Hari Har Chai

My wife bought a 100g box for $1 at an in-store supermarket promotion, and I couldn’t wait to open the box when she got home, just to enjoy the aroma. I drink all my tea black, with no sugar, as milky tea often leaves me feeling a little… well… “blah”. Traditional chai is obviously quite milky, but the aroma out of the box was heady and reminded of when I first tried chai back in my university days, I just had to try it again.

Hari Har Chai outline two brewing methods on their box, the “traditional method” and a “quick” method. Following the traditional method, I added cold water to the tea, brought it to the boil, reduced the heat and added an equal amount of milk, and slowly re-heated. I often find that I have to add sugar to milky tea (unlike black tea), and the addition of licorice root in the blend as a natural sweetener didn’t do enough for me. After the addition of a teaspoon of sugar, the result was quite enjoyable.

I brewed up some more today, and thought I’d strengthen the flavour by gently boiling the chai for a couple of extra minutes before adding the milk. Oddly enough, the result seemed less aromatic and less flavoursome than my previous brews (where I reduced the heat as soon as it came to a boil).

I found this one at Wooly’s here in Mount Isa. I brewed it with half a cup of milk and half a cup of water for 2 tsp as directed. It is a pretty well balanced chai and the licorice adds enough sweetness that I didn’t feel the need for any other sweetner. I think I’ll cut back on the milk next time I brew it though. Even leaving it to steep for a longer time the tea itself was weak. I have high hopes for this chai, we’ll see how it goes.

After a hectic week of work, studying, late night movies and flinging my beads around till the wee small hours of the morning… I’m in desperate need of some rejuvinating today. This Australian grown CTC (from the looks of it) brews up almost black in color and really holds its own among the array of chai spices, which has a sweet little kick of liquorice root. I’m not sure how rejuvenating this blend truly is, but I definitely feel like I can face the rest of today without keeling over.

I only had a small sample of this so I really need to track down some more, because I know this would be fantastic brewed stovetop in milk!