Portal Tea (formerly Tea Chai Té)

Sipdown

This is one of the rare occasions where I drank a tea more with milk and sugar than without. This is my kind of chai, and cardamom really is the front runner in flavor and aroma here. I can just smell it now….It stays with you, that aroma.

This was an afternoon- keep-the-munchies-at-bay chai latte this summer, especially on teaching days when I couldn’t just snack whenever I wished.

Many thanks to Youngest for this tea!

Again, a tea that says two ounces on the bag but there is considerably more than that in here. Nice surprise!

This is a good breakfast tea and works for any time of day, with or without food. It makes a good latte and a good cup of plain hot tea with no additions.

I taste vanilla and cardamom most of all, with a bit of rose. This is my kind of chai.

Sipdown

Good banana flavor, medium strength black tea base, nice for breakfast unless you need builder’s tea, and nicely spiced. Ashman and I drank this pretty much every day that he was home for breakfast and we were eating together so it disappeared rapidly.

This tea was a gift from *Youngest – many thanks!

I am not a fan of banana bread and I don’t know exactly why. I like zucchini bread, which is similar. I like bananas and banana sandwiches with iced tea are a summer staple for me. I think the idea of a banana that has been cooked soft gives me a texture heebie-jeebie.

(Weird aside that might make sense of my aversion to banana bread. When I was really little, my mom and sister sometimes made me a banana sandwich by smashing a banana to a pudding consistency on a plate with mayo, and then smearing that on bread to make the sandwich. Other times it was a normal sliced banana. Don’t know if they were covering up that the banana had gone mushy? Why else would you do that? I prefer medium firm slices now.)

I don’t have anything against the flavors in banana bread, though, so I felt sure I would like this. And I do! There is noticeable banana flavor here unlike one of the first banana-flavored blends I tried that I can’t remember the name of right now. The spices are just right, not too mild and not too pushy. The base is good and could serve for breakfast, lunch, or snack time and could take milk and sugar but doesn’t need it. This would also make a nice latte.

The Oatmeal Raisin Cookie blend from Tin Roof Teas was a KAPOW WOW smash of flavor and lots of the flavor was similar to this tea. Somehow I find myself reaching for this one often, though. Sometimes you aren’t looking for KAPOW. This is a really nice pot of tea to accompany my breakfast. Like soft happy music versus rock and roll blasting at a party.

I must say – the package is marked two ounces but I didn’t think that was accurate. After making tea several times I dumped out the leaves on a scale and it said there were two ounces still. They must be very, very generous in their weighing, as Vanilla Rose Chai was the same way. Schweel.

July Sipdown Prompt – a fruity tea

Sipdown

We have really blown through this one. It is really good iced and I have made the final pitcher of it today to get us through this long, incredibly hot weekend.

We enjoyed it a lot as a hot breakfast tea but the fruit flavors begged to be tasted as iced tea, too. It made an excellent iced tea. I didn’t cold steep it, I made it hot and chilled it. The tea base is the star and the fruit flavors are a great bonus, but they don’t take over and eclipse the tea itself.

June Sipdown Prompt – a peachy tea

Another from Youngest – many thanks!

I actually had this yesterday morning rather early. Neither Ashman nor myself slept much Saturday night due to revenge bedtime procrastination. My brother had called and asked to meet for breakfast near the interstate as he and his wife travel to Charleston for a little vacation. We are so accustomed to eating at home – early – that I made a pot of tea and took some biscotti to the backyard for a pre-breakfast warm up.

This is just made for being a breakfast tea. Everyone knows what I mean when I say it has that classic tea flavor that hangs in there after you swallow it? We drank it plain but it would be great with milk and sugar, however it doesn’t need it.

Having it hot and plain, the vanilla is the first aroma that translates to taste for me. There is peach and apricot but nowhere near the high-note punch of Harney Apricot or their Midsummer’s Peach, which you smell from a distance. (I love all of them. No judgment, they are just different.) The fruit flavors here are toward the darker, baked side rather than candy-like. Liked it well enough to have again today for breakfast as it just seemed like what my brain was in the mood for.

I bet it would make an awesome sweet iced tea and I have enough to give that a try. Will update soon.

