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“I really want to try brewing this in milk. TO date, all my chai’s are simply brewed with water, which means i feel like i’m missing out on a whole other world of chai. Nik will need to come teach...” Read full tasting note
“Yummy! and just water I needed after walking in the pouring rain and being very cold :D I’m warming up now though :D” Read full tasting note
“This weekend is the big Bohemian Night’s Festival in Fort Collins and I have never gone downtown to see what all the fuss is about. I imagined a nice little downtown affair with some street vendors...” Read full tasting note
“I can’t believe I’ve been through 2 ounces of this and haven’t logged it yet! This is hands down my favorite chai at this point. I taste all the spices and they blend together well, but I also...” Read full tasting note
This chai is grown in South India and contains cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, and pepper for an exotic flavor that has a hint of earthiness.
Recommended Brew Time: 5 minutes
Recommended Amount: 1 1/2 teaspoons of tea for 8oz of water
Recommended Temperature: 195 F
Company description not available.
I really want to try brewing this in milk. TO date, all my chai’s are simply brewed with water, which means i feel like i’m missing out on a whole other world of chai. Nik will need to come teach me the way of the chai lol As far as Chai’s go, this one is pretty well suited to my tastes. It’s not tooo spicy and nor is the cinnamon the overpowering flavour.
This weekend is the big Bohemian Night’s Festival in Fort Collins and I have never gone downtown to see what all the fuss is about. I imagined a nice little downtown affair with some street vendors and a stage with music much like there is every weekend.
I called my granddaughter, picked her up and we went to the event.
Neither of us had any idea that the whole downtown area was blocked off for blocks and blocks and blocks with 7 stages and huge amounts of food, drink and everything else imaginable.
We went for tea of course and Schey had her first Macha Latte, and later we ate bacon, raspberry waffles from the Waffle Lab truck. It was sublime.
This morning, my wake-up tea was a revisit of Butiki’s Premium Chai.
Oodles (great word) of spice just crying for cream and sweetening.
(I happen to think that this Chai is BEST with additions especially some kind of milk!)
Whatever your day will be. Mowing a lawn, paying bills, riding a bike or walking for hours at a community festival, a great spicy Chai wakes you up and kicks your butt with just enough caffeine to get you going without making your stomach angry. This is a nice little Chai from a great lady (Stacy)!
I had a sample of this and loved it! The next time I get some money I’m buying quite a bit of it :D
oh wow that sounds like a blast! raspberry waffless… perhaps a challenge for Frank? (52teas)
Sounds like fun!
Yep Amy reminded me of California. I was told that some lady in Real Estate who owns a LOT pays for the whole thing!!! Tonight one of the free STAGES is The Gipsy Kings.
I can’t believe I’ve been through 2 ounces of this and haven’t logged it yet!
This is hands down my favorite chai at this point. I taste all the spices and they blend together well, but I also taste the tea. I make it with nonfat half-and-half at a ratio of 2:1 cream to water and about 1/4 cup sugar for 3 cups of liquid. When I feel especially wicked, I use regular half-and-half! And then sit around groaning about my full tummy after guzzling an entire pot. :)
Oh, how I love chais. It’s been a bit hit or miss with them lately other than perhaps Chandernaggor from Mariage Frères, so I had high hopes for this one. It’s definitely a chai – I can taste the ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, perhaps cardamom. The base is just lovely, and it adds depth and a cocoa-ish note to the brew. I do wish however that there was more spice in here, and I’ll have to try it brewed IN cream next time, to see how the flavors change. Steeped it a bit shy of the instructions (five minutes, 212F) because I’m finding I prefer almost all of my blacks at a lower temperature and less steep time.
EDIT: Darn it, I underleafed! It needs 1.5 tsp per 8oz. Okay, well, I can see how this would make it more up my alley than it already is. I’ll likely order some whenever I grab the copious amount of Birthcake Cake reblend.
Thank you to Stacy at Butiki for sharing a sample of this with me to try it out!
1.5 tsp in 12oz with a touch of cream and sweetener.
Flavors: Cinnamon, Cocoa, Nutmeg
Time to finally use try my sample of this. Dry, this is heavy on the cinnamon, like whiffing a bag of cinnamon bark. I also detect the clove and a bit of the ginger but no cardamom?
By the way, I am SUPER picky about chai. There’s a chai bar back at home that makes the best chai ever. They make their blends with 30+ spices imported from India so it’s mighty hard to beat.
This is one of the better chais that I have tasted considering. The cinnamon is the prominent note, followed by a hint of ginger. The cloves are faint, and the cardamom is practically non-existant. No pepper.
