Azteca Fire

I received this tea in a trade with Ze_Teamaker Thank you!

I admit I’m a hot food fanatic. I can drink Tabasco sauce, when I eat a burrito I always splash hot sauce on it before each bite. Spicy tea I haven’t found the right one yet, but I’m not sure what I’m looking for.

DRY: Surprisingly with the name (and not looking at ingredients), I thought it be a chicory robust chili tea. However, smells like strawberries, sweet and chocolate. Very chunky with pieces of apple and strawberries – oh yeah the strawberries look good! Looks like delicious fruity trail mix without the nuts! I used 2t for a cup of tea.

STEEPED: Cloudy light brown. Smells like like dark chocolate and fruity.

TASTE: Slightly smokey chocolate and fruityness, strawberries coming out. Some sweetness from the apple and mystery mellowness. A little watery. No tartness.

COMMENTS: Wheres the fire? I’ve had a few teas that are much hotter than this! /checks ingredients “Chili” that’s it? Should have some peppercorns or more chili threads. Those 4 dried chilies in the Teavana picture online taunt me. Maybe I didn’t get enough “chili” in my steeping or my hot threshold is crazy so mild spice I don’t pick up anymore.
I’d say Azteca Fire doesn’t live up to its name, I expected more than a tiny bit of smokeyness. This tea is closer to a watery hot chocolate with a hit of fruit. When thought of that way, it’s not bad of a replacement to actual hot chocolate. Steep it strong with some rock sugar and milk and it be interesting.

WHO’D LIKE THIS TEA? well… I think without the heat, you disappoint spicy peeps. With the name Azteca Fire, you scare off the “omg spicy food wahhh!” people.

UPDATE: I blended Azteca Fire with Matevana yesterday morning. I used 1.5 teaspoonsful of each variety per cup. Wow! After my first sip, I heard music playing, birds singing, and sweet voices! Then, I turned off my radio. Seriously, though, the two varieties go together better than Abbott & Costello. It was like drinking a rich and sweet cup of hot chocolate with a fine tea chaser. The multiple flavors complement each other perfectly! So, I’m raising my rating for Azteca Fire because it is a great friend for other blends.

I’d been wondering about this tea for a while now and finally got some this fall. Wow. It took a couple times to get to know how to steep this tea well—about 10 minutes in boiling water does the trick. It’s chocolatey and a bit fruity, has a hint of spice (if you brew it long enough), and is supremely cozy and comforting. I would love to try it with a little splash of soymilk—I tried it with a lot of soymilk and completely lost the flavor of the tea. This is definitely one of my favorite cozy/warm teas. The first 2 ounces I got were gone in a matter of weeks. I’m steeping it right now with some Honeybush Vanilla and it’s very difficult to wait to try it—the aroma is intoxicating. If you like spicy hot chocolate you will love this.

This isn’t too bad when you want something warm with no caffeine. The raw herbal is bright with reds and yellows flecked with the light brown cocoa nibs. It smells strongly of chocolate and berries with a touch of chili.

When you prepare this, the chocolate fragrance in almost overpowering. The appearance is the one great downfall of this tisane; it looks like dirty dish water. The taste is a nice combination of chocolate and berry and the heat of the chili sneaks up on the aftertaste. As the cup cools, the berry flavor starts to take over and gets just a little tart.

One thing I don’t like about this blend is that I find it to be a bit wasteful. You have to use a lot of the mix to get a decent flavor profile. It takes three times the amount recommended by the merchant and you’re left discarding a hefty pile of mushy fruit bits.

Steep Information:
Amount: 4.5 teaspoons
Additives: none
Water: full teapot, filtered, boiling
Steep Time: a little over 6 minutes
Served: Hot

Tasting Notes:
Dry Leaf Smell: Chocolate covered strawberries
Tea Smell: chocolate covered strawberries
Flavor: chocolaty tea, hints of fruit with the end being a chili flavor
Body: Medium
Aftertaste: chili burn
Liquor: dark opaque brown, like coffee

The steeped tea has little chocolate bits that float around the top giving it a dirty look. There is also an oily sheen on the steeped tea. You don’t smell the chili but it is certainly there when you drink it! Although the strawberry was a strong smell I missed it in the tea itself.

Post-Steep Additives: none

Resteep: TBD

Wait, there’s supposed to be strawberries in this? I didn’t get that at ALL. I ended up buying a bit of this on boxing day for a friend, who then told me the next day she’d bought 500g of it on her own. So I figured I might as well give it a try . . . meh. This tastes like a wannabe hot chocolate. Nothing to write home about, but nothing to complain about either. Kind of like the music charts right now, to be honest.

I got a cup of this while I was at Teavana buying some Capital of Heaven Keemun (swoon). This isn’t bad, the smell of the dry mix was very fruity-chocolately-intense, with the smell of the brewed tea being only slightly less intense.

The chocolate and chili are very apparent on drinking, especially the chili, it has a nice little bite to it. I don’t really taste the fruit in the sip. The unfortunate thing? It has a really heavy mouthfeel and aftertaste. I’m not so much a fan of this aftertaste that the tea has going on. I’m glad I tried it, but I don’t think it is for me.

After having two Teavana teas that I did not like I was about to write Teavana off, but I was sent a sample of this tea in a Swap and was surprised by how much I like it. With a name like Azteca Fire I expected it to be spicy, like a chai, there’s supposed to be pepper in this tea but I didn’t taste it in the first steeping.

Like all chocolate teas it has a ‘thin’ chocolate taste, but the chocolate flavor grows thicker as it cools, and the strawberry taste is a good mix. I add a little sugar and milk, a nice dessert tea.

The second steeping the chocolate and strawberry flavor is weaker of course, but I could taste the pepper.

So I totally intended to write this last night when I made this tea.

I bought it because I wanted to see what it tasted like after reading some reviews for it here. since it’s been on my list due to the fabulous smell, I just went ahead and got some last time I was at Teavana.

Well…I got three sips in and promptly dropped the entirety of it on my floor and had to panic clean up my computer, ipod, and purse.

You guys. That was pretty fail.
So while I really liked the three sips I took, I don’t think it was enough to give a good review. So for now, this tea has an 80 score with me because I barely got to TASTE any of it.

But it smelled so good and I do remember the chocolaty notes.

I was skeptical about the chocolate chunks from the beginning, but being the chilehead that I am, my thoughts of “OMGOMGOMG PEPPERS IN TEA!!!” overwhelmed my judgment. On the first try, I found it to be fairly lackluster in flavor with or without additives like sugar and/or milk. It also left me with a headache and deep feelings of buyer’s remorse after drinking it. I believe it would be more enjoyable to eat this tea as trailmix rather than to steep it into the bland, cloudy liquid it is intended to be. Maybe then, you would actually be able to taste the peppers.

I do plan on trying it again for the sake of second chances and the fact that I spent $6 on the stuff, but it won’t be any time soon…