Best place to buy Chai online?
Where is the best place to buy good chai online? And can you buy it ground up to make lattes (frozen and hot) like Matcha?
Lots of folks here seem to make their own. I like Harney & Sons Chai. My favorite was Butiki, sniff, but no more. :*( Shang Tea has a chai spice blend that you put with your own tea that is pretty phenomenal but not cheap since it is all organic and hand ground extremely fine. I have a friend here locally who has a small online tea business that does nothing but chai and it is very, very good. www.chai-me.com
As far as “good”, that’s a pretty subjective thing, even more than non-chai tea. Do you like lots of cinnamon, cardamom? No ginger or heavy ginger? Do you like lemongrass in it? Some chocolate taste? Black pepper?
Seems like most chai I’ve had is made with the CTC tea which means it steeps quickly and strongly. Don’t know about ground up like matcha.
There are lots of chai sellers out there but I stopped trying the day I found Eldorado from Whispering Pines. To me, it’s the perfect balance of spices and tea and it’s so smooth you can drink it straight with no additions.
But it’s so popular, it’s not always available so you have to make a move quickly when it’s in stock lol.
I would stay away from all powdered chai blends. They are usually loaded with sugar, and the quality is questionable and you loose the essence of spices. You’re better off making your own latte from a good quality blend :-)
^this. When I want the sugar I use David Rio (forgot about them for powdered/ground up) but I don’t often want it. I want more control over how much sweet gets put in there. The only way I drink chai pretty much is in lattes and I just use half water/half milk (or half n half if I’m feeling decadent) to steep the tea in. Do it stovetop and steep it for much longer than you would normally steep tea is how I’ve seen several folks recommend.
Pretty much every tea company that sells flavoured or blended teas will have at least one chai blend, and some have many. I mean it’s basically just tea (or tisane, like rooibos) blended with some Indian spices – cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, anise, pepper are the ones that immediately come to mind, but none of those are mandatory and there are hundreds of variations. So the chai you like depends a lot on your personal preferences with respect to spices: do you really love or hate any particular spice? do you like tea with a bit of spice, or spicy drink with a bit of tea in the background? do you want to drink it the traditional way with lots of milk and sugar, or straight up? Only way to know what you like is to experiment. I mean, some companies will use strong spice flavour oils to cover up the defects of poor quality tea, and that’s not likely to be very enjoyable regardless of your tastes. So buy from a vendor you trust, and then experiment.
In my opinion, the most interesting/fun way to experience chai is to make your own. Here’s my totally unofficial suggested method. Gather some whole spices you like the smell of, smash them up a bit (morter and pestle, or good old ziploc bag and rolling pin), put them in a pot with some water and simmer on the stove until your whole kitchen smells amazing. Take the pot off the heat, toss in some black tea, put the lid on, let it steep for… I dunno, 3-6 minutes maybe? Until it looks good and dark but doesn’t taste horribly bitter. Stir in some milk (about the same amount as the water you used) and sweeten to taste. Put it back on the heat to warm it all up again (but don’t let it boil over! milk on the stove is tricksy). Pour through a strainer into your mug(s). Enjoy. :)
Hmmm…well since I posted the, I grabbed the last ounce of Whispering Pines El Dorado :P
As for the sugar concoction, sugar is no bueno for me. I had weight loss surgery last month (lost 51 pounds first month). So my Southern roots have ben changed to drink unsweet tea now…but I like it, so there.
LOL, this is how Steepster ends up costing so much money (but brings so much joy!).
I hardly ever add sugar/sweetener to tea, but to me most chai just doesn’t taste right without it. The combination of sweet/creamy/spicy you know? Currently my favourite non-sugar sweeteners are xylitol and erythritol – very sugar-like in granularity and flavour, no weird chemically aftertaste. If it turns out your post-op gut isn’t a fan of sugar alcohols, there’s always stevia or sucralose. Or just go without the sweetener of course. :) I’m pretty sure that El Dorado Chai will be perfect without any additives!
You can try it without sugar it may be to your tastes. I often skip the milk and sugar myself.
@yyz …I had it iced with milk the yesterday. Not the one I just ordered but the house made one at Zen Tea in Atlanta. I loved that stuff. It had zero sweeter in it so if the El Dorado is as good as Im reading on the reviews here, Im gonna fall in love with this stuff much like I have my Matcha.
When in India the only Chai I had without milk was a kashmiri chai. At least in Rajhastan the chai was most likely to be !made with water buffalo milk than cows milk which tends to be a bit thinner anyways. I imagine Brendan’s chai is quite nice. My favourite CTC base is quite chocolaty as I assume Brendan’s is as well. Enjoy it.
I sweeten chai, it is the only tea I do that with consistently, but once you are used to unsweetened tea, you can add a small amount of sweetener and still taste it to balance out spice. I prefer white chai for when I am not sweetening it at all.
Yogic Chai is the NATC winner for a bunch of years in a row. I still haven’t tried myself. http://www.yogicchai.com/
Red Leaf Tea has a chai matcha and you can select Black tea instead of green. http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/chai-matcha.html I personally don’t like black matcha, so I’d suggest trying to get a sample of the stuff first before spending the $20 on it.
Chi Whole Leaf has a nice ground chai, no sugar.
then Im gonna check them out! I loved that frozen one I had yesterday as well!
I’m glad someone else mentioned Chi Whole Leaf; I was just about to. They seem to match your description of what you’re looking for the closest.
Hmm, Chai tends to be a pretty personal thing. Some people like it very spicy some prefer more or less cardamom, cloves or other spices. I tend to Brew my own with a CTC from the Indian grocer and whatever spices I crave. Often just ginger and cardamom in my case. All though I love hot spicy food I don’t tend to look for this in Chai. A local company makes one that tastes very close to that I drank in India but it is not easy to buy online ( the site is set up poorly and shipping is not cheap even for local purchases. I’ve heard the the Capital Tea Ltd one is quite decent though I haven’t tried it myself. https://www.capitaltea.com/shop/product.php?productid=54&cat=14&page=1
I had a sample (small cup) of one that was really spicy on the back of my throat. Don’t think I want it THAT spicy, but a medium blend of cinnamon and cardamom and some spice will be fine with me. Just a middle of the road one is what I like,
I really like Rishi’s chai. Really great balance of spices and especially delicious made over the stovetop with milk.
I make my own chai with assam ctc and cinnamon, cardomom, clove, black pepper and honey.
You could try goldentips.com (based in India) or Teabox.com
Both have various chai teas.
Login or sign up to leave a comment.