Help our tea company build blends you love
Hey all!
My name’s Dom, co-founder of the newly launched Simple Leaf based out of Columbus, Ohio. We’re an online retailer focused exclusively on loose leaf chai tea. We think focusing our business on tea we love is important, and we’d like your input.
10 days ago, we launched our website with three flagship blends (masala, mint cocoa, and vanilla espresso), and are currently developing some other blends to roll out with in the coming months.
We were wondering, what kind of flavors would you like to see in a loose leaf chai blend? As fellow tea lovers, we want you to be a part of coming up with some of our future blends, which already include a chamomile+lemongrass chai and a ginger+orange chai.
Let’s dream up some cool blends and see where this goes.
Thanks,
Dom
http://www.simpleleaf.co
I’m not huge into chai and these days I only buy unique looking ones. I was thinking chais that have caramel, rum, walnuts/other nuts, apricot or banana.. maybe not all together.
I’d also love a super spicy chai. Either chili pepper hot or just simply heavy on spices.
This appeals to me as well, since I am a big fan of (really) spicy food. In my experience though, adding spicy ingredients tends to just tickle or burn the back of your throat rather than actually “taste” spicy.
Vanilla, though not with mint…already got 1 of those and it’s enough for me. Hmmm. I am not really into traditional chai and can’t handle a lot of spice. Vanilla with Orange possibly? Kind of like a creamsicle? There is a rooibos of that I like so wouldn’t mind trying out a chai version. You could offer Chai blends with other types of tea, such as green. Maybe an ‘Earl Chai’? that is….with Bergamot.
A well balanced vanilla blend would be nice. A good, strongly spiced chai without ginger or cardamom would appeal to me as well. I love them both but mom is allergic. :)
I know this sounds insane but I would love to see a fig and brown sugar (or maybe honey) chai. Fig goes so well with spices and the brown sugar would be so amazing. I am in general a bit obsessed with fig.
Fig is a very underutilized ingredient IMO. A very possible test kitchen idea moving forward.
Great responses thus far, everyone. One of our foundations is to celebrate community and we want to co-create blends with those who love tea as much as we do. The idea of using fig is intriguing. The vanilla in our vanilla espresso is a mixture of Madagascar vanilla bean and extract to really drive home the vanilla taste.
It sounds like the responses call for “full body” flavors (vanilla, fig, big spices)
As it stands now, we use golden monkey black tea because it plays nicely with our current flavors. Saw a call for rooibos. What else did everyone have in mind?
Do note at least one of our future flavors will stem from this discussion, so keep them coming! So far, so good. You have us thinking.
Espresso? Does it have coffee in it? If it does, would not be able to drink it, as coffee gives me terrible stomach aches.
Lynxiegrl, the Vanilla Espresso does contain coffee beans. Admittedly, the amount is considerably less than what you’d find in a cup of coffee, espresso, latte, etc. but you may want to proceed with caution nonetheless!
Well I had tried Davids Tea Coffee Puerh, about 6 months ago, which has coffee beans in it, and my stomach cramped up miserably. Even coffee flavored candy and ice cream can do that, which really sucks, because I used love both. But thanks, smiles
Lynxiegrl, this may be a moot point, but we have two other varieties available in addition to the Vanilla Espresso: Masala and Cocoa Mint.
Hi All,
My name is Rory, the other half of Simple Leaf. We’re pretty new to this community so let me say that I am pretty surprised by the response we’ve received in such a short time.
Thanks for the all the feedback. We’re really looking forward to incorporating your thoughts into our latest blends!
I’m a huge chai lover, would drink all day all night-if it weren’t for the caffeine in some, so one idea is to do an herbal/rooibos version. I haven’t found a lot of caffeine free, and the ones I found were a little lemongrass heavy. Something with fancy cinnamon, cardamom, pink peppercorns, vanilla bean. People like the spices to hit them in the face in the dry leaf at least. You can see by my tasting notes that my loose leaf favorite chai (I have probably tried about 40) is Maharaja Chai Oolong by Teavana, 2nd favorite is their Samurai Chai Mate, 3rd is Pumpkin Chai by David’s Teas. I shold also say that I do not have the most delicate pallet-if that’s what you are going for..looking forward to what you guys come up with! (Also, I would love any recommendations for better chais than Teavanas)
I used to use a chai mix – just the spices – and could steep it with tea if I wanted or just on it’s own for a potent caffeine free chai. That’s a thought. :)
Coco Chai Rooibos from Davids Tea is pretty good. I love combining Teavana’s Maharaja Chai Oolong with their Tulsi Dosha Chai Herbal, as the vanilla in both smooths it out and makes it less intense.
Shelalala, you’re not the first person to mention the need for a blend with a lower or non-existent caffeine level. In addition, we’ve received some feedback from individuals who prefer or require no sugar in their tea.
We’re currently investigating the best way to provide these options in our chai blends.
Looking at the recommendations above, a vanilla with something outrageously spicy and smoky with chili peppers would be killer too, maybe reminicent of vanilla pipe tobacco.. :)
Off the top of my head I’m thinking a nice Saigon-Vietnamese cinnamon (very strong) with smoked chips, trllicherry peppercorns, vanilla bean, and chili seeds. Bold, flavorful, yet still somewhat familiar. This is a possible test kitchen idea.
It sounds like a lot of people really like huge, deliberate top flavors in their chai with smoother under notes to balance out the blend. All of our blends include golden monkey black tea already.
Has anyone tried a golden monkey chai before? If so, what were your thoughts?
Also, if you could check out our website and let us know your thoughts, that would be awesome as well! http://www.simpleleaf.co
Monkey Chai….that sounds like a cute name. I have yet to try out Golden Monkey at all, though it’s on my list of teas to try. Does your company accept payment by gift credit cards? At the moment that is my only method of payment.
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