Memories of India Masala Chai Tea by President's Choice

86

Em

Found this in my parents cupboard this morning and thought it smelled amazing. I didn’t follow the directions on the can. I made it the way I typically make chai. Added a bit of milk and sugar and it is wonderfully spicy and delightful. Already looking forward to my second cup.

2012-12-08 10:17:36 -0500

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82

AJ 3 tasting notes

To start, the can smells VERY strongly of cloves and very little else. The tea leaves themselves are quite small, and you can see whole heads of clove and and little pods, and I swore I saw a few pepper seeds in there too.

Followed the label for brewing, but cut it in half because I didn’t really feel like four cups. The instructions are fairly typical for chai I suppose. Was easy enough to make.

Unsweetened, nice cafe colour, first sip… Very spicy! And milky. Perhaps I’ll cut back on the milk (the instructions ask a ratio of 1:1 water milk, and 1tbsp of chai). The spice is somewhat… tasteless. I can taste spice, but nothing in particular. I think I might add a bit of honey and see what that does, although I like it like this too. Luckily it doesn’t taste as it smells. Cloves and nothing else.

Sweetened it… mm, didn’t really bring out any individual flavours. Maybe a little, and now I’m just inexperienced in telling what I’m tasting. Still wonderfully spicy. Mmm. Yeah, I think I taste the cloves now a tad. Cinnamon too, maybe.

I can have trouble with spicy things, so this isn’t my FAVOURITE favourite and I doubt I’d be able to handle drinking it every day. But that’s fine, it’s great for occasions.

Christened my OTHER new teapot with this tea. Mostly because it has a big mesh strainer for me to pour directly from the stove pot into. This one’s quite big. Could probably hold over four cups, wow.

2010-02-10 13:43:50 -0500

Boiling

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I tried this iced. Iced chai, you say? I call it Iced Chai Latte! Although I think lattes have steamed milk in them or something—to constitute the “latte”—but heck if I know, and I like the name. It was inspired by Starbucks. Either because I looked at their menu and saw that they had “iced chai lattes”, or because I looked at the menu and thought “why DON’T they have iced chai lattes”.

It looks like Starbucks’ and Tim Hortons’ iced lattes, at any rate. That coffee cream colour with icecubes, that makes it look like an alcoholic drink—a coffee or chocolate liqueur—because no reasonable person would put icecubes in milk. I didn’t double the recipe because I remember this being so spicey on its own, and it does hold up quite well, although maybe I should have 1 + 1/2’d it or something, because the flavour is slightly weaker with the cold. Still very tastey.

Basically followed the usual stovetop recipe, sweetened with honey, then poured over icecubes. Ended up with three glasses, so the other two are in the fridge. I plan to share.

Very refreshing. The tea and spices aren’t so much in the sip as they are in the trailing aftertaste. But still, it hit the spot. Way better than spending four bucks at Starbucks for something similar. Although I’m sure theirs are sweeter. But mine’s homemade! Mmm.

Now that I think about it, condensed milk might have been an interesting alternative. Well, maybe not ALL condensed milk. Halfandhalf. Not that I have any, but it would have made it sweeter. It’s a thought for next time.

Or a dollop of whipped cream on top. With brown sugar and/or cinnamon sprinkled.

2010-07-12 17:47:34 -0400

Iced

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I used up the rest of this today, and then stupidly tried to rip of the label so I could reuse the tin.

Didn’t go over well. I’ll have to look up some online solutions to removing stickers without leaving behind the stick.

I didn’t have enough for two tbsps—came out to one and a half—so I threw in half a tablespoon of Great Wall’s caramel black as well. Afterwards, I used almond milk instead of regular milk, and sweetened with chai.

Delicious. Almond milk doesn’t mask tea as well as regular milk, I think, so it’s got quite a bite to it. I call it Almond Caramel Chai.

2011-05-17 17:27:04 -0400

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80

Kristy

I love this tea. Probably my first experience with loose-leaf tea, and almost definitely my favourite chai! I make this in large batches, brewing about a tablespoon in 2 cups of boiling water, then adding 2 cups of milk, and heating until a good temperature, then I add as much sugar as I’m in the mood for. So delicious!

2012-06-14 05:13:25 -0400

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50

Feisty

After having this tea for quite a while and sort of forgetting about it I’m having another cup. Unfortunately my previous assessment stands: This tea seems rather bland. Mind you I just steeped it in water in a mug rather then the stove top method so that might be to blame, but I put a decent amount in, and left it for almost 10 minutes and still…not a whole lot of flavour. It doesn’t taste bad in any way, just very weak. I certainly don’t find it among the spicier of my chai blends, despite the large chunks of various spices I can see in it.

Drinking with a splash of cream and a teaspoon of honey to give it some substance. Maybe I’ll try the stove top methods next time.

2010-02-14 16:59:21 -0500

Boiling

8 min or more

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