Chai

The weather is evil and I am so glad I don’t have to go to work today!

And now I’m sipping this warming tea. The spices here are very unassuming and what you mostly get upfront is the biting bitterness of the base. The bitter stays with you for a while, but it’s kind of pleasant and adds to this tea’s complexity. I am guessing that it would taste great with honey and milk but I rarely add anything to my teas, so I’m having it plain.

Got this as part of an order from Harney that consisted strictly of a bunch of samples.

This wasn’t quite what I expected, but I think with some playing around it could easily become one of my favorite chai options.

It is not what I would consider typical chai, and I suppose Harney probably doesn’t consider it to be typical chai either. Rather, as someone else noted, it’s a flavored black — there are no bits and pieces of spice or dried fruit or additive here; the tea consists of little black-tea crumbles that remind me of grape nuts, if grape nuts were the color of black tea, and smaller. I was concerned that preparing this in the traditional way — in a pot on the stove, first in hot, sweetened water and then with milk, 1:1 — would ruin the tea, subsequently, and I wasn’t right, but I wasn’t entirely wrong. Despite not being populated with a slew of additional ingredients, the spice profile here seems to come through the milk just fine, and in a balanced, appealing way. In fact, my favorite thing about this tea so far is how balanced the spices actually are…far too often I’m finding chais that club you over the head with cardamom.

That said, I think the little pieces of black tea did not hold up well to being scorched by the hot water, as there’s a faint bitter-sourness to be had. Not enough to be unpleasant — this is still a good cup of tea — but enough to wave a little flag up at me that says ‘hey, jerk, that was a little bit too hot’.

The scent in the pot as the leaf sat in the hot water was not particularly strong. I think the solution to brewing this as a latte in a pot might be to increase the leaf but reduce heat and steep time for that concentrated flavor that holds up well against milk without turning bitter.

I think this one must be rather old or too aired out, because the flavour was really bland and disappointing.

Boo. CTC assam chai’s are some of my favourites (not that I have any, of course), and I had high hopes. I’ll probably pick up a sample size when I do an order, but so far this is not a must have.

This sample was from CrowKettle, who appears to have received it from Fiddling. :)

I was actually craving a chai today and then I forgot I had this little sample in my desk provided by the ever generous and lovely Jenn…

I think I learned something from my cinnamon spice experience with H & S, their flavor is strong so there is no need to overdo it. I believe I used about 1/2 tsb of this in 8 oz of hot water about 206 degrees.

This is a pretty good spicy chai type of tea. I did add my usual soymilk to mine and then after tasting it I felt the need to add some sugar which is kind of rare for me. On the website it says assam is used as the base for this. I am not picking up too much on the cinnamon or cardamom here and instead am getting a lot of clove and something else, I think perhaps it is black pepper. In any case, I like it but when it comes to chais I am partial to Rishi’s Masala Chai and West Cape Chai, they set the bar pretty high for me. :)

This came to me in a swap that I did with wheezybee over the summer. I saved a number of them because I felt they were more suited to my tastes during autumn. Guess what, autumn is officially here so it was time to bring these out to enjoy.

This tea steeped up nice and dark and filled the house with its spicy scent. I love the flavors associated with autumn, all the spices make my house smell wonderful. The tea itself wasn’t nearly as spicy as I had expected, this was more assam with a bit of spice, which left me wishing for just a little bit more.

This is one of the teas I got from Momo but I’d always been put off a bit by the dry smell – it was a lot more of an intense black than I would normally head towards, but I would feel like a ninny if I sent the whole thing off to swap without at least trying it once! Once it steeped, it remained intense but with a heavy hand on the Sugar in the Raw (2 tsp in 8oz!) and a dash of milk it was actually quite tasty – the black was still strong, but more of the chai flavor was brought out. It was a lot richer than the Zhena’s I had a little while back, with a fresher taste. A good start to the morning!

This is a delicious sample! I love the pellet like black tea. It smells spicy! Added milk and sugar to this tea because it is very strong and astringent without it.

Thanks Jes for sending me this sample! This chai smells sweeter than other chai teas. Well I over steeped it so I added a bit of honey to smooth over the bitterness. It’s spicy but it’s very light. But overall I think I ruined it D: It’s still enjoyable, it’s just more sweet from the honey than the spiciness I wanted.

Wow! I didn’t have high expectations for this tea because the aroma of the dry tea leaves was only moderately appealing to me. However, once I smelled the brewed leaves, I knew that something yummy was sitting in my cup! I really like how the flavors in this tea balance each other nicely. One sip tastes mostly of cinnamon, the next gives you a strong dose of cardamom, and so on. Oh so satisfying!

Did I really just drink a whole box of this and didn’t write any tea notes for it at all? Hmmm. Too busy drinking tea to write about them it seems. Lately it doesn’t feel like I’ve had time at all.

This is a really yummy chai. Slightly spicy. I just take mine with a little milk and no sugar. A perfect substitute for my hot chocolate cravings.