President's Choice

I tried this iced. Iced chai, you say? I call it Iced Chai Latte! Although I think lattes have steamed milk in them or something—to constitute the “latte”—but heck if I know, and I like the name. It was inspired by Starbucks. Either because I looked at their menu and saw that they had “iced chai lattes”, or because I looked at the menu and thought “why DON’T they have iced chai lattes”.

It looks like Starbucks’ and Tim Hortons’ iced lattes, at any rate. That coffee cream colour with icecubes, that makes it look like an alcoholic drink—a coffee or chocolate liqueur—because no reasonable person would put icecubes in milk. I didn’t double the recipe because I remember this being so spicey on its own, and it does hold up quite well, although maybe I should have 1 + 1/2’d it or something, because the flavour is slightly weaker with the cold. Still very tastey.

Basically followed the usual stovetop recipe, sweetened with honey, then poured over icecubes. Ended up with three glasses, so the other two are in the fridge. I plan to share.

Very refreshing. The tea and spices aren’t so much in the sip as they are in the trailing aftertaste. But still, it hit the spot. Way better than spending four bucks at Starbucks for something similar. Although I’m sure theirs are sweeter. But mine’s homemade! Mmm.

Now that I think about it, condensed milk might have been an interesting alternative. Well, maybe not ALL condensed milk. Halfandhalf. Not that I have any, but it would have made it sweeter. It’s a thought for next time.

Or a dollop of whipped cream on top. With brown sugar and/or cinnamon sprinkled.

To start, the can smells VERY strongly of cloves and very little else. The tea leaves themselves are quite small, and you can see whole heads of clove and and little pods, and I swore I saw a few pepper seeds in there too.

Followed the label for brewing, but cut it in half because I didn’t really feel like four cups. The instructions are fairly typical for chai I suppose. Was easy enough to make.

Unsweetened, nice cafe colour, first sip… Very spicy! And milky. Perhaps I’ll cut back on the milk (the instructions ask a ratio of 1:1 water milk, and 1tbsp of chai). The spice is somewhat… tasteless. I can taste spice, but nothing in particular. I think I might add a bit of honey and see what that does, although I like it like this too. Luckily it doesn’t taste as it smells. Cloves and nothing else.

Sweetened it… mm, didn’t really bring out any individual flavours. Maybe a little, and now I’m just inexperienced in telling what I’m tasting. Still wonderfully spicy. Mmm. Yeah, I think I taste the cloves now a tad. Cinnamon too, maybe.

I can have trouble with spicy things, so this isn’t my FAVOURITE favourite and I doubt I’d be able to handle drinking it every day. But that’s fine, it’s great for occasions.

Christened my OTHER new teapot with this tea. Mostly because it has a big mesh strainer for me to pour directly from the stove pot into. This one’s quite big. Could probably hold over four cups, wow.

not fabulous. Much more drinkable if you make it the traditional way on the stove with milk.

Not much to say about this tea that I haven’t already said. :)

With honey and milk more of the chocolatey-carob flavour comes out. Even so, this is another not-so-spicy chai, which isn’t really to my tastes but I might recommend it to someone who perfered milder spiced teas.

sighs If this tea tasted as good as it smells it would be heavenly, but unfortunately it doesn’t although the spicy taste isn’t unpleasent although really it’s too coarse to have without milk.

Tried it sweetened with a bit of honey, though I’m not sure it was the right way to go with this tea as it gave it sort of a weird aftertaste.

Tried it with milk, it’s decent and the chocolate/carob sweetness is a bit more pronounced, but it still smells more exciting than it tastes. A bit underwhelming.

The chicory root and the carob gave this a pleasent, almost coffee-ish scent when it was brewing. I couldn’t stop sniffing it!

It’s not the most flavourful chai, but it’s still good for something that’s a generic grocery store brand. You can definitely taste the cinnamon in it, although the chocolate is just the barest hint. I’ll try the next cup with milk like a real chai and see if that changes anything.

Really excellent!

Disappointing. One of the only teas I’ve ever just given up on and threw out.