Maharaja Chai Oolong

I received this from fiddling

I have determine Teavana can’t do chai or cinnamon. BLECH! It always tastes like liquified cinnamon heart. I love those, but not in liquid form. This one is however less offensive than the others.
Glad I didn’t waste money on this, especially since there is hardly any oolong in it. I looked at it as I was scooping it out of the pack & thought to myself “wasn’t this suppose to be an oolong?”

Another mug of tea from my co-worker who buys a lot of Teavana teas. Thanks to her for letting me try some of these out. I have to admit, I like the flavor and smell of this one. I used a healthy dose of cream and sugar but did try it prior to additives. It was very spicy prior, almost too spicy.

The only two things that bother me about this tea:

1) It is an “oolong” with very little oolong leaves. I wish there was more tea in this tea.

2) The price is very high for no oolong. Not sure how they determine these prices? The spiced mandarin oolong is $9 and this one is $12?

Overall this has a good ‘flavor’ but I’m wondering how much of this has to do with the artificial flavoring added to the fruit pieces. Tastes good, I would probably buy it, if it were more affordable for what it is.

If you know me well, you know about my love affair with chais – and this one is getting filed under “Best Oolong Variety.” I love the medley of spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom…and I swear allspice, although I checked and it’s not listed as an ingredient. No matter.

As with most chais, I believe sweetener enhances the spicy flavorings, so I added a Sun Crystals packet. I know many drink chais with milk, but I don’t enjoy milk with anything as I’m allergic to an enzyme in it. I do enjoy a chai latte with soy milk every once in a while, but I really think this would be better off with little added to it.

This oolong hits the spot! Yums!

Where was the oolong? Didn’t even see tea in the mix until after it had steeped.

Being my first time with this tea, I made it with my usual half water/half 1% milk and a teaspoon of sugar. WHOA, way too sweet. I’m inexperienced with carob, and I guess that must have added some sweet? Also, the fake cinnamon flavor is more than too sweet and a bit overwhelming. This tastes like lots of other masala chais, just with fake cinnamon added.

How do they charge $12 for this? Glad I got it for free, since I wouldn’t buy it. Will try this with minimal sugar, and perhaps less milk next time. Strange brew.

Maharaja Chai Oolong —Teavana

This was my son’s pick when he went to the Teavana store in Little Rock, Arkansas. He brought a large tin along when he came to visit me over the holidays and allowed me to bag a generous sample for my own collection. Dry, it is fragrant with lots of nice chunky bits and pieces, cardamom pods, cloves, and stuff.

After brewing some of this up hot, I must admit my son’s tastes are similar to my own. I love a chai that has lots of variety and isn’t overly heavy on the cinnamon. This one has a lot of parallels with my all time favorite, Numi’s Golden Chai. I’m enjoying the nice balance of flavors, good enough that it doesn’t need any “help” from cream or sugar, though I’m sure they would be fine additions.

As my kids go out in the world to make lives of their own, I find myself occasionally reflecting sadly upon the vacancies of my nest. It’s nice to be reminded that they are discovering a whole new world out there and can introduce me to some of their new experiences. Having my son come home to visit is awesome. Getting a sample of a new tea just makes it that much better. I liked this one. Thanks dude, ya done good.

I don’t believe I have tried this on its own since the first time I went through the tea wall at work. Normally I either pair this with Spice of Life or Black Dragon Pearls, though I also have an “oops blend” of Taj Masala. Anywho I am trying this today by itself with no additives, because I want to make room in my tins and I feel like reviewing something but brewing without ceremony (which rules out everything in my new Verdant order that arrived this morning and am omgs dying to get into but feel like I need people to share with!).

So three teaspoons in the perfect tea maker with 16 oz of water at 195F for three minutes yields a surprisingly rich, complex and sweet cup. I normally take my chai with honey or rock sugar but my gods this is really good on its own. I don’t necessarily taste the oolong here but the cinnamon, nutmeg and clove balance each other really well. I get the pepper and a hint of cardamom (but I think I scooped quite a few pods out of the top of the tin when I was making a custom blend). So yes very pleased, wish I had drank more of this on its own over the winter, but oh well. Edit: I got three very flavorful infusions out of this, did not attempt a fourth but I imagine quite a bit of flavor would still translate if not as strongly.

Oolong? What oolong? All I taste is chai spices. Seriously, Teavana, you could have made this chai it a much cheaper tea with a black tea. I may be cynical, but it Teavana just trying to make an excuse to charge high prices for a bunch of cheap spices by threading the blend with “Ti Kuan Yin” tea leaves? If you’re looking for an oolong, this tea is not for you. If you’re looking for a chai, you could probably make it yourself at home for a quarter of the price.

Teavana was nice enough to include a 1 oz sample of their blend: Maharaha Chai Ooolong/Samurai Chai Tea Blend. I’m still learning what sort of teas that I like, and apparently I love chais. This was delicious. I didn’t even have to add milk, just a little bit of sugar to bring out the spices and its a nice delicious winter blend. Out of all the teas I have tried yet, this one is by far my favorite and I never would have even thought to order it!

My favorite chai, and the standard to which I compare every other chai blend. Spicy, flavorful, & aromatic with a natural sweetness. I like that it’s an oolong because it adds more depth than just a black tea. I also love that it has whole cardamom pods. To me, that is THE defining flavor in a masala chai.

You can steep this forever and it won’t go bitter. It can be re-steeped, but all that results, to me, is cinnamon flavored water so I just toss the leaves after steeping once.

