Pure Chai

This tea cranks the cinnamon into overdrive and the flavour deepens with every passing minute. I love me some strong, spicy, delectable chai, and this tea falls into such a craving category. Steep it long, steep it hot, sip it slow, make it last = recipe for chai perfection. I once used this in a vegan bread recipe, instead of plain ol’ water I used the water from steeped pure chai, turned out wonderfully!

When you open up the tea canister (or bag), the fragrant spices jump at you. The flavors really come out when you brew it as well. It’s not a black tea with mind flavoring, the cinnamon and nutmeg really come out.
I’d recommend a fine mesh infuser or tea bags, because there are small bits of spice that can sneak out.

I started drinking bagged chai tea that was no name and fell in love. A little bit of milk and sugar. Yummmmm. So of course when i started drinking David’s tea I wanted chai again. I tried this first, assuming pure would mean close to what I’m used to. Boy was I wrong! If you took a bag of those cheap valentines day cinnamon hearts, you know the ones, take those and melt them down. Close to this. Probably spot on. I’ve tried everything! Making it weak, milk, everything. And it’s just put cinnamon, not pure chai.. Disappointed in this one and still can’t find a chai I like from David’s

I’ve had so many varieties of Chai tea over the years but never one that’s been called “pure”, it will be interesting to see how DT’s version stands up to others that I’ve had.

Dry this tea smells like cinnamon… I really can’t detect (or even see) any cloves in there so I’m really hoping that they come out in the flavor profile otherwise I’m going to be highly disappointed. The cinnamon even manages (to me) to overpower the black tea base, which is unfortunate as many other Chai’s that I’ve had the spice is the complement to the tea not the predominant aroma/flavor.

That said it brews up a lovely deep red-brown color and though the main aroma was still filled with cinnamon it was more subtle then what was present in the dry tea. The cloves are a very faint scent at this time and I was also able to pick out the black tea as well.

Flavor wise… it’s not the most impressive chai that I’ve ever had. The first thing that hits me is cinnamon which would be fine if there wasn’t so much of it drowning out the other flavors. I still can’t quite pick out the distinct clove flavors and the black tea is just “there” it doesn’t really stand on its own enough to really say much about it. It does have a pretty good mouth feel though, warm, full and a bit dry on the end notes exactly like a decent black tea should be.

In the end it’s not bad if you don’t mind cinnamon but I don’t really find this tea much to write home about.

OH MY GOD. For the past few days I’ve been sampling multiple kinds of tea, and was becoming disapointed in my search for REALLY good teas.

Upon tasting this, my eyes widened and I frantically began to look for my baggy because I wanted to verify the name. If it wasn’t 10:09 pm, I’d run into a David’s tea and buy their entire ‘pure chai.’ YUMMMMMMM.

PS- it has a slight chocolatey taste which i assume is the nutmeg but the cinnamon is definitely in there too, SO GOOD.

i love chai tea and this one is pretty good. Similar to something I was once served when visiting a lovely elder Indian woman in a foreign country. She made the tea blends herself with fresh spices and served it with loads of sugar. This tea is pretty good, probably better than the Tazo chai they serve at starbucks had before. It is very spicy, however there is a certain…mustyness? woody-ness? to it. i’m not sure how to describe it exactly, but it leaves a flat taste on your tongue. I think this is from the fresh cinnamon bark. I like to drink it with a bit of milk and a lot of sweetener (either sugar or agave nectar- whatever is available) i would recommend this to anyone looking for an authentic chai tea experience. :)

Pulled this sampler that I believe I received a few years ago in a cupboard sale from Ost (thanks Ost!) for my afternoon tea. The idea was to make it chai style with milk, but when I opened the 5g foil packet, the leaf smelled so strongly of that Red Hot candies cinnamon it gave me the impression this was less a “pure chai” (my brain reads = traditional Masala) and more of yet another “Hot Cinnamon Spice” blend. Then I looked at the ingredients and saw it only has cinnamon and cloves with natural flavoring. Since I normally prepare “hot cinnamon spice/Market Spice” type teas straight, the milk idea was quickly ditched.

And… it just tastes like a cinnamon candy tea. Honestly, I’m not even picking up on any clove. The black base is a bit more malty/bready than I typically get in these kind of teas, where the cinnamon flavoring usually completely whallops over it, but I’m not sure if that was by design or by flavoring degradation from age (I have no idea how old this sampler packet may be now, as I have no idea how old it may have been before Ost moved it onto me in 2018). So… pretty meh. The name was misleading for what I got, and what I got was a less-than-stellar version of a flavor profile I’ve had done way better from other teas. But I’ll still have no problem finishing the large mug over the course of the afternoon, and now I’ve cleaned another sampler out of the ol’ drawer.

Pure chai more like pure cinnamon amirite?

If you like cinnamon heart candies, you will love this tea. I on the other hand hate cinnamon heart candies.

25Mar- So much cinnamon in this tea. It just overpowers everything. Hint of clove. Very strong – needs milk and sugar to smooth out taste. Milk definitely smooths out overabundance of cinnamon present. Perhaps not so much of a chai,a very cinnamony tea. Made my stomach somewhat upset after drinking. 70

A sample of this turned up. It’s probably ancient.

Never mind. Quite tasty in a cinnamon black tea kind of way.

I’m not a big fan of cinnamon, but this is the good kind of cinnamon.

The cinnamon is punchier than the base. A glug of milk makes this rather tasty for a slow day.

Grateful that this doesn’t contain anise.