sides of my tongue from the pepper, but the tea is there as a definite foundation- which I can appreciate. Sip. A swirl of spices keeps me interested. I close my eyes and try to slowly find and hold onto each individual spice, but …there’s something else here too. What is that??
Okay, so now I add a little half & half and a splash of skim milk. The skim is way too thin for a creamy mouthfeel. Sip. Okay, so now I add a lot more half & half and another splash of skim. Thaaats about right. Half tea/half dairy? Sipping now, the pepper is still there but much calmer now that my milk is beating the capsicum into submission. :) The cinnamon and cardamom are still there, more distinct now that the pepper isn’t in the way, and if I concentrate I can kind of find the cocoa lingering here and there, but never long enough for me to get a hold of it. What has rushed to the forefront of my tastebuds, however, is that taste . What is that?? I glance at the ingredients list.
Oh. ginger.
I blame my mother for this. She gets heartburn from ginger and never used it when she cooked for me when I was a kid. So now anytime I get a load of ginger in my mouth, my tastebuds are beset with this alien taste they have no idea how to cope with and they then proceed to throw a small tantrum. Now anytime I take a sip, all I can register is ginger! ginger! ginger!
Well, show’s over kids. Mayan chocolate chai goes back in the drawer for now. Perhaps I’ll pull it out again another day when I feel up to the challenge of acquiring a taste for this stuff they call ginger.
CAPSICUM ATTAKS U! I was too overwhelmed by the cayenne to taste much else when I drank this, and I made it like traditional chai. Next time I’ll steep shorter and go heavy on the milk. Serious THROAT PUNCH.
In reference to your “*bucks” comment… which I’m thinking you meant Starbucks? If that’s the case, they use a liquid concentrate, but you can absolutely ask for the bagged version- IMO it’s so much better, especially now that they have full leaf bags. I prefer 2 bags in a tall. No other size does it for me because the flavor ratio is off.
@takgoti: Yes! After my first sip, I totally knew what you meant in your TN!!
@Cofftea: Haha. Yeah, I’m lazy. s-t-a-r is just too much for me to type sometimes, hence the *. And the next time I get a chai latte, maybe I will ask for the leaf, just out of curiosity! :)
Oh… I get it… Duh! I guess I didn’t connect it w/ the traditional star shape. Ok, I feel dumb now lol.
This tea. Is making me want to go adjust my other ratings lower so that it can be a higher 100. It’s another perfect tea for me.
I took a big whiff of the bag and my nose starting running. :D!
First sip. Hoochie mama that’s got a nice spice! And what’s this, mm a chocolate hit right after? I must have got a good blend because it’s just the right amount of chocolate with the spices. And now the chai-ness comes through. Gosh, this is lovely.
mmm a few sips in and I’m feeling the burn. But loving it mmah!
So I enhance my experience by making whipped cream with cocoa powder. And then I accidentally dumped like 5 tablespoons of cocoa instead of the teaspoon I was hoping for. So I went with it. Made a huge batch of chocolate whipped cream for later. For my subsequent cups of this tea! mm! It tones down the spice just a notch and I like it.
SO glad I bought 2 bags! Thank you Frankie!
Did you put any whipped cream on your tea? My dear, I do believe that all you are missing is a splash of peppermint schnapps. :)
Ho yes. SO much whipped cream on my tea! It’s delightful, but to be honest it’s because I bought whipping cream because they were out of half and half AND coffee creamer. I don’t have peppermint schnapps but I do have chocolate liquer… I’ll be back, I have to make some tea :D
Can you share with me how you made it. I was so looking forward to this tea and when I got it I was so underwhelmed by it that I haven’t even been able to rate it.
For sure, I did just one heaping teaspoon in a little under one cup of water (one cup being the size of my mug, not necessarily one actual cup) and then a bit of milk. I steeped for.. I’ll say about 5 minutes. It was kind of watery-ish, so that’s where my whipped cream came in. I didn’t sweeten the whipped cream a lot, but the addition of the cocoa made it like a slightly bitter dark chocolate taste, so I felt that made the tea how it came to be! That’s why I’m wondering if I got an especially good blend in the chocolate area, because the reviews are all over the place for this one hey?
This is one I couldn’t wait to try. It’s dry leaf smells so yummy. I steeped it up and the smell does change well loses some of it’s chocolaty notes. Steeped up the liquor is reddish brown and the taste is spicy I would have liked to have gotten more chocolate along with my spice and I do love hot spices (I mean I cook with habanero peppers often) while I didn’t find the tea to be too spicy it could be for some people and so people who do not normally eat spicy be warned.
