Decaf Chai

Sipdown no. 111 of the year 2014. A big one. I started out with a lot of this.

Of my original teabag purchases when I first started exploring tea, I only have left some of each of the following: Tazo Honeybush, Numi Red Rooibos, Tazo Lotus, Tazo Refresh, Bigelow Constant Comment and four different Numi Pu-erhs.

Progress. I enjoyed this one for what it is, and I’ve spoken about what I like about it and how I judged it against its chai peers at length in other notes so I won’t repeat myself.

It’s not something I will buy again, at least not any time soon. I have a ton of loose chai, including some decaf, and I prefer the stovetop version. Having the teabag version isn’t all the convenient where I’d drink it most, i.e., places where I don’t have the loose chai ingredients and a stove top, i.e., at work—because I have to get a hold of milk and sweetener. So that sort of defeats the purpose for me. It was a good introduction, though.

I had one bag of this left. I decided to experiment. Brewed it for 3 minutes, and brewed a bag of Alpine Berry for 10 minutes along with it.

Turned out kinda meh. I can finish this cup, but I’m not happy about it.

:-( I seem to have caught the cold that everyone else had and that I thought I had escaped! I have a tasting appointment on Sunday with Tim at The Mandarin’s Tea Room, but I may have to cancel and do it next time I’m in town. That would be sad! Oh well. This tea is keeping me hydrated and the honey I put in it is soothing my throat, but I can’t really taste much in this condition…

Noooope. I yoinked a bag of this from my office mate just to try it. I hated the caffeinated version of this tea but somehow thought the decaf option might taste better. I was wrong. Even rice milk can’t salvage this mess. Who puts black pepper in a chai anyway? That’s all I can taste here. Down the sink it goes, even though that means wasting what used to be perfectly good rice milk until this tea tainted it.

Huh, it has both black tea and rooibos.

I was reluctant to get this given the ratings, but I have not had even a halfway acceptable decaf chai yet, and it was there, so I figured it had to be better than some inaccessible ideal of decaf chai that actively doesn’t suck.

This is not bad. It’s pretty much classic chai spices and has the advantage of actually tasting like chai spices, instead of fake vanilla flavoring. It also doesn’t taste excessively rooibos-y. And they didn’t leave the black pepper out like some chai blends do.

The flavor’s a bit weak, even after a long steep. Otherwise it reminds me of the chai that you get at the indian buffet. The one I can’t have any more because of the caffeine. I guess this will be an acceptable substitute.

EDIT: I think what it needs is either more cinnamon or more ginger. I’m getting enough of the cardamom and black pepper, but not the cinnamon or ginger. Of course it also needs real black tea, but I can’t fault it for being what I bought.

Very strong, without much flavor to show for it. Depth without a light of taste.