Traditional Masala Chai (TE30)

It’s Chai Time!
I used to drink a lot of chai, but since I gave up the soymilk & soy creamer (& am allergic to real milk), I haven’t been drinking much of it. It’s not the same without some kind of creamy goodness involved.
So I steeped this in minimal water, combined it with some of my homemade almond milk, & a little coconut milk keifer, & it’s pretty tasty.

Thanks, Sil? I think? I mean, you didn’t like it and I certainly am not enjoying it.

I only steeped for 2 minutes and it’s ridiculously overly strong. I do like the cloves, but can’t taste anything over the bitterness of the CTC base tea.

Next time I’ll put some into warm almond milk. If I keep it. I might give it away before I have a chance, though.

(I added 1/3 cup almond milk and almost 1 tbsp sugar to help. Not helping. Still doesn’t taste sweet – just bitter.)

ick. do not like. this was a free sample included in my last upton order and i am not a fan. There’s something about the balance of the spices that just doesn’t work for me. Maybe this would work better brewed in milk, but as a straight tea, i’m not a fan.

First off, let me state that I’ve never brewed this tea western-style. But simmered in milk it is pretty good. I’m still playing with the proportions, but I’ve had some good cups so far. I’m trying to get to that intense tea-spice-milk balance they achieve in my local Indian restaurant but I’m not quite there yet.

I started with 8 ounces of 2% milk in a pan on the stove, brought it to just under a simmer and held it there, then added the tea and some Splenda and stirred it continuously. I tried 4 grams of tea and 5 minutes and although it was fairly rich and tasty it was just a little weak. I then tried 6 grams and 8 minutes and it was much better but not quite what I was shooting for yet. The tea flavor was there this time but I wanted the spices to be a bit more prominent.

I’m going to try the Upton Chai Spice Tea next. It has more cloves and may be closer to what I want. Upton was very generous with the Chai samples over the holidays this year. I received seven 15 gram samples of various blends in just 3 orders!

I promised to drink a black tea that morning, so we dug into the samples from Upton and this was the one we were most likely to both enjoy.

The dry blend smells very nice, the spices seem fresh and strong, and the resulting cup doesn’t fail to deliver on that. The liquor comes out dark and strong without too much bitterness, but the tastes are concentrated enough that we do decide to add a splash of almond milk and a couple of drops of honey, which helps even it out nicely.

Overall, I think we were both able to enjoy it, but it wasn’t particularly memorable, so we’ll try some different ways of preparing it with what we’ve got left.

I’ve had this in a sample size for almost a year, almost forgot about it, then found it a couple days ago and tried it. The thing I like about this chai is I can actually taste the base tea in it ,and not just spice. As for the spices, they are balanced pretty well. I made one of my better chai lattes thus far with this.