White Ayurvedic Chai

I don’t have too much to say on this one simply because it is so un-remarkable. It’s not BAD, but it’s not AMAZING. I don’t think it would be something I would repurchase, especially not 2 oz of it. It’s pretty sweet for a chai and, as others have said, it tastes A LOT like redhots. Which I mean, that’s okay because I like redhots, but I don’t really look for that taste in my chais.

Also, I don’t know if I’ve said this or not, but I’m not like a super huge fan of chais. They’re alright every once and a while but they aren’t my favorites, at all.

Redhots.

That’s the first thing that you need to know about this particular chai: it tastes like redhots, those little pebble-shaped candies that are cinnamon and sweetness and altogether too easy to eat in mass quantities. If you like redhots, you’re going to probably find it difficult to dislike this chai. I love redhots, myself, so all’s well, but I still find that I prefer to take this tea blended with something else. While I wouldn’t call it one-dimensional, necessarily, I would say that the flavors in this one aren’t so complex that it makes a muddy mess of other chais when added to them (or even just other teas), so it seems pretty ideal for that purpose. Alone, the cup is not quite enough to keep me interested, and I think that eventually the sweet red-hot taste does get a little bit overpowering. As with everything, your mileage may vary! Sometime soon, I’ll have to give this a try without milk to see if I can’t pick out the fruit and herbal flavors they mention, as most of the time I think the milk crushes them utterly.

This is my first EVER teavana tea from my first EVER swap from oOTeaOo!!! First swap note. Yay! Thank you for giving me all these neat teas I can’t wait to try!

Observation 1: I prepared this tea myself. This tea was steep at 150 degrees F for 2 minutes as instructed. The blend is very pretty and smells a lot like cinnamon. The liquor is a deep amber color and also smells of nothing but cinnamon.

Observation 2: Naked, I taste the cinnamonn and white tea. It is very spicy and clean tasting. I suspect I should steep slightly longer than instructed or perhaps add more tea.

Observation 3: With sugar, this tea is very light. Somehow, the sugar seems to detract from the spice. I cannot taste any of the green tea; still just white tea and cinnamon.

Observation 4: With milk, I don’t even knnow how to tastefully describe this. Its gross. It tastes like milk aand something funky… like blue cheese maybe?

Observation 5: With milk and sugar: Just don’t do it. Trust me. I thought my milk was stale, I went to the fridge to investigat and my milk doesn’t expire for 10 more days.

I resteeped this later in the afternoon. It cam out very light. The cinnamon scent was still very prominent, but the taste wasn’t. It now has an after-tase reminiscent of spoiled milk..

Overall, blegh. I never say that about a tea, not even that horrid raspberry herbal of doom deserved a “blegh.” Will not buy and do not want to drink. Shame to see a tea go to waste.

Boyfriend review: Interesting combination…

I’ve had this one for a few weeks. I bought a couple ounces with there being 30% off. I have had this one mixed with the Samurai Chai that Teavana used to have as one of their samples. I have to say that alone this one is ok. The initial flavor is good but after steeps is where this one gets better. The initial steep unless you brew it with the Samurai does not have a whole lot of flavor. That might be the lemongrass? However in the second and third steeps the peppercorns come through more. It also cold brews quite well. Crazy enough this one is better went the Samurai is mixed with it. Unfortunate that this one doesn’t stand out by itself since it’s one of Teavana’s most popular blends. I do like this one and will probably keep it in cupboard in the regular rotation.

I finally trapesed my butt into Teavana yesterday. After the ridiculously hard time my youngest gave me while school shopping I thought I deserved a tea break. I went in knowing I wanted something hot and fall like, it’s a little more soothing I find. I smelt a few and I guess from the stress I don’t even remember what I had or how it tasted.
I did however bring some of the white Ayurvedic chai home. I had it this afternoon, the dry notes smell exactly like cinnamon hearts. Once steeped it keeps this smell and it tastes just like them as well. Like their blend that I have I find it to be very light on flavour. It’s a little on the sweet side, but it’s manageable, however as it cools it becomes far too sweet and is basically drinking a cup of cinnamon hearts, just not as flavourful or hot.
I don’t think I would re-purchase this, not even to keep me warm this fall.

I saw this sitting on my parent’s shelf. I know they haven’t drank tea in a long time since they bought a Kuerig, so I decided to claim this one as my own! This is a fairly decent tea, but I don’t like the aftertaste. It isn’t the best. I am not sure what it is. Maybe the spices overpower the white tea too much. Perhaps I will like this tea more down the road.

