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“The Virginia weather has already begun its maddening oscillations between crisply chilly and damply warm. This typically begins some time during mid-September. I find myself waking up to a...” Read full tasting note
“Had another one of our chai outings with my coworkers today. This chai is so different than any other chai I’ve had. It’s really sweet. Makes me wonder how much sweetener they add, but it’s...” Read full tasting note
“I am sampling this Masala Chai thanks to the benevolence of LORI. I agree with her note that this is a smooth Chai with no one spice predominating. I think it is very well crafted and spicy. If...” Read full tasting note
“This is still one strong chai. I still have yet to make a chai w/the traditional water/milk/boiling technique. And this is one blend that would be perfect for that. No one flavor predominates...” Read full tasting note
Origin: Black tea from Yunnan, China. Spices from United States.
Flavor Profile: Broad flavors of cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, clove, and other ancient secret spices… Our chai is rich and balanced. Subtly sweet- even without the addition of milk and sugar. When prepared traditionally (simmered in milk with sugar) our masala chai is full-flavored, spicy, sweet, creamy, and deep.
Tea Story: Samovar’s Masala Chai has people from all over the Bay Area coming for that cozy, creamy, and dreamy experience. Our secret masala chai recipe was created from a combination of several collected family recipes from across India.We use only organic whole spices and organic, fair trade whole-leaf black tea. The resulting drink is a perfect and flavorful balance of spice and tea… and totally addictive.
Masala is Hindi for “spice” and Chai means “tea”- so Masala Chai simply means “Spiced Tea.”
And now, wherever you are you can take our chai with you.
Samovarian Poetry: Spicy, creamy, and everything nice. Who doesn’t love chai? Cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, cloves…just add whole milk or rice milk and some raw cane sugar!
Food Pairing: Pair Samovar’s Masala Chai with Indian food of course! Here at the tea lounge, we’ll drink it while nibbling on turmeric flavored cookies and cakes or savoring tofu curry over basmati rice. Sip on our chai while enjoying a chocolate pastry so the chocolate goodness can mingle with the vibrant spices and sweet creaminess in your mouth. Yum.
Samovar's is dedicated to preserving the simplicity and integrity of the tea traditions and inspiring people to practice peace through drinking tea.
This was very creamy, smooth, and yummy. I have to admit, it had more of a peppery or spicy bite than I was expecting, and I almost didn’t like it as first, but it grew on me.
I had samples of this, so I don’t know if it says this on the larger package but my sample mentioned that I should add another tbsp of black tea to the package. And honestly, I found this a little disapointing of them. Samovar charges some of the higher prices out there for their sample sizes, and to have them provide a sample that you then are supposed to add more tea to yourself? It felt a little cheap. If they want to offer the possibility for higher or lower caffiene, I’d personally prefer that they just offer two different blends. But that’s me.
But in general, this was pretty darned yummy.
Samovar stovetop in my Breville.
Add Sugar, tea and 1000 ml water
3 Minutes at 212
Add Milk 200 ml milk (2%)
1 Minute are 212
5 Minutes at 160
This is working out really well
Whoa whoa whoa. I am blown away by this! This tastes VERY oily and salty, with a bit of pepper. It reminds me of eating duck in Paris. I only drank this tonight because I’m out of almost everything else and I’m drinking it like most other teas. Not the traditional preparation with milk (which now I know I’ll love even more). Gotta make this the real way tomorrow…
Wait… huh? Salty…?
Yeah, I didn’t do the whole milk thing. I probably will tomorrow because I know it’s supposed to taste like chocolate milk. I used hot water, steeped for 3 minutes, and it tasted incredibly salty and oily. The second cup was much tamer, much more smooth.
Interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever had this without milk. I’ll need to try that sometime.
The entire time it was cooking, I couldn’t help but hover over the saucepan taking deep breaths. It smelled amazing!!!
I followed Samovar’s directions exactly. Two cups of water and one tablespoon of Truvia went into my saucepan. I brought it to a boil and added the entire Samovar Chai sample and one bag of Twining’s English Breakfast. It boiled for 10 minutes. I then removed the Twining’s bag because I was afraid it would become too bitter. But I left in the Samovar Chai sample and added one cup of whole milk. I brought the mixture to a boil and immediately removed it from heat (I have an electric stove) and covered it. I returned 10 minutes later and strained out the tea and spices.
Finally, it was time to taste it! Mmm, good but not what I expected. The aroma is MUCH stronger than the taste. It’s still delicious, but it also tastes kind of diluted. It’s missing that piquance I get in the Starbucks Chai Tea Latte.
I really thought this would be the perfect chai tea. The spices in the aroma are lovely, strong, and intoxicating. The spices in the taste are significantly lighter and more in the background.
The lacking black tea base didn’t bother me. Samovar gives you mostly spices, and I think that’s a pro. You can add whatever black tea you want to it, making an infinite number of chai tea possibilities.
But I wish the taste was as fantastic as the aroma. Truly, the aroma of these spices could not be better. I wonder why it doesn’t translate into the taste better. Maybe there’s a better way to cook it. Perhaps I did something wrong? Lots of other Steepster users describe this as spicy, strong, peppery, and almost chewy. But I’m getting a pretty light cup of spices myself.
For that reason, I’m giving this tea a little bit lower of a rating. But I would still recommend it because maybe someone else can figure out the best way to prepare it. Others definitely do seem to get more out of it than me.
I had a Samovar chai day at work today. I kept the same leaves in my infusor and resteeped several times, accidentally infusing for about 1/2 hour for one of the steeps. This worked really well for an easy chai, giving a mild black tea flavour, with a tasty cinnamony spice. I don’t really like the stovetop method for this chai because I don’t like a stewed tea taste. I prefer Up N Atom for a stove top chai because it’s spicy enough to mask the stewed tea. I really like the Samovar chai for standard brewing though.
Cooking this up now. Makes the house smell amazing! I’ll be sure to edit this after I’ve tried tasting it. I predict it’s going to taste just as wonderful, if not better, than it smells.
This is my second cup. Let’s say I was used to just brew my chai just like any other tea: Aprox 7 min, whip a little milk just to release the barista in me, add honey & ready. Tried this with the first cup & wasn’t pretty good. Today I followed the instructions & turned out perfect. I was a bit lazy but the result it’s pretty much worth it. The only thing that I’m confused about it that if this blend already has the black tea in it, the instructions says to add 1/2 tspn of your fave black blend, may be to add a little strength? but for me the amount of black in the blend is perfect. So far I’m liking Samovar teas a lot.
