Indian Spice

Brr, It’s cold tonight. I’ve made a steady stream of tea throughout the day to keep myself and my partner warm instead of turning on the heater. That’s the only thing I’m looking forward to about the upcoming winter – I’m going to get through a lot of my tea.

Dry, this smells like a beautiful mixture of nutmeg and sweet Assam.

This was my first time making chai. I used a 2:1 ratio of milk to water, and added 5 tsp of brown sugar. Gently simmered for 4 minutes. Came out quite well. I was wary of the cardamom (not a huge fan), but it hardly spoke up. Due to the nutmeg, it reminded me a lot of Pumpkin Pie…and now I have a craving which won’t be satisfied until I visit North America again!! Nooo!! Damn you New Zealand and your lack of Pumpkin Pies! (but thank you for your delicious pumpkin soup, which I always miss when I’m in Canada).

I definitely want to explore more chai’s, and the looming cold weather is going to give me an excellent excuse for a tea order in a couple months. Either Bukiti or Verdant (new to both), haven’t decided.

Pain.
Not physical, but that heart gripping breathless kind.
I try to keep Steepster as a happy place and normally do not want bring any one down with my petty problems, but this is also a place for tea and comfort.
And sometimes we need to speak of our problems while wiping away a tear with dear ones over a tea cup.
(skip down to the bold lettering for just the tea review)
I have a little sister.
She is my little sister, no matter that she came to us through adoption.
My parents have 2 daughters, not a natural born and adopted daughter.
She came to us when she was 4 and had already been through 11 foster homes in the two years she was in the system.
She is twenty now, and a college student and very smart and doing well in school.
Just yesterday, she sent us all a letter, saying that it does not benefit her to be a part of our family anymore.
She wishes that we had never adopted her.
She wants to make lots of money and be successful and she is ashamed that she came from a farm in Idaho, thus, she wishes she could tell people she never even had a home.
My parents were not rich, but my Father always worked hard and none of us kids ever went without.
My parents are honest people that instilled morals,and taught us to be kind to all people and animals. They were never cruel or antagonizing to us girls.
I weep. for them. for me. and for her.
I do not understand.
I needed comfort.
Enter this tea
I did not sleep well last night and my stomach was upset.
This tea had just arrived yesterday from a friend for Christmas (she told me to open it when it arrived and not to wait for Christmas:) she gave me the whole Chai gift set from H&S.
I prepared it with the exact instructions that were in the gift box, water and milk and the included sugar cubes.
Its warm, its softly spicy, its soothing.
Its not the best Chai I have ever had, but its tasty and it hits the spot this morning.
In fact, I think I go make some more.
Thank you for letting me speak of my recent heart struggles, dear friends.
(any advice on how to go forward from this is also appreciated:)

Decided to give this a try this morning, but didn’t have time to log it. I drank it fast while I got dressed and did my makeup before meeting a friend for hibachi.

The aroma of the dry tea is delicious and spicy, smelling like a good standard chai. The blend is more uniform than what I’m used to seeing in chai loose leaf. Usually, there are brown and tan bits, nuts, etc. but this is mostly chocolate-colored leaf and what looks like cinnamon bark. Maybe? It’s so small I can’t tell what it is.

Anyway, the flavor isn’t quite as bold as the scent lead on, but it’s alright. I tend to like my chais on the spicy cinnamon and gingery side, and this doesn’t really present that. (Granted, I added a heavy splash of 1% milk.) But I’ve certainly had rougher chais before. I’m glad I got a chance to try Harney & Sons’ take on a classic, but I will continue my search for the perfect one.

Since becoming a chai fan I’ve been adding samples of anything that looks remotely like chai into my orders, which has been fun. But I think I’m starting to get tired of dating chais and ready to settle down. Not with one, of course. With a small harem’s worth.

I bought this sample with my last H&S order. In the sample packet, it has rather mild spicy scent. I can detect something that seems slightly like anise under the cardamom. Unlike many chai blends, I can smell a strong tea fragrance here. The Assam has an earthy scent, like soil, with an interesting chocolate note to it.

I prepared this on the stovetop, using TeaFrog Assam as extra black tea.

It makes a creamy, chewy, tasty, and very mildly spiced chai. Very, very mildly spiced. It’s on a par on the mildness scale with the most mild I’ve tasted so far, the TeaFrog.

What makes it somewhat different is that it seems to have a stronger tea flavor than a good many other chai blends I’ve tasted. Particularly in the aftertaste. This might be because of the CTC leaves. Since I haven’t tried this without milk and sweetener, it could be that the tea itself is much stronger with long brewing because of how it was prepared, and that this, accordingly, comes out as tea flavor under the milk and sweetener. Whatever the reason, it’s a nice change.

Still, I like even my mild chais a bit more strongly spiced than this. While I liked it, I don’t think it’s going to be selected for the harem in the long term.

I had a sample of this (in bagged form) lurking in my stash for some time. Unforgivably, I am at a loss as to who gave it to me. So I will take this opportunity to thank the many friends I have on Steepster who have helped shape my tea experiences. Steepster is such a special place.
I found this to be a little mild as far as chai/Indian Spice goes. I like it. The cardamom is not overpowering, and the black tea shines through. A little honey, warmed milk, this would be a good little cup of tea. Here at my desk, with a little splenda, it is just fine.