Andrea sent me this and I can see why she likes it. It is sweet with a fragrance redolent of cinnamon, cloves, and apple. I can barely taste the white tea base, but it is there and adds its own note. It was a nice calming drink for a difficult afternoon meeting. Thanks, Andrea!

This one just makes me swoon from its perfection.

I’ve been savoring every cup from the 2oz I bought a few weeks ago and the last week has been torture as I rationed out the last small amount. I’m not joking when I write that if I could strap the tin to my head like a feedbag just to breathe it in, I would. This morning I caved and ordered 8oz to be here by the weekend, so in celebration of that purchase I just brewed some up from the last remaining.

Man, this is sublime. I brewed 16oz using 3tsp of tea and 1tsp of rock sugar, steeping for about two minutes at around 175 degrees. That went into mugs with rice milk—2/3 tea, 1/3 rice milk. Perfection.

Thanks to a toddler in the house, I drink almost exclusively out of travel tumblers. This is one grand exception: it smells so wonderful and is such a pleasure that I want the full experience of my most treasured stoneware mug to warm my hands and thrill all my senses.

This is my desert island tea, no question.

(So many reviews mention blending this one, and maybe I’ve just not yet developed a sophisticated enough tea-palate to get it, but there’s nothing I’d change in this one.)

Well…everyone might have expected(well obviously) that passing by a Teavana would be a crime if a sample was not taken or a stroll in the store for a browse. Surely enough, this beauty of tea makes me want to believe in Teavana even more and buy more! Just one sip of this tea you can taste the grandness of India and the Artistry of china! The white tea brew brought out every pureness of flavor that tea embodies, a light, crisp, a bit sharp taste of green beans or snow peas! its natural vegetal flavor along with fruity accents of pineapple really shows best when blended with a Chai-type spices! The cloves, ginger, and pepper gives it a medicinal feel that comforts you in knowing that its all healthy despite the fruitiness while cinnamon, lemongrass, coconut, and the pineapple bits beckons to let loose a bit and drink some more! The “German” rock sugar really gave off grassy notes about a tiny bit, and somewhat of a starchy flavor to it which reminds me a bit of Assamy-ness to it. Its really Beyond above average, the tea was well brewed and came out a bit hot, the sugar did not have much interference but imparted natural tastes, and the spices were balanced and welcoming! Suffice to say, I come out of the store feeling more happier than I was and profoundly “fixed”..yes a good way to describe my feeling.

Dear Teavana,
Normally I don’t think much of your tea blends. And I think far less of your customer service and store ambiance. But this chai blend is pretty okay. It truly does taste like warm red-hots, but I also taste lemongrass and pepper. I like that it’s not like any other chai I own… but of course now I own $40 worth because you bagged up a ton more than I asked for, and I stupidly paid for it because I felt badly about getting tricked.

Anyway, a pretty unique chai blend, but you must really love cinnamon tea. And I’m really only ambivalent about cinnamon.

This reminds me a lot of Feisty Jade, a green chai from teas.com.au. This is a light tea that has a really spicy sort of buzz to it, and leaves a quite complex aftertaste behind.

I’ve tried this in the store a few times, it was interesting, it was combined with Samarai Mate which I did not want because I am not a morning tea drinker usually, and plus not much inclined to try out Mate yet anyways. (Excluding samples.) So I was thinking, I already knew that this was fairly peppery and many people commented on the ‘Red Hots’ flavor, so I felt that combining it with a fruit tea might balance it out a bit. So, still having a fair amount of Strawberry Paraiso I brewed 2 different cups of the teas, then with a 3rd cup and strainer, I poured some tea from each cup, put some Apriva in, tasted….MMMMmmmm. Tastes good. Then I started wondering if I had a tea that had a stronger strawberry base, and another with a straight chai base and combined them how would it taste? Next though I think I will try it with the Pinapple from Teavana. Anyone has any suggestions let me know.

okay, I guess I like my tea spicy! This one’s a real eye-opener…

It is a pretty nice blend from Teavana, it’s a bit different because it uses white and green tea. Smells very aromatic and cinnamon-y. The lemongrass is a nice touch and I adore the pepper. Comparisons with red hot candy are pretty well on the mark… It’s a good afternoon tea for me. However I doubt I will buy this again because it just hasn’t made that much of an impression upon me.

Yay! I’ve graduated from bags and sachets and steeped my very first cup (er, two cups) of loose tea! Of course my first cup of loose tea would have to be something that flummoxes me, because that’s my luck. The directions for white tea are different from the directions for green tea, and this has both in it! Gah. I was a bit wary, anyway, since this tea’s got red and black pepper in it (um… whut?) and I can’t have spicy-hot stuff.

