Moulin Rouge Chai

I am increasingly fond of this chai. There’s something remarkably uncommon about the smoke-laced depths of it. It still reminds me of re-enactment villages and antique shops, and the stony fire pits of the Anasazi…or maybe venerable old houses made of good, creaking wood, with big flagstone fireplaces.

Something about it smells almost undeniably feminine to me, too. I cannot for the life of me tell you what the reason for that might be; the tea doesn’t smell floral or sweet or fruity, but somewhere in the back of my mind, it sets off little bells of familiarity strong enough to warrant the thought.

It’s not the chai I reach for every day, but a definite ‘reorder me’ tea even so.

First off, it is hard for me to not like a chai when made the traditional way – I mean, lots of milk, lots of sugar, what’s not to like? At the same time, since making it that way takes so much longer, I rarely have chai. So I almost always like this type of tea and I almost never make it. But I’ve been looking forward to trying this smoky chai from sophistre for quite a while so today I finally mustered up the energy to make it.

I can’t say I would have pegged this as a smoky chai – though maybe that’s because I’ve been drinking Russian Caravan this morning – but there is a certain something in this that is really different and unique. An edge I’ve never gotten from chai before – it makes it a bit mysterious. And tasty. That little edge is addictive, too. I like tasting it.

I don’t think this is a dramatically different chai from most of the others out there, but at the same time, that little extra note (the smoke, I imagine) gives it a distinctiveness that I think any chai fan would appreciate.

Reading tea reviews always exhilarates me. Loose leaf tea is a uniquely subjective experience. There are differences to each person’s palette, and presumably variations in the individual blends that get packaged and shipped to each person.

Let me say that I enjoy this tea, and will probably by more. But my batch wasn’t mysterious or subtle. It didn’t hint at anything.

It was cloves. It was fill-up-the-room, make your tongue numb cloves.

I sit here today slightly amazed at how clove-y this tea truly is. The clove taste overpowered the tea flavor (not to mention the other spices). If you’ve ever found yourself smoking a clove cigarette, or chewing on a clove just for the flavor, you will absolutely fall in love with this tea.

I like cloves, I truly do. However, in order to turn this into a truly fantastic pot of tea, I cut the tea with some Colonille Vanilla tea, also from Serendipitea. The clove/vanilla mix is absolutely amazing, and I would highly recommend it.

I would, however, avoid recommending this as a standalone tea under most circumstances.

Thanks to LauraR for sending me this tea!

This is very unusual, I think. Very smoky and quite spicy. I drank this with a little honey but no milk and compared to a few pre-honey sips, the honey definitely brings out the spices and emphasises the smokiness.

When drinking this, it made me visualise sitting in a dark room with thunder in the distance. No idea why. It was very warm, not as in heat warm but as in spice warm. It’s not really an in-your-face chai. I quite like in-your-face chais, but this is good in an unusual way.

Since my previous experience with this tea left me overwhelmed, I added a little ceylon in the tea pot. Wow! What a change. Once the cloves simmer down, this is actually a pretty good tea. I think I shall try it with colonille next time. That should be an interesting mix.