With vanilla soy and brown sugar it’s smooth. I would definitely consider buying this whenever I’m craving chai at home, especially since I can’t go to my beloved chai bar.
I would like to thank Stacy for providing, at my request, a sample of this with my order. As I’m still searching for my chai (I used to say “the perfect chai” but really, what is that?) I decided to try what I hoped was one of the better ones and asked Stacy for a sample.
The spices do indeed blend together nicely. There’s no overpowering clove as was the case with most, if not all, chais I’ve had but I’m beginning to wonder if chais are intended to be steeped in milk. As much as I enjoyed the flavour of this one, it seemed to be lacking a certain something. Maybe a stronger base? But not too strong or astringent. I’m mucking this up. You see, I have never had a chai that blew me away (there was one that came close) so I can’t quite put my finger on what it is I’m looking for. You’ve been there, right? Maybe not with tea, maybe with something else. You’re looking for something, you’re not sure what it is but when you find it, Booyah!
This one was definitely made with the intention of using a lot of sugar and milk. After we finish the last of this batch we are looking to work on a new chai but I am having a difficult time figuring out which direction to take it in. I think chai is a little difficult since everyone seems to be looking for something different.
@Butiki Teas — when you have a new one ready I’ll likely be trying. I wouldn’t mind having more to play with. Most ones I’ve had are not even worth playing around with, but this one I like the flavour itself. I think I just need it stronger so I can try playing with the leaf a little.
Nxtdoor-We definitely tend to put our brewing parameters towards the lighter side. Glad you are enjoying the flavor.
I love chai but am pretty picky about it. I like them very spicy, but not heavily cloved, and I want to be able to taste the tea. This is a great chai. It’s not as spicy as I normally like them (I love hot spicy chais). But it’s a got a great mix of spices and none of them crowd out the others. Yum!
I got a sample of this one a long long time ago and finally had the presence of mind to steep it up today. There is enough there for two cuppas so I have half of it in a filter bag as that stuff looks too fine for my filter. I hate when floaties escape into my tea!
The aroma is fairly strong with cinnamon dominating. Cinnamon isn’t my favourite part of a chai but I do appreciate the necessity, so on we forge. I went through a mega chai phase about two years ago but really lost my taste for it somewhere since then. I am not sure what happened, though I suspect I put too much milk in it at some point and it was ruined by association. I am not a milk drinker and never have been. Blech.
Steeped, I get cinnamon in taste and burn, with some gingery/nutmeggy baking type flavours. There is a bit of heat, but I am not really getting the cardamom which sometimes balances chai out for me. The black tea base is also pretty assertive. I know it is blasphemous, but I don’t really like assams and the ilk. Their strength of flavour is interpreted by my tongue as bitterness, even with the most careful treatment. Then it needs milk, which I don’t like. Hmm, I guess I just figured out why I don’t like chai. :)
Anyway, this is a perfectly respectable chai and if you are a chai fan it will likely impress you. This might make a good latte (which interestingly I do enjoy, if it isn’t too milk heavy) but that is beyond my skills. I’ll just keep sipping.
I agree that steeping in milk is really a whole different world of Chai. And most are really wonderful with the right honey. I tried clover and orange blossom and like those. Wild flower honey wasn’t as good.
oooh orange blossom honey… mmmm man that sounds good!
Sil, I’ve just been playing around, and what I’ve discovered is that I can’t really mess up chai. What I do is bring milk (cow, non-cow, whatever you drink) and water to a boil (maybe two parts water to one part milk? I just guess), then add tea and sugar. I let it simmer for a few minutes (3-5ish for black, 6-8ish for rooibos or honeybush) and then strain it into my mug. A couple of minutes here and there, a little more or less tea, it really doesn’t matter too much (meaning that nothing I’ve done has resulted in something undrinkable).
Hope that helps! =)
Oh, and I much prefer sugar (the brown granules—raw, turbinado, Demerara, whatever) to any kind of honey in chai. But everyone’s tastes are different, so try everything out and go with whatever works for you!
I tend to like my chai brewed with half-and-half or fat free half-and-half. I like the creaminess it adds. However, it does seem to mute the spices somewhat (I use 2 parts milk to 1 part water) so I use about twice the tea that I would normally. I’ve also found at least with Butiki that if I steep in this method, I can leave the tea steeping for the time it takes to drink an entire pot and it doesn’t get a bit bitter at all. I can also usually get a second pot, though it isn’t as strong.
Nice! More stuff to try, thanks Nicole! =)