Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Aka Tea
Tea Description:
This blend is a passionate embrace. A spicy, warm feeling will spread from your head to your toes. Red-hot chili flakes are chaperoned by dark cherry, chocolate, and a hint of cinnamon. If this tea doesn’t inspire you to embrace the moment, then what will? Don’t forget to embrace life!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Aka Tea is one of my new favorite tea shops. They hand blend and create their blends. Something I’m learning I really enjoy and respect from tea shops. Their teas are bright and pop with flavor. This one is no exception.
Embrace Me is a black flavored tea with a unique twist. Chili flakes, dark cherry, chocolate, and cinnamon flavors make up this blend with a black tea base. I have never had a tea with this sort of ingredient line up before and you can smell each individual ingredient from the dry leaves. A very interesting combination!
I brewed this tea up like a black tea- 212F-2 1/2 min and worked on a few projects while this steeped. When I would get close, I would get a sweet aroma emitting from the tea pot.
After the tea had steeped, I poured a mug for myself and continued working on my projects. I took my first sip and was greeted with a sweet chocolate cherry like flavor. I didn’t get any of the chili flakes or the cinnamon flavor. Just a chocolate covered cherry flavor. So sweet and decadent. This steeping really curved my sweet tooth flavor. This cup was gone in no time so I decided to make another cup with fresh leaves thinking I may not have shaken the pouch up enough to get all the flavors. I repeated my last routine but steeped this for 3 min and brought the water to 212F.
This time tho, from the first start of this tea prep, I could smell the chili flakes. Took my first sip and yes this tea was completely different than the cup I had just had. This tea was spicy hot. Like so hot that the chili flakes was the only flavor I could pick up. All the other ingredients were muted and I ended up sadly tossing this cup. I just couldn’t do it. The chili flakes just were too dominating. I couldn’t imagine what the flavor would be if you allowed this to steep longer.
I love the idea of this tea, but not sure I am on board with the actual taste. The first cup I had was fantastic! The chocolate didn’t have the artificial flavor that I’m used to with chocolate teas and the cherry flavor brought a slight sweetness. Just delicious. But I think this tea needs a bit more experimenting on my end to see if there is a way to enjoy the chili flakes. That or maybe I just need to find this delight a new home.
