Moulin Rouge Chai

Last night:

TV: " Legs spread same width as the shoulders, body tight, then hit the ball like you’re defeating the enemy. Here the pinky finger is the key. Then you just hit hit hit kaking-bingo!"

Me: -.o

TV: “What are you talking about?”

“He who conquers the left side conquers the world chief. Setting the parameters … that’s really the hard part.”

Me: …zzzzz…

Vespa on the TV: SCREEEEEEEEECH

Me: O.O OH GOD WHAT

Bad times. Baaaad times. Mastering my sleep schedule has always been difficult. With the con today, waking up too early would not have been good, so falling asleep early was not an option. Cue this chai.

I’m not sure why, but the dry blend smells, to me, like an antique store…or reminds me, maybe, of some of the re-enactment houses and locations in Colonial Williamsburg, which I adored visiting every summer as a kid when we would drive up the eastern seaboard. I can’t tell you what it is in the blend that triggers these memories…only that something assuredly does. It may be the very subtle, lingering scent of something smokey in the tea…in fact, I’m certain that’s part of it.

It tastes, after being prepared like a chai, almost exactly like it smells, only with more depth than it’s willing to give your nose. The smokey quality is really appealing to me. It’s very subtle, but very definitely there. You take a sip and you don’t have to look for it, but neither does it overpower a fairly well-balanced, internally-warming blend of the usual chai spices. I have trouble finding the vanilla in here, though.

Prepared 1c. water, some sugar brought to boil, tea added, simmered 3-4 minutes, 1c. 2% added, allowed to get foamy, removed from heat and let sit for a while. Strained/poured/sipped in front of the tv.

Nothing amazing happens here, everything is ordinary. A huge factory that can be seen from our town, the Medical Mechanica plant. All the adults got excited when it came here, like it was really a big thing. The white steam that billows out every day at the same time, it looked to me like smoke that signified some kind of omen. Smoke that spreads out and covers everything.

Ahhhh.

First off, it is hard for me to not like a chai when made the traditional way – I mean, lots of milk, lots of sugar, what’s not to like? At the same time, since making it that way takes so much longer, I rarely have chai. So I almost always like this type of tea and I almost never make it. But I’ve been looking forward to trying this smoky chai from sophistre for quite a while so today I finally mustered up the energy to make it.

I can’t say I would have pegged this as a smoky chai – though maybe that’s because I’ve been drinking Russian Caravan this morning – but there is a certain something in this that is really different and unique. An edge I’ve never gotten from chai before – it makes it a bit mysterious. And tasty. That little edge is addictive, too. I like tasting it.

I don’t think this is a dramatically different chai from most of the others out there, but at the same time, that little extra note (the smoke, I imagine) gives it a distinctiveness that I think any chai fan would appreciate.

Reading tea reviews always exhilarates me. Loose leaf tea is a uniquely subjective experience. There are differences to each person’s palette, and presumably variations in the individual blends that get packaged and shipped to each person.

Let me say that I enjoy this tea, and will probably by more. But my batch wasn’t mysterious or subtle. It didn’t hint at anything.

It was cloves. It was fill-up-the-room, make your tongue numb cloves.

I sit here today slightly amazed at how clove-y this tea truly is. The clove taste overpowered the tea flavor (not to mention the other spices). If you’ve ever found yourself smoking a clove cigarette, or chewing on a clove just for the flavor, you will absolutely fall in love with this tea.

I like cloves, I truly do. However, in order to turn this into a truly fantastic pot of tea, I cut the tea with some Colonille Vanilla tea, also from Serendipitea. The clove/vanilla mix is absolutely amazing, and I would highly recommend it.

I would, however, avoid recommending this as a standalone tea under most circumstances.

Thanks to LauraR for sending me this tea!

This is very unusual, I think. Very smoky and quite spicy. I drank this with a little honey but no milk and compared to a few pre-honey sips, the honey definitely brings out the spices and emphasises the smokiness.

When drinking this, it made me visualise sitting in a dark room with thunder in the distance. No idea why. It was very warm, not as in heat warm but as in spice warm. It’s not really an in-your-face chai. I quite like in-your-face chais, but this is good in an unusual way.

Since my previous experience with this tea left me overwhelmed, I added a little ceylon in the tea pot. Wow! What a change. Once the cloves simmer down, this is actually a pretty good tea. I think I shall try it with colonille next time. That should be an interesting mix.