I like this chai would have liked to have seen more chocolate notes to round out the spice but would definently drink again.
Hmmm… I think it’s like drinking mexican chocolate… maybe I’m just extra sensitvie to chocolate. What was your leaf/water ratio? Did you use any milk/creamer?
One heaping teaspoon to about 8 ozs of water. I did not use any creamers or sweeteners. While it could have used more chocolate I don’t think it needed any sweetener either. It was just more spice than chocolate. The one time I had mexican chocolate I didn’t care for it it’s wasn’t sweet (it’s been several years ago) When I hear chocolate I think sweet creamy chocolate unless it’s labeled dark chocolate so it could just be me.
That’s quite close to my ratio- I used 1 heaping teaspoon per 6oz water- steeped an extra min if I used milk or creamer. You’re right though, this is more of a cocoa or dark chocolate that’s in Mayan Chocolate.
When I had this tea, I added milk and sweeteners. Sometimes, the addition of sugar brings out the flavor in these flavored teas…
I’ve never tried it w/ sweetener (I’m thinking of doing so in a few min so watch for my tasting note), but steeped in a mix of water and milk or adding creamer makes it taste like a hot chocolate milk.
Okay I’ll try that (milk and sugar). I’m outta milk at the moment but have plans for grocery shopping tomorrow I will try it then.
Got my order from 52 teas! Was excited to try this stuff after hearing alot of great things.
From the second I opened the package, I was overwhelmed by the spicyness of the cayenne pepper and the sweet smell of chocolate. It smelled AMAZING. I made 2 steeps of this, one with milk and one with just water. Let me say that I’m not rating this just yet because I don’t think I prepared it right at all (that’s where YOU get to help me!) but anyway, let me tell you what I did :) I attempted to make a latte for my girlfriend and I, in which I poured about 16oz of heated milk into about 2 heaping teaspoons of the chai mix. I let this steep for about 5 minutes before pouring. Yes, I realize this was not going to work well. I wasn’t sure how much water to add to the leaves, or whether or not I should have steeped the leaves in X amount of water and then added X amount of milk.. If anyone could give me numbers on these variables, much appreciated :) Regardless, I was able to get a little chocolate flavor in the milk blend, with a strong spicy aftertaste. Like really strong. After finishing these, I resteeped the leaves with water. The chocolate was almost non-existant and I REALLY tasted the pepper now. Sort of off topic but, one thing I will say is that this stuff will be great for anyone with a sore throat or congestion.
Not sure where I stand with this. I feel like my preparation resulted in a sub par experience. Help me! :)
I make lazy man’s chai. 4g of leaf steeped in 2-3oz just below boiling water for 5-6min then add 4(if using 2oz water)-3(if using 3oz water)oz milk. Stir, reheat, and stir again. Not only is it less messy, but it also keeps the leaves clean for the next steep. You can also steep in 6oz water and add 1tsp-1TB coffee creamer of your choice.
No I didn’t get any confirmation email. Don’t worry.
From our Coconut Cream Pie Tea post (http://www.52teas.com/2009/02/22/022209-coconut-cream-pie-flavored-black-tea/), here’s our recipe for a tea latte:
How to make a fat-free tea latte: Combine 1 can of fat free sweetened condensed milk with 3 cans of skim milk in a saucepan, heat and stir until uniform. Combine resulting mixture with hot tea in equal parts tea and latte. Thank me out loud for sharing our latte recipe.
Leftover latte will keep in the fridge for a few days, allowing you to either reheat, or use to make iced tea lattes, of which, the coconut cream pie flavored black tea iced tea latte is the KING.
additional notes: Frank’s blend, a sample, and I’m looking at the pouch and it looks like mostly cayenne! Whoa. But I’m drinking this for the sinuses today, so that is a good thing. Age will hopefully tone it down a bit. Also a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR to all you wonderful people! Wishing better things for all.
Tea Club at work has been doing chai in the afternoons a lot and mention was made of trying to find one with heat in it. This seemed like it would fit the bill nicely.
Well, while the logo of ManTeas was greatly appreciated by the guys in Tea Club, the overall reviews were not stunning.
None of us really picked up any chocolate at all. The spices either blended well together or were muddled, depending on the reviewer. I didn’t really taste the tea at all. The heat was there, but as an afterburn more than up front heat. It was all drank (drunk? Both of those look strange to me) but the overall verdict was that it was not a reorder.
We made it with half skim milk and half water, adding about 1/3 cup sugar for 4 servings.
Could not agree more! I miss this stuff. I’m hoping Frank will make an instant version of this soon. Adding cayenne and chocolate to my Tipu’s just doesn’t cut it when I’m craving this.