Ruby Chai Spiced Rooibos

I had high hopes for tea notes this evening but they were dashed. My kindergartener’s homework (!) was to write a story about his week with the class mascot (a stuffed Clifford the big red dog) and illustrate it with photographs of the two of them, and of course we left it till the last night. Partly this was because we barely have time to do his other homework as it is, what with both parents working and all, but mostly it was because I got a new camera and couldn’t get the printer to work with it. Ugh. Anyway, I finally figured it out, story is now done and child is in bed. Whew.

So I’m backtracking to another bagged hanger on that I haven’t yet written about.

This is a serviceable spiced rooibos, but I’m not sure it’s a very good chai. I haven’t had a lot of chai, so what do I know. All I can say is I’ve had a really good one. Part of what made it so good was the richness the milk imparted. This doesn’t stand up to milk. Another thing that made it really good was the black pepper kick. There’s no black pepper in this. And another thing that made it really good was a really luscious blend of spices that gave it a lot of character and depth. This has a sort of generic cinnamon-spicy thing going on.

I would have the Tazo Decaf Chai over this if I was looking for a caffeine free chai in a teabag. It stands up to milk, it has black pepper. Two out of three ain’t all bad.

I’m not a huge chai fan…can’t decide if it’s cloves or cardamom that reminds me of a random spillage of the stale contents of my outdated spices. I’m a cinnamon-nutmeg-ginger sort of person and that’s about it.

With that said, this is pretty good. I am a rooibos sort of person and I think that’s what mellows the spices down enough for me to enjoy this, even without dairy and sweetener.

I’m generally pretty “meh” on Numi selections, but this is one of their better ones.

billed as strong enough to handle milk, yet mild enough to be served alone.

I added just a splash of almond milk, but decided the clove was a bit too harsh so I went back and added more 1% milk to make it a bit creamier. I wanted something warm that tasted like fall, and it’s 9pm, so this random teabag I had fit the bill. ::shrug::

Waking up today was so hard! Snuck this for free at breakfast. Not a super rich coloring. I’m not adverse to the sweetness of this blend, but I do tend to like really spicy chai, and this was not spicy enough for my tastes, even when I left the tea bag in (thus my long steep). Probably doesn’t require sugar given the sweetness of the rooibos, but milk is always a given for me with chai.

Nice enough for me to take for free when I need some caffeine in the morning, but not good enough to sway me away from buying other blends I like better. And the cranberry chocolate scone that accompanied my cup definitely didn’t hurt!

1 bag for 250mL water, bare.

Spicy scent when I opened the bag morphed into full-on GINGERBREAD once the water hit the leaves. (MKust be the clove and allspice.) Seriously. It needed a good long steep to taste of anything, but the aroma was lovely. The ginger and cardamom lend the blend some good heat. I don’t really taste much red rooibos, but at least the rooibos is neither woody nor minty. Good. Better than I expected.

This was my it’s-late-and-I-want-to-sleep-tonight decaf choice at a cafe where I was having dessert as I’d been craving chai and had had a long walk in the cold. I didn’t expect much tea-wise from wherever we stopped for cheesecake, but I was pleasantly surprised! This delivered.

I found it reasonably spicy, and the clove is strong. The ginger was also pretty noticeable to me and made my mouth tingle, but I’m really sensitive to ginger for some reason. I drank it with milk, and it was pretty solid.

The first time I tried a rooibos tea, I didn’t like it. I thought it was tasteless and not strong and it wasn’t very good. That is why I have been putting off trying this tea. But tonight, I finally broke down and made myself a small pot of this with boiling water.

The liquid was a darker brown with a light tan color around the rim of my glass. It looked very pretty. The smell was dark and spicy. It smelled good in my cup. Then I took the plunge and tried it. It was pretty good. I really didn’t taste that much besides cinnamon and another unidentified spice. It was also mellow, which was nice. Overall, it was much better than I expected.

Since it was chai, I wanted to try some of it with a bit of milk. On the half of my second cup, I poured a little Silk Vanilla Soy in my cup. It didn’t bring out any flavors in the tea itself, but it made it smoother. It would have been good if it was boiled with milk at a stronger flavor with just a dash of honey over the stove. If I ever get a chance to try it again, I might try it like that. Or I just might drink it straight since it is very good straight.

This is full of clove, but only mild cinnamon and ginger. Some might not like the cloves in this, although I love it. The tea bags give a good idea of the flavour, but the spices are gorgeous in the loose leaf version, especially the all spice berries. (At least, I think that’s what they are.)

Ah, how it has been so long since I’ve had a good rooibos — one with spices instead of filler. This one adds a new kick to the red style. Still a chai, but a little more smooth! Creative! Glad to see more uses of rooibos in modern teas.

If you like the flavor of cloves, you should love this tea. I’ve enjoyed it before but I just had a “critical cup”—i.e. one in which I thought about the qualities of the tea instead of just slurping it down. It’s one of the richest rooibos teas I’ve enjoyed. I let it steep for a long time and then drank it slowly. As time passed, the cloves became the dominant aroma and taste. That’s great for me because I’ve always loved clove.
I think that this will become one of those teas that I must have in stock—a destination tea for when I need to be perked up in the evening and caffeine is verboten.

Very spicy! I can’t even tell it is a red tea it is so spicy. Full of cloves. If you want a spicy chai tea, grab this one!

Destinatioooon u-unknown, ruby ruby ruby ruby… chai. This is good! Probably the most flavourful chai I’ve ever had that wasn’t from a concentrate. Great with milk, almost tastes like a chai latte from a coffee shop. Very pleasant aftertaste. I’ll buy it again, the next time a cup o’ chai strikes my fancy.

I figured I would try this plain as it’s my first rooibos chai, but pretty much all I tasted was the cloves. After finishing half the cup, I added a little bit of milk and sugar and it tastes wonderful. Spicy, creamy, delicious.

Another marvelous tea from the sample box this evening! I’m not usually one to pick out a cuppa decafe, but it was free, so what the heck! I do love a good Chai, and this certainly is good. My usual treatment with sugar and milk, and I still had a particularly spicy cuppa (in all honesty, I may have over sweetened, but oh well)! Definitely not mild like the other Rooibos Chai I’ve tried and enjoyed. Very nice.

This is probably the best bagged chai I’ve ever had. It is very well blended and isn’t too spicy. Goes well with or without milk and/or sugar.

This is a very nice cup! I am surprised that I like it as much as I do! Every Spiced Chai should be like this stuff! Excellent! It’s spiced but not too spiced because the sweetness of the Rooibos tones it down a tad! Lovely!