This is going to be a hard tea to review. But first, I’d like to say that my Hapa-tite tea swap from Hapatite arrived today! Well, yesterday, but I only got it today. I am so excited!! All of the teas look very interesting, and I can’t wait to try them all.
I had arranged to go out for coffee with my partner before the swap package arrived, but wanted to stay in and drink tea instead, so as a compromise I picked this bag out and went for coffee with him, and asked for hot water at the shop.
Like Nicole stated in her review, I wish I’d read the recommendations on here before making this tea! A short steep would definitely have been enough, but as it is, I left the bag in the water for a good 4 or 5 minutes. I had a sugar sachet ready which I definitely did not need, as it was overpoweringly sweet, and actually probably the first tea I’ve had which had lived up to its ‘sweet’ promise. The cinnamon taste is also very powerful, and tiny sips reminded me of cinnamon fireball sweets I ate as a child. However, if you drink this is anything larger than little sips, the flavour becomes seriously strong. I could not believe just how strong it was. By the end of the cup (which wasn’t even that big) my lips were tingling and the inside of my mouth was on fire. This is a seriously intense brew.
I have a feeling it would have been nice had I steeped it only for a short time, and I actually put the teabag in a cup of iced water to see what that would do. The result was a pretty tasty, mild, crisp version of the hot cup I’d just drank. I didn’t think there would be much flavour to it but the same flavours were obviously present, which was good. In the second/cold steep, the sweetness was more apparent than the cinnamon, instead of the other way around, which was definitely better for me. I could also taste the orange a bit this time, which was completely lost in the cinnamon first steep. It’s worth noting that there wasn’t even a hint of black tea in either steep.
I really don’t know how to rate this tea, because if I’d just had the iced version, I would have rated it better than average. However I struggled to finish the first cup so much I actually started to think I was having an allergic reaction because my mouth was burning so bad. I usually go with the rating based on my best experience with the tea, but this time I feel like I have to take the first steep into account. I think it’s going to have to be half way between the two.
Thanks for the try, Nicole! Sipdown.
