White Ayurvedic Chai

Well…everyone might have expected(well obviously) that passing by a Teavana would be a crime if a sample was not taken or a stroll in the store for a browse. Surely enough, this beauty of tea makes me want to believe in Teavana even more and buy more! Just one sip of this tea you can taste the grandness of India and the Artistry of china! The white tea brew brought out every pureness of flavor that tea embodies, a light, crisp, a bit sharp taste of green beans or snow peas! its natural vegetal flavor along with fruity accents of pineapple really shows best when blended with a Chai-type spices! The cloves, ginger, and pepper gives it a medicinal feel that comforts you in knowing that its all healthy despite the fruitiness while cinnamon, lemongrass, coconut, and the pineapple bits beckons to let loose a bit and drink some more! The “German” rock sugar really gave off grassy notes about a tiny bit, and somewhat of a starchy flavor to it which reminds me a bit of Assamy-ness to it. Its really Beyond above average, the tea was well brewed and came out a bit hot, the sugar did not have much interference but imparted natural tastes, and the spices were balanced and welcoming! Suffice to say, I come out of the store feeling more happier than I was and profoundly “fixed”..yes a good way to describe my feeling.

Dear Teavana,
Normally I don’t think much of your tea blends. And I think far less of your customer service and store ambiance. But this chai blend is pretty okay. It truly does taste like warm red-hots, but I also taste lemongrass and pepper. I like that it’s not like any other chai I own… but of course now I own $40 worth because you bagged up a ton more than I asked for, and I stupidly paid for it because I felt badly about getting tricked.

Anyway, a pretty unique chai blend, but you must really love cinnamon tea. And I’m really only ambivalent about cinnamon.

This reminds me a lot of Feisty Jade, a green chai from teas.com.au. This is a light tea that has a really spicy sort of buzz to it, and leaves a quite complex aftertaste behind.

I’ve tried this in the store a few times, it was interesting, it was combined with Samarai Mate which I did not want because I am not a morning tea drinker usually, and plus not much inclined to try out Mate yet anyways. (Excluding samples.) So I was thinking, I already knew that this was fairly peppery and many people commented on the ‘Red Hots’ flavor, so I felt that combining it with a fruit tea might balance it out a bit. So, still having a fair amount of Strawberry Paraiso I brewed 2 different cups of the teas, then with a 3rd cup and strainer, I poured some tea from each cup, put some Apriva in, tasted….MMMMmmmm. Tastes good. Then I started wondering if I had a tea that had a stronger strawberry base, and another with a straight chai base and combined them how would it taste? Next though I think I will try it with the Pinapple from Teavana. Anyone has any suggestions let me know.

Yay! I’ve graduated from bags and sachets and steeped my very first cup (er, two cups) of loose tea! Of course my first cup of loose tea would have to be something that flummoxes me, because that’s my luck. The directions for white tea are different from the directions for green tea, and this has both in it! Gah. I was a bit wary, anyway, since this tea’s got red and black pepper in it (um… whut?) and I can’t have spicy-hot stuff.

You know how some people will add salt ‘n’ pepper ‘n’ other seasoning to their food without even tasting it first? Ya, that bugs me. Generally I will have a cup of tea without any fixin’s, just to see what it’s like.

So, cup 1: 2tsps of tea steeped in 185° water for five minutes. It was mostly okay. It didn’t taste as strong as I expected it to taste, and I figured I’d got the directions wrong since I was steeping in one of those travel mugs that hold way more than 8oz. My heart sank when I saw that there’s cinnamon in this tea. Cinnamon irritates me because it overpowers everything else. I was hoping for nuances, layers of complexity, and what I got was loads of cinnamon and the bite of pepper. Not the greatest of first impressions.

Cup 2: 2 tsps of tea steeped in sweetened, 185° water for, um, probably about 20 minutes. Oh, don’t look at me like that, it was an accident. I left it for 5-7 minutes (remember, I didn’t think 5 minutes was long enough for cup 1) and promptly forgot about it. Good things come to those who wait, even those who only waited accidentally. =) This cup is yummy. My mug is awesome, so the tea, instead of being cold and undrinkable (the mug was uncovered the whole time), is actually still a little too hot to drink comfortably. The tea itself is greatly improved this time around. It’s still too cinnamon-y, but I like it much better sweetened.

I have a question for anybody that reads this. I boiled half cup of milk, and a half cup of water, and then put the tea and the water/milk into a pot. The tea tastes pretty weak to me, does anybody know if there is a better way to brew it, or if there is something I’m missing?

Thanks

Made this strong and poured it over ice. It’s pretty fantastic!

So, Teavana has this tea called Caribbean Calypso which tastes exactly the same as this tea (except it’s half the price as this one). I’m not kidding, I have both of them, drank them back to back and there are very subtle differences. The problem comes from the Lemongrass. Yes, the Lemongrass, is what Teavana piles on top of weak teas in order to make them seem.. well.. less weak. And the con of that method shows in the fact that two of their teas taste almost completely identical. I’d love this specific tea if I wasn’t aware that I could get it in the same store for half the price.

I think I’ll just be sitting at my desk drinking tea all day since both of my appointments today canceled. So I’m drinking this, not my favorite, but it’s the only white tea I have so I thought I’d make today green and white teas and the delicious black flavored teas when I get home.

Ironically, the method we use in my job is based off of the book Three Cups of Tea, and despite the controversy, I think I’m going to spend today reading it.

It’s possible I oversteeped this tea – I generally tend not to drink white tea; I thought this chai was really lovely but very slightly bitter. (Full disclosure: Aside from oversteeping it, I also mostly drink black teas that I would add milk and sugar to, so drinking tea without is not usual for me.)

This white ayurvedic chai has spicy, peppery overtones, and a bit of that pepper stays with you, yet a taste of sweetness that I attribute to cinnamon stayed on my tongue as I sipped. I added a tablespoon of honey for one cup, and not for the other; the hone did mute some of the bitterness, and I think some of the pepper as well.

It has a very pleasing aroma: slightly grassy, peppery, but slightly sweet – a really interesting combination, nothing inherently overpowering but blended well such that every time I smelled the tea, I detected a different bouquet.