Sleepy Hollow Pumpkin Chai

Sipdown! 803. Pretty tasty today – I think I had been craving chai but didn’t know it! Why did I rate this so poorly previously?! I don’t care for the sprinkles, nor is there anything in the way of pumpkin flavour, but it’s a decent chai.

sample sipdown! Thanks kittenna :) This is a pretty decent chai tea. But it’s not pumpkin. It’s got a bunch of ginger in it that makes this an interesting blend and slightly different from some of the other chais that i like, but it’s tasty. Dropped the rating slightly though because pumpkin this is not. :)

You’ll loose your head over Sleepy Hollow Pumpkin Chai Tea! However, please don’t carry your head around with you after you loose it because nobody wants to see that. It’s just gross and there are infinitely better ways to get attention.

This pumpkin chai is really tasty and not overly spicy as far as chai(s) go, and that’s a-okay with me because Sleepy Hollow Pumpkin Chai is anything but light on flavor. I infused 1 tsp. of tea in 6 oz. of almond milk and this made for a wonderful afternoon treat.

My only quibble is that my sample had no trace of those kickass, colorful sprinkles pictured in the photo above. I deserve sprinkles! Fortunately, the lack of sprinkles did nothing to affect the flavor of this yummy blend despite the injury to my inner child.

Well, this tea arrived just in time, didn’t it? A perfect Halloween tea. I am drinking this with just a bit of turbinado sugar right now, and it is really good, but I think it might be better with a bit of steamed milk to make a chai latte.

The pumpkin flavor is well-pronounced in this blend. The chai spices are strong too, but, they do not overpower the pumpkin flavor. It is really a very well-balanced blend.

So, I’ve now had two cups of this … first with just the sugar to enhance the spices, and now, I’m drinking a chai latte! OH YUM! Pure awesomeness in my mug right now. It tastes like pumpkin pie filling topped with whipped cream that has been blended with my chai tea. So very good!

Check out my full-length review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2011/10/31/sleepy-hollow-pumpkin-chai-from-culinary-teas/

Thanks Liberteas for a packet of this one!

Dry Aroma:
As my grandfather used to say…“Makes the nose hairs DANCE”. The chai spices are INTENSE!!!!!

It’s quite interesting to look at! Lots of ingredients! I didn’t see any green sprinkles but I have orange and black character sugar-sprinkles.

This infuses to a very odd color…a black cloudy DARK color…I’m thinking the cloudy is due to the spices AND the sprinkle-candies.

Once infused the aroma does change quite a bit! It’s a pumpkin-candy-spice-earthy-mixture of aromas!

My first sip – I had no idea what to expect! Glad I didn’t assume or prejudge!

The spices are the first thing (and the last thing) I taste and they are strong but not as CRAZY INTENSE as the dry aroma led me to believe they were going to be. Appreciated! Then…comes the pumpkin! It’s a squashy-meaty type pumpkin like in soup or stuffed squash – very natural tasting…not sweet per-say but almost malty or maybe velvety would be a better word. In the middle of the sip I could taste the candy-notes but it fades away and the spice and pumpkin pop back into play! This is very interesting. Pretty strong but I like that! I recognize the fact that a lot of creativeness went into this one! It’s a fun one, indeed!

Pretty tasty! I wasn’t sure what the aftertaste would be like but after almost a whole cup it’s quite nice…nothing funky lingers…perhaps some of the spices like ginger…but the aftertaste is much better than I expected.

Ok this tea is wicked cute, I love the sprinkles. It’s not too spicy, but I don’t taste a lot of pumpkin. I think in comparison to DAVIDs Pumpkin Chai this is more chai and DAVIDs is more pumpkin. I truly think that chai lovers will enjoy this tea, and I bought 3oz of it so I’m up for swaps haha. It didn’t wow me but I definitely don’t dislike it.

Experience buying from Culinary Teas http://steepster.com/places/2981-culinary-teas-online-milford-indiana

I bought a one-ounce sample of this in late November, 2011, having brewed it twice (most recently on 6/11/2012).

Appearance and Aroma of dry leaf: medium grade CTC leaf, with lots of goodies mixed in; pleasantly strong, but standard, ‘spicy chai’ aroma.

Brewing guidelines: four good-sized TSP, three cups H2O with about 1 cup unsweetened almond milk (heated) added to the teapot while steeping; loose in four-cup ceramic teapot; stevia added; my standard black tea steeping times and temperatures; ; two complete steeping sessions (months apart); three steepings each session.

Flavor of tea liquor (derived from the latest session):
1st: …..We both liked it.
2nd: ….Good.
3rd: ….< Later >

Aroma of tea liquor: standard ‘spicy Chai’ aroma.

Appearance and Aroma of wet leaf: < Later >

Value: Culinary flavor-added tea’s are generally very reasonably priced: this one is $8.15 / 4 OZ (on their website it’s listed under Chai and not under Flavored Tea ), which puts it at about $2 / OZ (and even less with any discounts and/or if you buy it in larger quantities).

Overall: Haven’t done the third steeping yet, but I still wanted to log this. This afternoon my wife requested a Chai, and so I complied, reaching for this tea (to continue with the foray into finishing off the flavor-added Culinary Tea Teas—this is our fifth of thirteen). Although it doesn’t stand out as any better than any other chai, and neither of us could taste any pumpkin (my wife loves pumpkin), we both liked it. So, since it’s not a ‘thumbs down’ we may choose to get some on our next order from Culinary Teas.

So I didn’t do so well with 52teas Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake, so I pulled out another pumpkin tea from the wonder sample box that JackieT sent me.

Sorry I like this one even less, all I get is clove. Way too much clove for my taste, it just overwhelms everything else. There could be pumpkin in there somewhere, but too spicy, not balanced for my tastes.

Thanks for the sample Jackie.

I added a little bit of a chocolate soy milk protein shake to sweeten it/enhance the flavor. I think the soymilk works really well it adds a lot of creaminess, some sweetness, and enhances the spices. The previous brews of this were very unpleasant. I get hints of cola from the spices in this cup. This cup was pretty yum.

Culinary Teas threw this one in when they sent me samples a couple of weeks ago.
While I’m not the biggest fan of chai teas, I figured I’d give it a shot.
I really like the name of this one, since I’ve always loved that book. And the tea itself is pretty cute with all the little sprinkles…yes, I’m always a fan of decorating things, even tea, with sprinkles. :P
As for the tea itself…
Oy.
It really reminds me of Coca-Cola. Yes,the soda. There’s a crap load of ginger in this one. I don’t really know if there’s ginger in soda…but…somehow it really tastes like it to me. It’s just like drinking hot soda. I don’t even know, you guys..
I really like Culinary Teas’ blends, but this one is just awful.
If you are crazy about ginger You’d probably feel different…or perhaps my taste buds are out of a whack or something…I have no idea. But I’m just not a fan. D: