Last night I was in Trader Joe’s surveying their newest pumpkin paraphenelia when I noticed a cannister of this on their “New Products” endcap. Even a few months ago I wouldn’t have given this a second glance, but my love of all things pumpkin, a recent unexplained craving for spiced teas, and my recent appreciation for other forms of powdered tea made me pick it up and put it in my basket.
The first two things on the ingredients list are sugar and non-fat milk, so that should give you a sense of what we’re dealing with. Tea ingredients are listed as Black tea and Darjeeling tea. It also includes powdered pumpkin. The powder smells intensely pumpkin-spicey, like raw pumpkin pie mix. I prepared it as instructed and it yielded a intense brown color that seems dark for a latte mix. The flavor is very sweet, and quite tasty. It got a little two sweet for me at one point, but the addition of a little more water evened things out, and I will probably make my next cup with 8oz instead of 6oz of water. It’s not super tea-ish, but honestly when I drink chai I’m not super concerned about that. It is quite like drinking liquid pumpkin pie, and a good easy mix when I don’t have the energy to deal with other chais or matcha.
