Hot Lips (organic)

I used to love this tea! LOVE. It tasted like cinnamon hearts and was my go-to “school tea” because it had a strong enough flavour that I could steep it in one of those nasty paper cups from Starbucks and it wouldn’t taste like cardboard cup.

But something has gone terribly wrong since then. Quite possibly it is just too old, but the last five or so cups I’ve had of this made me feel more than a little ill…so it’s not just “wasn’t what I was in the mood for after all,” it’s really not good to me anymore. Could it really be the age? I swear that I have teas from DT that are even older and still taste delicious, but this…no. The tea that I can taste in it tastes terrible and cheap. The cinnamon is sharp and unpleasant. I wouldn’t even give this away.

So although I’ve yet to have thrown out more than the last few broken leaves of a tea, I think it is the right decision this time to chuck the last of what I have of this one.

Also:

I can’t start reviewing the new Teavana teas as planned, because last I checked (when I stopped in this morning to pick up my poor iPod that I left behind at the re-merching last night) they STILL had not arrived. Apparently this is the case across Canada; I don’t know if it’s every Canadian location, or just some of them, but SUCK.

Our regional manager is currently in Atlanta, apparently to let H/O know that Canadians are not second-class citizens, thank you very much and we. Are not. Impressed.

Hope they smarten up!

Oh man. Oh maaaaan.

So my wonderful wife was running by the mall yesterday and offered to snag some of this for me since I barely had a chance to fart at work the previous day, much less take a break and run out to get tea.

I brewed it up as soon as I could and oh man, I was not disappointed. I love all things cinnamon. DT’s Cinnamon Chai is my go-to when I’m not feeling well, and their Cinnamon Heart, well, it was okay, but it didn’t have the cinnamon kick I crave. As much as I hate it, Harney & Son’s Hot Cinnamon Spice has been my ultimate cinnamon lover for the last little while.

Until now. Buh-bye Harney, I’m so glad I won’t have to try and replace you!

This tea is wonderful. And it’s a green! I don’t even like greens, but this one is amazing. The cinnamon sweetness pairs amazingly well with the kick of heat and in this “winter” season, that kick really helps soothe a sore throat. (When I’ve got sinus/throat issues, my number one remedy is Hot and Sour soup. Dad made me try it once and it works like a charm!) I love this tea so much that last night I dreamt about going to various DavidsTeas to try and get a tin of it. Definitely buying a tin (or two) as soon as possible. I really hope this one makes it into the permanent collection!

I tried another steep last night and it was smoother, the flavors subdued a bit, but not much. I passed out before I could finish the cup and I’m drinking it cold this morning and it is just as lovely cold as it is hot! Just beautiful.

Now this one I know is from Krystaleyn! For sure this time!

Mmm… cinnamon. This is a nice cinnamon tea. It tastes just like little red hots. There’s probably green tea under there… somewhere… but I’m not sure. I’m not really convinced, you know?

But there’s tasty candied cinnamon flavor. Having a deep love of all things cinnamon, this makes me very happy. I could keep this one around… if nothing else, just for it’s delicious cinnamonosity… maybe. It’s a little tamer than the cinnamon in say, MarketSpice. So I think I’d actually go for that if I had an overwhelming cinnamon jones. A Cinnamonstrosity. That should totally be the name of a tea. Like a roasted mate base, with cinnamon chips, cinnamon flavoring… and… uh… I don’t know. I’m probably good there. Cinnamonstrosity.

I’ll go now.

Surprisingly, I don’t really like this. I love cinnamon and I love spicy so I have no idea what went wrong here. I brewed up a cup this morning and loved the bright yellow liquor that resulted. I enjoyed my first few sips from my giant mug. Tasted like Big Red gum, only sweeter and with a peppery kick. It wasn’t my fave, but it was okay.

Then I poured the rest into a plastic travel mug to take to work. This is where it goes wrong. In the mug, it became cloying and artificial. I had to chug the last bit just to get rid of it so that I could move on to something else. What happened? :( I love cinnamon! This was supposed to be awesome! Sad. Maybe it’s the travel mug. I’ll try it once more when I get home in a ceramic mug. If I still don’t like it, someone can look forward to it in a future swap. Lots of other people seem to enjoy this. There’s a lot of natural sweetness in this tea.