ChOTD…..Thanks to ashmanra for the opportunity to try this one!

I prepared this the way Harney recommends (2 cups milk, 1 cup water, 3 tsp tea, 6 Demerara sugar cubes, simmer for 4 minutes and strain), but subbed regular sugar for the Demerara sugar cubes, 1 tsp per cube. As far as volume goes, it makes a little more than my usual method, so I had to use a bigger pan (and that made a bigger mess from pouring). I think I will try this by my usual pan method next time.

Onto the tea…this is really good. It is like (and I hate to put it this way) Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte really good….and it is tea! It is probably a little rich and sweet for my palate, but those things can be adjusted. It is also just a little light on the spice for me. It does taste like pumkin pie in a cup. It is definitely up for consideration!

Got this as part of an order from Harney that consisted strictly of a bunch of samples.

This wasn’t quite what I expected, but I think with some playing around it could easily become one of my favorite chai options.

It is not what I would consider typical chai, and I suppose Harney probably doesn’t consider it to be typical chai either. Rather, as someone else noted, it’s a flavored black — there are no bits and pieces of spice or dried fruit or additive here; the tea consists of little black-tea crumbles that remind me of grape nuts, if grape nuts were the color of black tea, and smaller. I was concerned that preparing this in the traditional way — in a pot on the stove, first in hot, sweetened water and then with milk, 1:1 — would ruin the tea, subsequently, and I wasn’t right, but I wasn’t entirely wrong. Despite not being populated with a slew of additional ingredients, the spice profile here seems to come through the milk just fine, and in a balanced, appealing way. In fact, my favorite thing about this tea so far is how balanced the spices actually are…far too often I’m finding chais that club you over the head with cardamom.

That said, I think the little pieces of black tea did not hold up well to being scorched by the hot water, as there’s a faint bitter-sourness to be had. Not enough to be unpleasant — this is still a good cup of tea — but enough to wave a little flag up at me that says ‘hey, jerk, that was a little bit too hot’.

The scent in the pot as the leaf sat in the hot water was not particularly strong. I think the solution to brewing this as a latte in a pot might be to increase the leaf but reduce heat and steep time for that concentrated flavor that holds up well against milk without turning bitter.

The coworker whom I introduced (ie. addicted) to loose leaf tea brought this in last Friday as part of his breakfast offering. He brewed up at home and added the milk and sugar there so I can’t really report on temp or time.

I normally am not a huge chai person. This, I could see a reason for keeping in my stash. I love, love, love cardamom and have been disappointed by chai blends in the past that have been very heavy on cinnamon, seemingly to the exclusion of other spices. With this, I can taste the cloves, a hint of ginger possibly and loads of cardamom. It makes a light chai, not a hit you in the face chai.

And after breakfast, coworker and I had to put in a Harney order. He used a lot of his Indian Spice to make the chai for the group and well, you can’t have too much tea, right?

I was actually craving a chai today and then I forgot I had this little sample in my desk provided by the ever generous and lovely Jenn…

I think I learned something from my cinnamon spice experience with H & S, their flavor is strong so there is no need to overdo it. I believe I used about 1/2 tsb of this in 8 oz of hot water about 206 degrees.

This is a pretty good spicy chai type of tea. I did add my usual soymilk to mine and then after tasting it I felt the need to add some sugar which is kind of rare for me. On the website it says assam is used as the base for this. I am not picking up too much on the cinnamon or cardamom here and instead am getting a lot of clove and something else, I think perhaps it is black pepper. In any case, I like it but when it comes to chais I am partial to Rishi’s Masala Chai and West Cape Chai, they set the bar pretty high for me. :)

I have had a couple of types of chai. One was made by a friend from India and contained cardamom, turmeric, ginger, and a wee bit of black pepper. She boils the spice mix with CTC tea for 15 minutes or more and then strains it. Strong stuff! And not my cup of tea! Another lady I know makes her tea just like we do but adds cardamom and cinnamon after it steeps. Both recipes add a lot of milk to the chai.

The Harney and Sons tin comes with a recipe, but I decided to try steeping this as usual first. I gave it four minutes because it was CTC, but it really probably should have gone a little longer. It was very mild without additions. The aroma of the dry leaves was mostly cardamom, but a very sweet cinnamon flavor kept peeking out and the steeped tea had a pumpkin pie aroma – possibly nutmeg or allspice. Without additions, it was weak and only slightly more flavorful with milk and sugar. A bite of Belgian cream puff followed by a sip of the chai showed a marked difference in my perception of the tea. Suddenly it was an exquisite pairing! Sandy thinks the fat in the whipped cream in the cream puff may have brought out more flavor, which means that preparing it the way Harney and Sons recommends will probably bring the best flavor results! We’ll give it a try soon.

Thanks Jes for sending me this sample! This chai smells sweeter than other chai teas. Well I over steeped it so I added a bit of honey to smooth over the bitterness. It’s spicy but it’s very light. But overall I think I ruined it D: It’s still enjoyable, it’s just more sweet from the honey than the spiciness I wanted.

