Warning: I ramble for the first paragraph, if you do not care, skip right to the rating (second paragraph). Yesterday and today the northeast was hit with it’s third (and hopefully final) snowstorm of the year. So once again, I was snowed in and cabin fever is definitely setting in. In the past week or so, since the last blizzard, I have decided to “spring clean” up the house, and by house, I most nearly mean drink my tea that is almost complete but not quite there. You see, I have a nasty habit of opening dozens, hundreds, I-don’t-know-how-many, samples and packs and tins and boxes of tea and then trying it once, twice if I like it, then three times to write a rating and then never touching it again. This is a terrible habit, and every once in a while I step back and assess the mess I have made out of my kitchen and now into my living room. As I began, I have been finishing off teas so as to deplete the mess and with today’s being stuck at home, I got rid of a few teas. They were already rated, no fear, I did nothing special to them, but I am feeling accomplished as I have removed some of them.
Rating: So, now that I have finished open tea, I can go onto new samples. Yay! First up was Kashmiri Chai. The leaves are pretty, dark, and small, they are mixed with large spices; they smell slightly spicy.
First Infusion: 5 minutes, hot, no additives. This chai is very nice, gentle green and black tea blend with subtle hints of spice. I pick up cardamom and cinnamon mostly, maybe a hint of clove, overall it is very good. As with all of my chai, I must drink this hot, because as it cools the flavor of the tea is lost and the spices become overwhelming to me. This was the same for this tea, only the spices were not as overwhelming as other chai teas I have had. When I read “Kashmiri” I knew it meant the geographical region, but when I tasted it, I thought describing it like a cashmere scarf was not bad either, it is smooth and velvety, rich and intoxicating.
Second Infusion: 3 minutes, hot, no additives. I found that I did not want to oversteep for the second infusion, 3 minutes brought about an equivalent pot of tea. Slightly spiced, gentle tea, very aromatic and delicious.
Third Infusion: By this time I was looking for another way to do this, according to Golden Moon website, the tea can be enjoyed with cream and honey for a sweet treat. I did not have cream and due to the Snowpocalipse, I was not going to get any, but a splash of milk and a tiny touch of honey, made this tea extraordinary! The tea, brewed hot for 3 minutes, still had the spiced flavors and gentle tea blend, but now it had creamy sweetness added.
Highly recommended any of the three ways, this was a fantastic chai tea. I feel it was so good because it is not as strong as many other chais, it is well blended and gentle, so it is a good tea for people just starting to explore chai or people not so crazy about the amount of spice normally found in chai.
I heard we are supposed to get 40 inches on March 7th!!!! It can’t be true, right??!!