Pumpkin Spice Chai

I’ve been meaning to review this tea for days! I am stereotypically drawn to anything pumpkin spice, and when you add that to another one of my favorite things, which is chai, I get excited.

Anyway, this smells delightful. Bright ginger, warm cinnamon, spicy clove and something very sweet like a dessert. I can see large pieces of cinnamon bark mixed into the black tea, whole cloves, and something round and seed-like that I can’t identify. Neat! As it steeps, the clove scent really comes out and combines with the cinnamon. It smells a lot like Constant Comment! (I mean that affectionately.)

Once it was ready, I added a tiny splash of 1% milk and some of the organic sugar Just Organic Tea provided in my sampler. Now, I generally use zero-calorie monk fruit sweetener. So having real sugar in my chai is a bit of a treat for me. As I sip it, I find it a little mild for my taste. I can taste a hint of the pumpkin flavor, and it’s nice, but not as much in the forefront as I would have liked. Same with the spices. Overall, I like it, but I would need to double or triple-up on the amount of leaf I’d use.

WAHH! My sample of Pumpkin Chai spice had 5 whole cloves in it! A whole lump of all spice too. All this in one serving of tea. I predicted I was in for a spice ride and turned out to be so.

Super clovey! Cinnamon, ginger too! Very spicy. This chai is at that level of really spicy line before stepping into firey kind of spicy.

Other than the mega spice, the end of sip there is a smooth pumpkin flavor, similar to the pie, which is nice. The aftertaste is pumpkin pie (with generous spices). The pumpkin here is very nice.

I could see this tea being a great latte which would tone down the spice.

Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/just-organic-tea-oolong-owl-tea-review/

I got my wish, several hours of Minecraft later and I feel quite happy. My castle is coming along nicely, all the external infrastructure is complete and all I have left is decorating and landscaping. So far my favorite thing about my build is the huge vaulted ceiling about the throne room, the massive arched road to the castle, and of course, the inside arboretum and waterfall. I think my next build should be a conservatory inside a hollowed out mountain, I just wish Minecraft on the Xbox had all the plant varieties that the PC did, maybe with the next update?

Today’s tea is the last of the set of samples that Just Organic Tea sent me to review, the Pumpkin Spice Chai! A blend of Black Tea, Ginger, Cinnamon, Cloves, Nutmeg, and Allspice. The aroma is quite yummy and evocative of autumn. The allspice and ginger are the most prominent aroma with the cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg dancing around in the background, and there is a nice malty undertone. It blends the spices with bright black tea aroma that is nothing short of mouthwatering.

Brewing the tea brings all the spices into a perfect balance, I always like when my teas are balanced in their spice aromas, it reminds me of a good piece of classical music. Besides the spice blend there is the aroma of malt and gentle sweetness. The liquid is warm and spicy, well balanced but the allspice stands out a little stronger than the rest, there is also a mild sweetness in the aroma from the spices.

Tasting time! As per tradition this chai is made with cream and sugar giving it an extra richness and sweetness, I found I only needed a little sugar since it is sweet already from the spices. Speaking of spices they are wonderful, being both strong and mellow. Allspice and cinnamon are the dominant spices with the others not far behind, they cause the tea to have a warm and slightly tingly mouthfeel so it is like being hugged on the inside. The base tea is smooth and malty with a slight hint of woodiness that blends well with the spices. This is an exquisite chai and certainly my favorite tea that I tried from Just Organic Tea.

For photos and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/02/just-organic-tea-pumpkin-spice-chai-tea.html

Sipdown! Although technically not because it wasn’t in my cupboard yet. The look of the dry tea is good: the spice chunks are much larger than I expected. It also smells really spicy, which is a good start.

The taste of this is intensely spiced. For me this is a good thing, but for people who don’t like cloves and ginger I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s not a sweet spice tea at all, so it stands up well to sugar, and when I added a little milk it became the closest thing to pumpkin pie tea I’ve had. This was a great cup to wake up with!

I feel super bad I didn’t get to this one and the Oothu Black during the Kickstarter for Just Organic Tea, but I’ve been really kind of failing at life all over the place lately. So there’s that.

There were whole chunks of cinnamon and clove in the little sample, so I was expecting something kinda spicy. Unfortunately with a bit of milk and sugar, I ended up finding this kind of lacking in that area. The pumpkin flavor is tasty; it’s very much like pumpkin pie, but I think if I were to drink this again I would have to double or triple the amount of leaf to hit the amount of flavor and spice I would typically want in a chai.

Sipdown (203/206)!

So I guess I unknowingly saved the best Just Organic Tea sample for last! I’m not really a chai fan so I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this one, but it was really good and really pleasant.

I will start by saying that if you don’t like cloves then this probably isn’t going to be your cup of tea, because cloves were probably the dominating flavour. Personally, I love cloves so I was tickled pink that they were so prominent (Cloves and Fennel are what really sell a Chai for me). It definitely doesn’t hurt that the pumpkin was also nice and sweet and smooth and pretty darn present too. And just a touch of sweet maltiness.

Honestly, I like this better than DT’s highly revered Pumpkin Chai, and once I’m done what I have left of that one I can see myself opting for this instead.

Also, if you haven’t done so you should really check out Just Organic Tea’s Kickstarter Campaign, which will be drawing to a close in about a week. Maybe consider backing them, since they’re only about half way to their goal. Hey, you could even get some of their teas – which have all been quite impressive (especially this one and Oothu Black).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/justorganictea/just-organic-tea-the-very-best-tea-delivered

Just had my first cup of hot tea from Just Organic Tea. I had the Pumpkin Spice Chai and it was really good. Very smooth with no grainy aftertaste. It also was a good balance of spices. Looking forward to more!