You know how some people will add salt ‘n’ pepper ‘n’ other seasoning to their food without even tasting it first? Ya, that bugs me. Generally I will have a cup of tea without any fixin’s, just to see what it’s like.

So, cup 1: 2tsps of tea steeped in 185° water for five minutes. It was mostly okay. It didn’t taste as strong as I expected it to taste, and I figured I’d got the directions wrong since I was steeping in one of those travel mugs that hold way more than 8oz. My heart sank when I saw that there’s cinnamon in this tea. Cinnamon irritates me because it overpowers everything else. I was hoping for nuances, layers of complexity, and what I got was loads of cinnamon and the bite of pepper. Not the greatest of first impressions.

Cup 2: 2 tsps of tea steeped in sweetened, 185° water for, um, probably about 20 minutes. Oh, don’t look at me like that, it was an accident. I left it for 5-7 minutes (remember, I didn’t think 5 minutes was long enough for cup 1) and promptly forgot about it. Good things come to those who wait, even those who only waited accidentally. =) This cup is yummy. My mug is awesome, so the tea, instead of being cold and undrinkable (the mug was uncovered the whole time), is actually still a little too hot to drink comfortably. The tea itself is greatly improved this time around. It’s still too cinnamon-y, but I like it much better sweetened.

So, Teavana has this tea called Caribbean Calypso which tastes exactly the same as this tea (except it’s half the price as this one). I’m not kidding, I have both of them, drank them back to back and there are very subtle differences. The problem comes from the Lemongrass. Yes, the Lemongrass, is what Teavana piles on top of weak teas in order to make them seem.. well.. less weak. And the con of that method shows in the fact that two of their teas taste almost completely identical. I’d love this specific tea if I wasn’t aware that I could get it in the same store for half the price.

It’s possible I oversteeped this tea – I generally tend not to drink white tea; I thought this chai was really lovely but very slightly bitter. (Full disclosure: Aside from oversteeping it, I also mostly drink black teas that I would add milk and sugar to, so drinking tea without is not usual for me.)

This white ayurvedic chai has spicy, peppery overtones, and a bit of that pepper stays with you, yet a taste of sweetness that I attribute to cinnamon stayed on my tongue as I sipped. I added a tablespoon of honey for one cup, and not for the other; the hone did mute some of the bitterness, and I think some of the pepper as well.

It has a very pleasing aroma: slightly grassy, peppery, but slightly sweet – a really interesting combination, nothing inherently overpowering but blended well such that every time I smelled the tea, I detected a different bouquet.

I’ve had this tea for a few months (kept in a Teavana canister) as my aunt got it for me for my birthday, and I didn’t rush to try it since I’m usually not too fond of chai teas. Today, I thought I might as well give it a try.

The scent of the dry leaves is very spicy and you will notice the cinnamon right away. The scent almost made me not want to try it, since (as mentioned above) I usually only like flat green or white teas, but I did, and I must say, it wasn’t too bad!

I don’t think I steeped it long enough, because my cup doesn’t taste as strong as others on here have mentioned, but it DOES remind me of Redhot candies as someone else stated, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I love white teas and I think it took away some of the harshness that comes with black chai teas (but, then again, the only black chai teas I have tasted were bagged teas, not loose-leaf). Overall I enjoyed this cup, it was light yet had a warm little kick to it, and I’m looking forward to brewing a second cup and experimenting with the time/heat/etc. :)

This a yummy tea. It is spicy but not overwhelming. It also blended really well with the honeybush vanilla tea – and it seems like it will be very versatile with other teas as well.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this tea. This was one of the first teas from Teavana I tried, and I was worried the spices would simply overpower the tea. The brew was light yellow and had a very mild taste with subtle spices. Surprising indeed, considering how much “stuff” is in the tea itself.

I normally prepare this with the Samuari Chai Mate (to be honest, I have yet to have it by itself – I tried the blend originally as a sampler at a local Teavana store and instantly became addicted), resulting in that yummy blend of spices (think almost a cinnamon gum, only in tea form) that helps keep me up when I’m working past midnight. This has about the same amount of caffeine as coffee, so if you need a pick-me-up in the morning, and you’re not as much of a darker brew type of person, this is definitely a pleasant alternative! I find I don’t even need any milk or sweeteners to bring about the various flavors of this tea. This is the tea that I can not be without in my tea cupboard, and often find myself depressed when I get to the bottom of the tin. All of my friends who have tried a sip of this tea keeping begging for me to lend them more!

Making some more this afternoon, might try it with some german rock cane sugar just to see what it tastes like, since I think that’s how they prepare it at Teavana, but I could be wrong.