Holding off on the rating till I try this again.

The cinnamon and pepper have a nice warming effect over the green tea base, those same ingredients also provide a nice aftertaste. It’s an alright tea, I’m glad I tried it, but I’m not in love with it. If I saw it on sale I might pick up a pouch, otherwise I wouldn’t go out of my way to get this one again. meh

Are you kidding me with this? Hot Lips? I got this in a swap from Awkward Soul (thank you!) and I waited until I was in just the right mood to try it because I was expecting it to blow my socks off.

I’m one of those people who orders everything “mild” from the Chinese and Thai menus. I’m a WUSS. And the only thing I could think of when I drank this tea was that old garbage bag commercial, “Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy!” I barely even got any cinnamon flavor at all! Here I was nervous about those chilis or whatever, and I couldn’t even taste the cinnamon. Huh. Maybe all that Hot Cinnamon Sunset that I used to drink from Harney & Sons really toughened me up.

This one smells so good! I love cinnamon hearts. Seriously I eat them until I can’t really taste them anymore because it feels as though I’ve burned my taste buds clear off.

Liking it for sure. And nice touch of not burning the taste buds off. I was a little nervous there’d be something overpowering in such a strong scent but it all works together so nicely.

The more it cools, the more it tastes exactly like cinnamon hearts. I’m getting a warming near the back of my throat and down from the cinnamon or peppercorns.

Update February 27/13: I resteeped this one this morning for my drive. The resteep is good but it’s all peppercorns and no sweetness. Still enjoyable, but not as much as the first round.

This is a generous sample from Krystaleyn. Thanks!

I tend to brew greens for short periods. This is a pretty good take on spicy cinnamon. It’s a red hot type of cinnamon ending with a pepper note. The tea is very mild and a bit creamy. Thanks again Krystaleyn!

Dry Leaf Nose: Strong cinnamon aroma.

Liquor: Bright and golden clear, with a strong cinnamon aroma.

Flavour: Sweet cinnamon flavour with a very hot, spicy note.

Story Time:Well it’s hurricane party weather, but since I don’t really drink, I am going to try to get threw by tea samples I have been meaning to finish.

Tea Time: This one was given to me by Awkward Soul. Thanks for the sample!

The dry leaf smells lightly like red hots…. ME GUSTA! The liquor is a nice royal golden yellow and smells still like red hots, but slightly savory.

No sweetner: pleasantly grassy and with some mild spice warm flavor and a hint of bitter.

Little sweetener: Kinda the same but less bitter.

More sweetener: should havn’t added as much as I did. It does taste a little more like red hots with a pinch of savory.

The thing I like about this tea is that the spice level isn’t exaggerated. It won’t give you hot lips, but it has a nice savoy warm hue and tongue tingle that makes me love spicy food. It fits well with the green tea base. I would have to give this tea nickname, I would call it mexican; if only I had a burrito to compliment it right now.

Overall a nice cupa tea. Very warming and savory. I only wish I brewed it hotter.

I would recommend this to mild spice people or spicy flavor lovers.

P.S. What is currently playing on my YouTube playlist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcmDhG0YhgI&feature=autoplay&list=PL0F4F1D0F36A715C1&playnext=2

One of the teas available in the 24 days of tea box. I wasn’t exactly excited to give this a try, but I did anyways. Just like the description says “some like it hot…” and well, I don’t :P

It definitely did remind me of those hot lips candy though, and I’m happy I got to try it. It had a calm, smooth taste to start with, but once I swallowed the blend I couldn’t believe how hot it actually was for me. It was basically taking two handfuls of those cinnamon hearts in your mouth all at once. I couldn’t finish what was in my cup unfortunately :(

If you’re into spicy, hot food or anything of that nature, you’ll definitely enjoy this tea blend though!

This is really tasty! Cinnamon hearts are my favorite candy, and that’s exactly what this tea smells like. I am just finishing up my first mug, and I don’t think I’ll have time to re-steep… but I am looking forward to drinking more of this in the future. So glad to have more delicious green teas, since green tea is my tea of choice.

