Okay, so this was the last tea I tried from my Sherlock sampler, and the first to review. I left it to last because I have an absurd hatred for ginger, and didn’t think I was going to like this tea at all. What really surprised me was that it’s actually pretty good, and you can taste the ginger but it’s not like being punched in the mouth – it just mixes really nicely with the other chai spices.
As this is my first review, I had to decide on a scoring system (which took waaaay longer than it should have) and I finally decided to basically give it a score out of 10 and then scale it up. 0-50 is bad-average and 50-100 is average-great. I know I’m a mould-breaking genius. I gave this a 68 because 70+ is reserved for the REALLY great teas, and it wasn’t quite there.
If anybody actually reads this, you’ll realise that I am really picky and pseudo-scientific when it comes to trying new teas, and first have them plain, then with sugar/honey/milk/cream and combinations of the above. I actually preferred this one plain, which is so weird for me, especially with chais, so I’m not entirely sure what’s up with that. After having it plain, I added honey, then milk (because I’d let it cool too much to dissolve sugar crystals). I haven’t tried it with sugar or cream yet.
Plain – ginger comes through first and foremost, but it’s not too strong a flavour, it’s balanced out with the black tea.
With honey – as soon as I added the honey the ginger flavour gave way to the chai spices, and I didn’t like it as much. May be better with sugar than honey.
With honey and milk – the milk rounded out the flavour quite a bit, and oddly brought out the flavour of the pepper in the chai. My least favourite of the three ways I tried it, but still drinkable.
My overall score for each tea will be based on my favourite way to drink it (plain, in this case) and despite not being a fan of ginger I really enjoyed this tea! I would definitely recommend this blend, particularly to ginger lovers.
P.S. Apologies if anyone actually read this entire thing, it’s ended up a bit longer than I expected – I tend to drone on a bit. Hopefully future reviews will be shorter, seeing as this was my first one!
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Yay! First review! It took me forever to get a rating system too (normally I would just go by the smiley faces, lol)
You have no idea how long I agonised over it! I think I may be a bit too harsh of a marker… Oops!
Thanks for sticking with it and reading it! I didn’t actually think anyone would (:
I’m kind of the same way when I try new tea. I reserve my first cup to be plain, the second maybe with sugar, third with honey. I’ve only very recently been trying a few with milk but it still seems weird to me. not sure why? haha.
Haha I’ve only recently started having tea without milk! I guess adding milk is just the way I’ve been brought up, with being British and all :P I’m glad I’m not alone on the kinda-sorta-scientific stuff!
welcome to the madness guys! :) nothing wrong with long review!
Yay! First review! It took me forever to get a rating system too (normally I would just go by the smiley faces, lol)
You have no idea how long I agonised over it! I think I may be a bit too harsh of a marker… Oops!
Thanks for sticking with it and reading it! I didn’t actually think anyone would (:
I’m kind of the same way when I try new tea. I reserve my first cup to be plain, the second maybe with sugar, third with honey. I’ve only very recently been trying a few with milk but it still seems weird to me. not sure why? haha.
Haha I’ve only recently started having tea without milk! I guess adding milk is just the way I’ve been brought up, with being British and all :P I’m glad I’m not alone on the kinda-sorta-scientific stuff!
welcome to the madness guys! :) nothing wrong with long review!