Strong Berry taste; slightly tangy – acidic, but in a good way.
Not much “classic” tea flavor here – definitely an herbal and not a blend.
I got this as a tiny 2 cup sampler, so it must be available as of Dec 2023.

A Very light black tea, not harsh at all, some carmelly flavors, actually very nice.

A nice Thai-spicy tea, some cinnamon and cardamom, not sharp.

A Nice black tea with smooth vanilla taste, but not overpowering.

This one is nice but I think I still prefer the vanilla rose chai from them to this one. This one reminds me a bit of a tea from Stash with vanilla and spices.

Oops, I apparently never reviewed this tea before! Now I’m doing a sipdown, cold-brewed. It’s licorice-forward, and I love how the other flavors come together to support it. I loved it hot-steeped and love it as a cold brew too. I’m glad to see Portal Tea still makes it! I remember hearing they changed their name from Tea Chai Te, wonder how long ago that was.

Excellent tea, would buy again!

There’s a lot that I like about this tea. The flavors are all ones I enjoy and make for a chai-like taste. There are spices, cinnamon, and some notes of citrus. Overall, this could have been an amazing tea, but sadly I just wasn’t a fan of the overwhelming sweetness that seemed to completely overpower everything else in this tea. Was the blend dipped in sugar prior to packaging? It sure tastes like it. I’m not big on sweet tea to begin with, but this honestly tasted as though I’d dropped several tablespoons of sugar into the water. Definitely feels like a missed opportunity.

I pulled this out the other day when I was having some bad digestive trouble, since a ginger/pu-erh combo seemed good for that. I like ginger, but I’m also a bit spice sensitive, and the level of ginger in this blend was waaaaaaaaaaay too strong for me. The ginger burned the whole way down, I couldn’t even taste the pu’erh. I dumped a bunch of honey into the cup and it still was too strong for me.

I’ve managed to finish off the package by making liter pitchers of iced tea, using about half the amount of leaf that I would normally use for that amount of brew, a few ample teaspoons of honey, and adding carbonation to give it more of a fizzy ginger soda feel.

The ginger here is just too strong for me and I won’t be getting this again. But I do think the strong ginger and pu’erh is a good choice for digestive troubles for those that can handle the heat of lots of ginger.

Advent Tea!
I didn’t steep it long enough for the first steep and it came out rather weak. The second steep for about 10 minutes is mostly clove and cardamom with a lingering vanilla aftertaste. Not the chai for me, but thanks for sending it, Lexie.

Advent tea!
This one is nicely creamy vanilla with a base that isn’t bitter or astringent. A nice addition to the holiday season to remind me of baking and vanilla flavored cookies. Thanks for sending it Lexie!

Advent Tea!
This is very smooth and slightly berry flavored. A nice easy drinking cuppa that seems to be mostly gone already. Maybe there’s a sage or mint note at the end? Interesting enough that I might need this one in my cupboard.

Advent tea!
I’m not a big peach fan, but I do like apricot, and I’m glad that apricot has a distinct flavor here. The vanilla didn’t show up in either steep, and there was a medicinal aftertaste in the first steep. I’m glad I went for steep #2 because it was much better, no lingering aftertaste and a much smoother finish. With the peach in there it’s never going to be a favorite but I’m glad Lexie sent some for me to try!

I find myself missing Portal Tea’s old name (Tea Chai Te). The packaging on this tea still has its old name. I’m trying to use up the samples of a bunch of their teas I have. This was a nice chai. I like that you can taste the rose but it’s not an overly floral chai either. The vanilla helps balance the rose. I’m a big fan of rose and this was nice to sip on while studying.

I can’t believe I haven’t left a review for this yet… I originally bought this tea on a vacation to Portland in 2019 to help combat the really nasty taste of a nasal spray medication that would drip down my throat with the strong cinnamon candy flavor. I stopped taking that medication, and then the package sort of sat at the back of my cupboard until I realized how old it is now…

I really love this tea. I’m not sure if there is a lot that differentiates it from the thousand other “Red Hot cinnamon candy” tasting teas out there, but it is at least on a nice full leaf black base. I actually like their Rooibos version even more than this one (because I think the sweet cinnamon flavor accompanies the rooibos well and is something I crave after caffeine-cut-off time), but this is a solid morning tea and one I like equally as much hot and cold.

I will definitely have to restock this and the rooibos version at some point!