EDIT: It is possible that this tea tastes even better as it cools. Holy yum, cinnamon candy.

This tea is so good. I am a fiend for cinnamon and this is a nice spicy tea, however the green tea does cut down the spice a lot so it’s not too overpowering. The only thing is that different batches taste a bit different for this tea so sometimes you get a really dissappointing cup.

This tea is dominated by the taste of cinnamon. As someone that loves cinnamon I really enjoyed this tea. I gave it a lower score than other teas for two reasons, the unnecessary spicy kick and that I prefer the pu’erh based Cinnamon Heart, also from Davids Tea.

My memory of the cinnamon hearts candy is that the heat comes purely from the cinnamon candy, not the peppercorns and chilies added to this tea giving it some negative marks.

It is also difficult to not compare this tea directly to Cinnamon Heart from Davids Tea as they are both attempting a similar flavour blend. I prefer the Cinnamon Heart tea as the cloves and orange peel aide the cinnamon in coming out instead of competing with it. Had I not previously had this other tea I would be deeply in love with Hot Lips.

I legit cannot stress enough that I am going to STOCK up on this tea before it’s gone. This tea is amazing – so much cinnamon, so much heat!!! I truly love it, and want to drink it every single day until I die. I don’t know how much I’ll have to buy to make this possible. I’ve considered buying 1kg. I grabbed a cup of this today, and was sad when I finished it. Must… Have… More… Hot Lips. Thanks to DT for coming out with a tea that’s perfectly complex without an excess of ingredients!! It tastes the same as filling your mouth completely with cinnamon hearts.

This is the first flavored tea that I’ve had for a long time. I became kind of obsessed with pu’ers but last night I felt like something different. I decided on this one because I was craving some spice. It was between Hot Lips and Chocolate Chili Spice. Hot Lips won.

The smell of the dry tea is overwhelmingly cinnamon. It smells remarkably like Big Red gum. It’s also quite pretty with the green tea, the pink peppercorns and cinnamon pieces. The taste was great. It was very strong on the cinnamon and not the sweet sort of cinnamon but the really spicy kind. I just wish the base tea was a bit more assertive. I was really looking for that green tea almost grassy taste but I couldn’t find it. I did three steeps and only on the 3rd steep did I find the balance and flavor that working for me.

All in all, the spice was pleasant but there was not enough flavor in the base to really please me.

P.S. My team finally won a game and F1 starts on the 17th. Yay!

Tastes just like cinnamon hearts! Love!

I admitted defeat on keeping up with my advent calender fairly early on in the month. I mainly bought it for the little tins anyway. But this, this is great! I’ve had Hot Lips before, late in the summer iced. It was good. THIS IS BETTER. I added a dash of honey and yum yum yum.

Advent Calendar Day 9! Where is December going?

I really really really hate cinnamon hearts. I feel the way that some people feel about candy corn towards them. They taste gross. But I actually enjoyed this tea today.

It tasted like them without being overpowering. Maybe my tastbuds are getting weak and I actually liked them now. No, I think it’s that this tea takes away a lot of the gross sugar overpowering the gross cinnamon, and leaves me with a sweet spicy flavour. It had a kick to it to be sure. Would I buy more? No, there are far better chais other there. But I will look forward to finishing this sample.

Day 85 of my 101 days of DAVIDsTEA challenge.

I have to say, this tea confused me. Enough so that I made some fresh today to make sure it wasn’t just my… less than ideal tea-ball (I have a better and a worse one I will admit) playing tricks on me.

You see, I had this in store once before, and it was VERY cinnamon-hot. But when I had it yesterday… it was much less so, and more… cinnamon-sweet if anything, with only a hint of the spicy-hot.

However, I made it loose in my two-cupper today…. and even over-steeped it. While it was at least somewhat spicier, it was still far more sweet (and not at all bitter, thank goodness!).

So, this tea certainly confuses me. Perhaps it was different batches, and thus different degrees of spiciness. Still, I’m a little alarmed that it could vary in spiciness that much!

Either way, it smells JUST like cinnamon hearts. And that, at least, is lovely.