My parents got this as a free sample, so I nicked it from the cupboard after Sunday dinner. My first impression of this tea is not good. I sniffed the bag and could barely smell any spices. Uh oh. Also, the pumpkin flavor smelled strangely cardboard-like. But I’m still willing to give it a chance, out of love for chai.
Granted, the actual brewed tea smells better. Fragrant cinnamon and ginger, with something sort of like if you boiled pumpkin pie filling. Stewed is the word, I guess. I can also smell pie crust, which is interesting. I added a very conservative splash of 1% milk and a little sweetener. The flavor isn’t exactly what I expected. This doesn’t taste much like chai. Instead, it’s basically a pumpkin spice dessert tea. Most of the chai spices, except the ginger, are hidden under the heavy layers of cinnamon and whatever they used to make “pumpkin”.
Overall, this isn’t bad, but it’s also not what I was hoping it would be. It does make me think of Thanksgiving and Christmas at my Dad’s, though, which is oddly comforting. I would drink this again, yes, but I don’t think I’d purchase it.