I usually have it hot as a latte, using 1 heaping tsp per 8 oz water. If you’re sensitive to a lot of spice, use a scant teaspoon.

This is some hardcore “chai” (I use the term loosely – is there even any tea in it?) It reminds me of a spice bag for slow-cooking some cut of meat over the holidays. Very strong aroma- perfect for wintry evenings and cool spring days. Its definitely more cinnamon-y than anything else. I like it with vanilla almond milk and, sometimes, some type of sweetener. Since its got such a strong mélange of flavors, I don’t mind adding agave nectar, as its flavor doesn’t ruin the chai (I use rock sugar if I don’t want to taste the sweetener itself). I’m not the biggest fan of chai, and would put this in the “go big or go home” category. Nothing timid about this stuff.

I am pretty impressed with this tea despite the confusion of getting instead of the tea I ordered.
The cinnamon flavor didn’t overwhelm the other spices. I really enjoyed the nutmeg as an addition. I was surprised to find I could taste the other spices in this chai! Teavana seems to have trouble finding balance of the spices in their chais.
I really enjoy chais for all the flavors they blend together. Since this tea has done a good job of that, I’m rating it high.

Oh I love chai blends. I also love Oolongs! So what could be better than the two of them blended together into something delicious? I went to World Market yesterday and used some coupons to get my first cast iron tea pot! I also sprung the extra 10 bucks for the trivet and warmer. While I know I should probably use a tried and true tea to test the differences between my ‘Perfect Tea Maker’ and my new cast iron, I just was dying to taste my newest teavana acquisition, Maharaja Chai.

The scent of the tea leaves is spicy and pungent. I can pick out the cloves, cardamon and pepper. The color is a beautiful and deep brown with a golden tint and the first sip just bursts on the back of my mouth. After the warm swallow, I can taste the sweetness of the cloves. Its smooth on the tongue and sweet without adding any sugar or sweetners. I usually don’t sweeten oolongs because the leaves just add such a delicate flavor that added sweetness can mask, but I can tell this one is going to be a favorite.

It reminds me a little of Sweet Oolong Revolution, but the spices are way stronger, giving it that lovely chai flavor. I am very pleased with this one.

Love the spices here. It’s a naturally sweetened chai, so there’s no need for sugar. I usually add just a little more than suggested, just to get a bit of a stronger flavor. It stands perfectly well on its own, but blends very nicely with Honeybush Vanilla if you feel like a little extra sweetness :) This is the tea that I want for a yixing cup!! Good any time of the day, and very nice after lunch right now in the summer. So far my favorite from Teavana.

While running an errand today I walked past a Teavana that I had no idea existed. I managed to do my errand and then somehow found myself backtracking to Teavana. I tried to resist, as I’ve never been in one before, mainly because I know that you have to buy 50g min, and I prefer to try smaller amts of new teas.

I walked in anyway. I’ve been having good success with oolongs lately, so I gravitated to those. After checking out some of them, I ended up getting 50g of this one, as I was seduced by smell of the potent spices. It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I looked in the bag and thought, “Wait a second, where’s the oolong?” All I could see were spices.

I brewed up a cup, and did see a few broken leaves in the pot (6 to be exact). Not very impressive as an oolong, but I gave it a sip. OMG is this sweet. The cinnamon is strong and overpowers everything else. It’s almost sickly sweet. Now I understand why the SA suggested mixing it with a black tea. At the time, I wondered why, as it was already a tea mix. Now I understand. You need something to cut the sweetness.

I may experiment adding some other spices/herbs to this to balance out the flavours, or add some plain oolong to it. Otherwise it’ll just be an expensive bag of spices sitting in my cupboard forever.

The smell of this Chai tea is very good. The cinnamon seems to be the strongest out of all the spices in the tea. Taste wise, I would have to say the cinnamon kind of overpowers all the other flavors. It tastes good, as I love cinnamon, but I think it’s just a bit too much for an even flavor of all the spices.

So this is pretty good. But the oolong is not recognizable. Really pointless to waste oolong on this as you cannot taste it at all; it just tastes like chai. Now don’t get me wrong, it is good (even though the cinnamon overpowers everything else), it is tasty. I prefer it plain (no milk or sugar — it is already pretty sweet).

Had I known Teavana has a minimum amount that you have to purchase, I wouldn’t have bought this. Luckily my mom loves this tea, because I don’t think I could finish it all. Oh and I had asked for the minimum amount (50 g) and the employee put 64g in the bag. He then asked me if that was okay. What was I supposed to do, ask him to put 14g back? This is just another reason why I prefer DT to Teavana.

Holy moly! If you love cinnamon, and I mean really LOVE, then this tea if for you. I, however, don’t even really enjoy Big Red gum. If you want a wake-up call with each sip, you’ll really love this tea. I found the cinnamon pretty overpowering and decided to give it to someone that was constantly eating hot tamales. It has a smooth, pure flavor though.

One of my favorite chais that Teavana has to offer. I prefer to mix this with either the Samurai or the White Aureveydic more than I like mixing them together like in the sample.

This tea is still one of my favorites. I really like all the spices in this tea. I haven’t found a lot of oolong’s that I like yet. I think this is my first. I will be a regular drinker of this tea.

I came across this tea from a recommendation from a co-worker. Needless to say, I fell in love with this. On Sundays, me and my wife like to go to this Indian Restaurant in Decatur, GA called Cafe Bombay. This tea is a great ending to a meal there.