Masala Chai

This is another of the June teas of the month on the Teavana classic tea of the month plan. I tried it today using the Samovar stovetop method with Leafspa Yunan Gold as the extra black tea.

This is a sort of in-between chai on my scale. It’s not too spicy, but it’s hardly mild. It has a little kick at the end. The spiciness must come from the ginger and cardamom as there’s no pepper listed in the ingredients. It’s also got a decent amount of tea flavor to it, though there’s a tad of harshness to it even through the milk and sweetener. There is vanilla listed among the ingredients, and if I close my eyes and try hard I can taste the vanilla, but it’s not among the stronger flavors in this. It’s hard to say what flavor is the strongest, really. It’s probably the ginger, tied with the cinnamon.

If I hadn’t gotten this as part of the tea of the month club I probably would not have tried it. At this point in my chai experience I’ve narrowed things down enough to know that if it doesn’t have black pepper it’s not going to be able to compete with my favorites in chailand. Even so, I’m glad I got a chance to try this and I’m even gladder it wasn’t just a sample size so I’ll have another shot at it. At it happens, I made this then had to put the 4 year old down for nap, and fell asleep next to him so this was pretty much lukewarm by the time I got to it. I’m sure it’s improved by being hotter.

This chai is a staple of my morning routine. I combine it with Samurai Chai Mate, and together I like them better…alone, this chai can sometimes gain that bitter black tea edge, especially if you miscalculate on the water-simmering portion and the leaves have had enough before you’re through heating the milk that you add (if, like me, you find chai lattes the only way to go). The smell is heavenly, velvety-smoke and cinnamon, and the moment I open the bag my entire kitchen smells like the holidays. The aroma it releases when it’s on the stove and heating is almost as much a part of having chai as drinking it is.

Really, that’s what chai has become for me — a morning ritual. It’s certainly not the most slimming of my morning rituals, but I don’t care. Boston is cold right now…bitterly and suddenly, after such a temperate early season. Getting out from under my down comforter is always such a crisis of cold feet and lack of interest in being awake, but if I make it to the kitchen, then I’m good. I can start to simmer the chai blend, turn on a few lamps, and sit and smell the spices while I wait for the gunmetal grey blur outside of my window to turn silver and sharpen up into a proper world. Sometimes the sun throws in a few other colors gratis, too (but not often, because this is Boston and if there’s one thing Boston does well, it’s the color grey).

It’s true that there are probably better ways to wake up than this one, but probably not many.

Drank this iced this evening (brewed double strength chilled and cut with ice and milk). It was quite tasty, but I wasn’t paying close enough attention to note much more than that. Not too bitter (which was a concern with the CTC leaves, so I made sure not to oversteep), and I got two steeps out of it. Ginger is the only flavor I remember standing out, probably because it’s my least favorite chai spice, but that wasn’t strong enough to ruin it for me.

The black tea leaves in this are smaller than I thought, they look crushed or broken maybe? I believe that is intentional in this tea though.

I made this as a tea latte using 2 cups of water and 2 cups of Vanilla Soy to 4 teaspoons chai tea. I brought the water to a boil and then added the tea, boiled for 5 minutes and lowered heat to a simmer, then added the soy while stirring frequently. I let the soy mix simmer another 10 minutes and then removed from heat, letting it cool with the tea still in the mix for another 20 minutes. Then I strained and left in the fridge overnight.

I think I need to do this with water: soy in a 3:1 ration, too much soy in a 1:1. The chai holds up well, but not quite how I want it. I still have some tweaking to do.

I also purchased chocolate soy to try with the chai…excited to try this one hot!

It felt scratchy on my throat and bitter on my tongue. I asked for it with milk and no sugar, like I usually take my Masala Chai. It needed some sugar I think. I think I’m really picky about masala chai mixes. I have only had a few I really liked. This was not my favorite. I prefer more cinnamony taste.

Bought this over the weekend and really loved it. Here’s why… It doesn’t have that “medicine-y” or astringent taste some other chai mixes seem to have. It’s sweet, it’s cinnamon, it’s rich and most importantly, I can actually TASTE the black tea in it. I guess that’s typically my beef with chai, you can taste the STUFF, but not the tea. This is a great TEA that is flavored perfectly.

One of the best chai teas around.

This is actually my first owned loose leaf tea, and I’ve probably consumed 4 ounces of the stuff to date. Unfortunately, of the countless cups I’ve created I can only remember 2-3 times where it actually tasted Amazing. As another reviewer noted, it’s inconsistent. At times it’ll be thick and spicy and at others it’ll just taste like sweet potato water.

Any idea for why this is? I’ve tried shaking up the contents, adding more tea, steeping hotter and steeping it longer.. but Its just a gamble. Maybe its going bad…

For the times the tea turned out perfect I give it good score, but if it was more consistent it could probably be in the 80-90 region.

Teavana is often a bit too bold with flavours, but a few of their staple teas really hit the mark. I steamed (okay, microwaved) half a mug of milk, and then steeped an extra-strong brew to add to the milk. The result was creamy and delicious!

I usually combine it with Teavana’s Samurai Chai Mate or their White Ayurvedic Chai. I always like to ad extra cloves, peppercorn cardamom & crystallized ginger.

Too much spice.

This chai is tepid. The biggest problem with the flavor is the black pepper, which isn’t advertised, and it has the strongest influence. The flavor of “the leaf” is delicious, but overall this cup didn’t make me soar heavenward. There are many better black chais, ones with more ingredients and less black pepper.

this was my first chai tea. I had it at the store and thought it was pretty good. If it was not discontinued i would definitely get some.

I tried this tea plain…it was good but very strong on the spice. That is a good thing, though, since it is a chai, maybe it will hold up to milk. So I tried it with rock sugar and milk, but I was slightly underwhelmed.

Have they changed it recently? The quality of the tea leaf looks wrong, as if it’s been mechanically dehydrated rather than dried, and it’s not as spicy as I recall. In fact, I added in my own spices to get it up to par so I could finish it off.

Good spicy flavor.

One of our perpetual favorites. We turn to it for its comforting, warming quality.

Tried this for the first real time today, with 1:3 milk to water (I wish we had more than skim though) and two heaping teaspoons of sugar. Next time I want to combine it with some mate just to see how it goes. The spice on this is pretty nice though!

While it’s not the finest chai out there, it’s still tasty. You can easily pick up the smell of the cardamom and ginger, and definitely taste it on the way down. Strong flavor, but still lacking something.. can’t put my finger on what.