Wow! I didn’t have high expectations for this tea because the aroma of the dry tea leaves was only moderately appealing to me. However, once I smelled the brewed leaves, I knew that something yummy was sitting in my cup! I really like how the flavors in this tea balance each other nicely. One sip tastes mostly of cinnamon, the next gives you a strong dose of cardamom, and so on. Oh so satisfying!

OK, I don’t like flavored teas. I don’t even have any Earl Grey in my tea closet. I was given this by an Indian friend of my daughter and I love it. We went to India for 7 weeks two years ago and we fell in love with the chai there and drank it at least 5 or six times a day. I have occasionally made chai from scratch myself, but this tea is so good I have given up making it myself. How they manage to get the spices evenly distributed through out the tea is a mystery.

This is as good as it gets if you love chai.

Oh. My. God. This stuff is amazing. I say this after drinking three cups in rapid succession.

My experience with Chai is limited; I like Oregon Chai Concentrate very much, but when I sampled another chai at a coffee and tea stand I hated the spicy harshness of it. With that said, this is the best Chai I’ve ever experienced. I realize that’s not saying much, but seriously, it’s heaven in a cup.

Indian Spice is composed of a perfect blend of spices and black tea which is so well balanced that I can’t point to one note that overwhelms the others. It’s not spicy, it’s not flat, and it IS delicious. Harney has come up with a tea that is strong and full bodied without assaulting the palate. Indian Spice is everything I love about Oregon Chai and more.

Some other tasting notes call this tea mild, which is certainly not how I would describe it; it seems quite strong to me. My guess is that this is less spicy than many, which makes it the perfect brew for me. Individually, I dislike many of the spices used in Chai, and if they were overwhelming or if one could be tasted individually this would not be an enjoyable drinking experience.

I prepared this in an infuser with boiling water, then added Demarra sugar cubes (5 per large mug) and stevia (about 11 drops per mug). Evaporated milk was the milk component.

This tea has a delicious aroma that immediately reminded me of pumpkin pie. The taste is mostly Assam with just a hint of spice. I’m actually surprised a how subtle the spice taste is. Sugar doesn’t seem to change much and actually brings out more of the dryness. A little cream helps the spices come out somewhat; it’s still very subtle but it is a good cup of tea. I’m not sure it’s spiced enough for those seeking a truly spiced tea, but for those seeking a tea with a hint of spice it seems ideal.

First thing I notice about this one is the CTC leaves – the dry tea looks like a bunch of tiny pellets. The tea itself brews up a nice dark red/brown, and certainly smells the way chai should: warm spices and black tea. A nice blend of spices too, not too much cinnamon. I find this too bitter to drink plain; honey helps a little, milk helps more. With both, it is tasty. A very solid chai choice – might buy again, but I’d rather find something that doesn’t absolutely require sweetener.

I prefer to drink tea plain, and this one is far far too bitter for that. I guess that’s normal for indian chai that is usually prepared with milk and sweetener.

This is a solid, simple chai. I prefer it black but my wife likes it as a latte as well. Great spice for cold-weather months.

I tried the bagged version of this at the Daily Grind with half and half and a packet of Splenda. Such a rich flavor! I love all the spices they used, though the bag didn’t identify all of them. I loved it so much, I decided to take the bag back with me.

While stirring a sugar/Splenda mix into the resteep, I knocked over the whole cup, and half of the tea ended up on the floor, the other half seeping under my laptop. Within seconds, it froze. I wiped everything up, turned the laptop off, unplugged it, took out the battery, tilted it in a few directions, and let it sit on the side that got the worst of the spill.

Five hours later, it froze booting, so I went to Wal-Mart and looked for some canned air. It wasn’t in the cleaning section, so I went to the computer section and had a hard time finding it. It was on the bottom shelf hiding next to other stuff. So I sprayed it and waited about an hour, then it took 10+ minutes to do a self-diagnostic that didn’t even fix anything, but it was fine after a restart. I went crazy being laptop-less for 7 hours.

Oh, and when I tried resteeping it, I’d heated about 2 cups of water, so I used the other cup once I’d cleaned everything up. It was so weak, it tasted more like tea-flavored water. All that for nothing! But the first steep was heaven.

Backlogging yesterday…Indian Spice by Harney & Sons. This is a “psuedo chai”. I call it that because all of the other Chai’s I’ve had are a combination of black tea and physically identifiable spices, like cardamon seed, clove buds, cinnamon bits, ginger, and one even had black peppercorns. This tea is what it claims…“Flavored Black Tea”, not what I expected when the word “Chai” is used (yes, I know chai means tea). Ok, disclaimer’s aside, this is a good tea. The spice is nice and well done, more in the vein of a mulling i.e. it doesn’t have that sharpness associated with ginger or black pepper. Visually, this is a deep black, processed tea. It looked like a black “gun powder”. It produced a transparent, deep red/brown liquor with a lot of fines in the bottom. The fines settled out quickly and nearly completely, even when agitated. I also had a resteep and, while milder/paler, it was good as well. I could see this tea being the basis of some good winter holiday beverages.