Snuggle up, kiddies. It’s storytime.
When I lived in Whitehorse, Yukon, there was a coffee place called Midnight Sun Coffee Roasters. I didn’t care much for their lattes or their coffee, what with working pretty much full time at a very large competitor, but they had one option on their menu: the Chocolate Chai. I think it was either a chai latte made with steamed chocolate milk, or just regular milk with chocolate syrup, but MAN, OH, MAN, I could slam those things back.
One morning, on my way to work, there were a lot of sirens, a lot of smoke and a lot of flickering orange light coming from the vicinity of Midnight Sun*. The second-hand furniture store it was attached to had had an electrical shortage and the whole building burnt to the ground. The joke at my work became that their only blend of coffee after that was House Blend. Ha ha.
A lot of people asked me, jokingly, if I was the arsonist.
Absolutely not! I was a certifiable Chocolate Chai addict!
And I tell you what: there was absolutely no recreating that beverage at my coffee shop. No, sir.
It was something special to Midnight Sun Coffee Roasters and Midnight Sun Coffee Roasters alone…
Until now.
The smell coming off of Chocolate Chili Chai is almost EXACTLY the smell that you’d get off of that perfection of a beverage. But with something a little zingy, a little bit stingy. A tiny aspect of danger in the nose. Chili! Who would have thought that you could take this ambrosia and include one simple unusual spice and make it so much better! I’m desperate to make this with steamed milk one day, and let it steep for like 10-15 minutes. Then I’ll froth the living daylights out of it and hide in my garden shed where people will only be able to find me by following the sound of Mmm… mmm… mmm…
Thanks for listening, children!
