Tea India

I usually buy Halmari single estate CTC or perhaps an Irish/Scottish breakfast blend, but I went ahead and picked up a big bag of this stuff when my go-to was unavailable. The tea has weaker aroma and flavor by comparison, but brews up nice and strong. For chai, I don’t think I can tell the difference, and when adding a drop of cream to a cup, the lack of specific character isn’t missed as much as I anticipated. My only real concern is the conditions under which this is picked/processed – given how cheap it is I fear a bit of “fast fashion” exploitation is involved (as with some ceylon).

I actually enjoy this tea. It definitely jolts and shakes taste buds with energy. It has so many ingredients, taste is a combo of tea, herbs, and tea-spices. My friends makes it with mint and cardamom. I drink it to the last sip.

A lovely malty blend perfect with milk and sugar/ sugar sub. It’s a staple in our house.

Sipdown 41/371!

I could have sworn I’d written out one or two notes on this tea before, but either I’m imagining things or Steepster is eating my notes again. This is my favourite plain chai tea, and I’m actually quite sad to see it go. I usually find chais quite tricky, particularly loose leaf, as there are so many spices and I can never seem to get them in the same quantities each time, so every cup is different. I’m not a big fan of chais as a rule, because I have a strong aversion to cardamom in any form. I also try to avoid ginger whenever possible, and I’m not a fan of cloves either. Because all of these ingredients are in this tea, I really didn’t expect to like it at all, and was pleasantly surprised when I tried it the first time. The Assam blend is robust enough to hold its own against the spices, but nothing is overpowering and the resulting cup is quite mellow. The ingredients I dislike so much are present, but somehow I don’t mind them here. The cardamom stands out a little, and the pepper comes through at the end of the sip. This is a really nice morning tea, and I’m drinking my last cup of this with a couple of cheese crackers I’m calling breakfast. I rarely drink tea with sugar any more, but this one called for it so I’m treating myself to a milky cup with a teaspoon of sugar and it’s delicious. I’m joining WeightWatchers tomorrow, so this will probably be the last time I have sugar in the foreseeable future. It’s a good send-off for sweetened tea.

My favourite chai. The blend is perfect! Everything just works together. It’s not very bold – there’s spice but nothing’s really dominating this blend. Very tasty and calming, though. After having a few bad chais (Tetley’s chocolate chai and David’s vanilla chai) I thought I was just not a chai person – that is untrue. I could drink this all day.

I thought I would have these teabags for a while but they were so great for the morning that I’ve just finished the last of them. For that I’ve put the score up for them a little. Milk and two sugars style with this tea bag works wonders in the morning.

I’m staying at my parents house and it’s just me and two dogs here, I lived here for 8 years while I was younger and even to this day I have a confession…this house scares the s**t out of me. There are constant clicks and bangs around the house which are always worse at night, doors open by themselves upstairs, you hear footsteps on the landing, things move around….seriously! I used to believe in ghosts when I lived here because of everything that happened but when I moved it all stopped, yet when I come back it all starts up again. The dogs stare at the wall with nothing and no one there, creepy as hell! I can’t wait to go home on Monday. Only reason I made it through last night was thanks to my discovery of NyQuil. That stuff is wonderful! You can’t buy it over here but my mum imports gallons of the stuff each year. Never have I had such a peaceful night sleep. Three cheers for NyQuil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLDeBeIWahw
ps. Don’t watch the video if you are easily offended.

Thank you Nattie for this tea. I do love a cup of Indian Chai from time to time and this is my after dinner selection. It’s a tea bag so I’m trying it with half boiling water and half steamed milk with a spoon of sweetener. That is how I usually have my Chai.

Whilst steeping the tea smells strongly cinnamon and cardamom. Flavour wise the first sip reveals a nice strong black tea base with thick cinnamon and cardamom flavours which match the scent. Also a little after taste of clove or something similar, it’s almost refreshing/cooling. It’s basic in terms of flavours but not bad at all for a bagged tea.

I could drink this with no problems, as long as it has milk and sugar to my taste then it’s a nice convenient chai.

Hmm, not sure if I like this one or the Cardamom Chai better. What they both do have in common though is that they need lots of milk and sugar to make it taste great. Making it in a saucepan would be even better I guess.

My mother in law got this for free with her groceries, I think it’s a pretty new product. It was honestly pretty good. Tasted somewhat authentic. I added a little milk into it to give it more creamyness (like I would for instant hot chocolate) and it was rich. I couldn’t finish my cup of it.

All in all, I was kind of impressed!

I accidentally added a load of sugar today and it was realllly sweet, but strangely I could feel the spice coming alive a bit more. It got me wondering whether this might be how people in India usually enjoy their chai or not as opposed to my usual 1 tsp of sugar.

Pretty good standard chai tea. I would have liked a bit more of tea flavor, but they got the spice just right. I’ll try steeping this for a bit longer next time. I had a muffin with it and it was good. Bought a dozen for $5 at Safeway (gotta love those Friday sales).