Auburn

Sipdown! (28 | 28)

So I seem to like this more than a lot of the other reviewers.

Yeah, it has a lot of stuff in it, and I’m sure I’m not tasting all of it. But I don’t really find it muddled. To me, the spices are the main flavors, and I can taste mostly the cardamom, ginger, black pepper, and a bit of clove. The vanilla sort of rounds out the edges and adds a touch of creaminess. And then I can taste the elderberry in the background, giving a hint of dark and jammy berry that I actually really like with the spices.

This last cup is a tad heavy on the black pepper, so I guess there must’ve been some dust at the bottom of the pouch. But in general, I quite enjoyed this blend and I could see it being nice in the fall and winter as an herbal chai option, or a mix-in for other teas.

Sipdown: Indian tea- a chai

Second to last sipdown for this month’s sipdown themes. I am not sure if i will be able to finish my 100 g bag of watermelon sorbet from dessert by deb in time so I may just switch over to 52teas watermelon raspberry. Then i can enjoy some more cold brews from deb for a little longer.

I just went to a japanese market called ebisu that opened in the Mall of America recently. I found out that they were selling a small amount of lupicia tea there. The line was pretty long for this market so i didn’t buy anything yet but i am excited to get to try some lupicia more locally. Such a cool find for the midwest.

Preparation: Western
Tasting note: I really like this chai, it still has this slightly sweet, slightly smoked flavor to it. Like a really good vanilla liquor. (Bourbon, whiskey?) It’s been pretty good on my stomach too.

Is there any better time for tea, which was labeled from derk “if you dare” than now, when my senses are muted somehow?

I think not.

Visually, this tea looks very nice. I saw cardamom pods, some ginger pieces and lots of small seeds and other small particles that I have no idea to recognize what are they.

Anyway, I used only one teaspoon of the blend and used boiling water. The result wasn’t that perfect as I have thought. It was somehow muddy mess of all spices together. I noticed mostly the spices I have recognized — ginger and cardamom, but it was on same level as other spices. Nothing of cacao or _vanilla, nor the fruits. I know, that my taste buds are not working correctly, but anyway…

It lacks any base too. I mean, it is fairly nice blend of spices… but as there are that many different spices, none of them were really prominent and making the base. Maybe, the second teaspoon I have in the pouch, I will try with some basic black tea.

This sample kindly came from Derk

I love the smell of both the dry and wet tea leaf.
Unfortunately taste wise there is a little too much going on. It’s quite heavy on the spices and the balance just isn’t there. I’ve had a chai tea that tasted almost exactly like this but also smelled really good. I can’t remember which one it was though. Perhaps it’s meant to be taken with milk? Glad to have gotten the chance to try it though. I’d much prefer drinking a chai like this with a bit too much spice/competing flavors than a black tea chai with a bitter base.

Sipdown and glad to have this out of my stash.

Less mustardy than the other times but still too much going on. 16 ingredients with no flavorings added. The goji-elderberry-caceo-vanillla combination weirds me out.

This is probably my least favorite of the Chroma blends I’ve tried. The goji/elderberry fruitiness is just not working with the heavy spices. The cinnamon, ginger, black peppercorn, and clove are most distinct, with the fruit lingering in the aftertaste. I was hoping to taste the cypress oil, but alas.

I was watching RuPaul’s drag race last night and one of the pieces of feedback a contestant received from the judges was that her looks weren’t edited enough. They gave the example of taking two things off before hitting the runway, to improve the overall look. That’s how I feel about this tea. It’s a little like Chroma just tossed all the ingredients they had on hand into one blend and the result is a very muddy kind of cup of tea where really none of the ingredients get enough space to actually come through in the taste. It’s just a sort of earthy and spicy mess of a blend.