Chai Ultra Spice

Snowed in at the BF’s. He absolutely loves this tea with honey in it. I do like the ginger in the tea, but it’s not as spicy as bigelow’s chai tea. The spice is more biting rather than warming and smooth. Would probably be great with some creamer.

This is currently my favorite tea. I got my first box as a raffle prize at a friend’s Halloween party. When it’s sweetened properly, it has a really nice bite from the ginger. I also like to warm my milk in a small bowl placed on top of the cup while the tea steeps. I find it stays hotter longer that way, as I tend to add more milk to Chai teas than any other tea.

Added 1/26/2013: WOW! I’ve started splitting this half and half with milk and water for brewing. It takes a little more time, but I heat up the milk separatly and only fill the tea cup half way with boiling water to brew the tea. I let it steep for longer than usual (about 10 minutes or so) to get the spices nice and strong, then add the hot milk and sweetener. I don’t do it this way every time, but when I have the time to make it this way, it’s even BETTER! Still my absolute favorite tea!

P.S. I sent a couple bags of this to a friend in New Zealand. He and his mother LOVED it, but they can’t get it in their grocery stores, so now I’ll have to send them each a box! :)

The third bagged tea I’ve tried in as many days and, like the others, a disappointment. It’s got a bit of spiciness to it, but no real bite. As Liv said in an earlier review¹, it’s pretty flat. I don’t like cardamom and whatnot, so I wouldn’t be sad if the ginger were really strong in this, but it’s not. None of the flavours really jumped out at me individually, nor did they work very well together for a nice, smooth flavour.

I sweetened this cup but added no milk. Think I’ll try it with milk next time and see if that makes it better.

¹ http://steepster.com/livhathaway/posts/52338

Chai Ultra Spice is only ultra gingery to my taste, and not ultra spicy, possibly because they didn’t put in any black pepper. They claim there is cardamom in there, but you could have fooled me, I didn’t taste it at all. Also, I looked at the ingredients list, and I’d really like to know what “natural chai flavour” is. Last I checked, “chai” means tea, and I seriously doubt it is natural tea flavor they’re talking about.

But, that said, if you’re looking for a bagged tea that tastes like liquid gingersnaps when appropriately doctored up with sweetener and milk, this is the tea for you. Even though it wasn’t the ultra spicy chai I was hoping for, it was pretty decent anyway.

Probably one of the spiciest of the Twinings bagged teas but still very mild for a chai. I would recommend it for those new to chais or who don’t like the heavily spiced ones.

Nice, light flavour. Not really the darker tea that I prefer nor is it spicy, which was rather disappointing.

This is my tea of choice today. With the holiday candles burning in the background it is just perfect. It is milder than I expected but when made a little strong it warms the day….

Honestly I was dissapointed by the lack of spice here. Maybe it was just the box I bought, but when I get chai I want to feel the spice as much as taste it. This tea has some ginger as others have noted, but it’s pretty flat otherwise.