Eggnog Chai

Sipdown (332)

Thank you Kittenna for the share. I think I have had this double-bagged in a box in a drawer for over a year. It maybe wasn’t the best to leave this sample for so long since it is really a bit bland. It is smooth and maybe a touch creamy but not much else going on. No chai spices. No eggnog. My guess is that could be just flavor deterioration from age and especially next to the very flavorful Gingerbread Chai latte, this felt flat.

Ok, this is old, but I drank it anyway and it was plenty delicious.

Mostly, the remaining bits at the bottom of the packet were spices, so I added a spoon of my favourite Keemun mixer, Capital Tea Ltd’s Keemun Classic. Added a glug of milk and Bob’s your uncle.

And it’s a sipdown!

Sipdown 2 of 2022.

Another 52Teas blend I wanted to try and just happened to show up in the last mystery bag sale! There is one thing here that makes this more of an “eggnog” chai… I’m getting more hints of nutmeg than I usually would in chai. I love nutmeg, so I’m happy when I see it in blends. Otherwise, this is a really delicious chai with a nice robust black tea base. I love a chai with a deep, dark base. (Though It’s probably because I used two teaspoons here.) I think even just using more nutmeg would have made this one seem more like eggnog, so it isn’t as perfect as I would hope. As a chai, it’s fantastic. :D Though I must admit I loved Frank’s Eggnog Yunnan… it had a ton of nutmeg with a yunnan base. I’d love to see more 52Teas with yunnan bases…. maybe something with actual pumpkin chunks?! Yunnan, pumpkin, tons of nutmeg, tons of cinnamon, vanilla? I just got the new pumpkin blend today and I’m very excited to try it tomorrow!
Steep #1 // 2 teaspoons for a full mug// 10 minutes after boiling // 3-4 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 5 minute steep

Getting close to a sipdown on this one, online one cup left after this. It will be a sad sipdown, for a really love chais and 52teas’ creativity with them. This is a nutty chai, but I find I don’t get the eggnog flavour (creamy, rum, or nutmeg). However, this is delicious anyway. Lots of pepper, cardamom, and the coldbrew method brings out the base really nicely. I really like how flavourful it is while still being smooth. By nutty flavour, I mean something like chestnuts and pecans. A bit sweet and a few more layers of delicious flavours.

I love all the new blends LiberTeas is creating under the 52Teas brand and if I could I’d buy everyone one of them. Sadly my wallet and the fact that I’ve have too much tea already has prevented me from doing so. This came my way via the Great Canadian Travelling Teabox so of course I pounced right on it. ;)

It smells deliciously spicy and eggnog-y in the pouch and while it was brewing. Unfortunately much of the flavours get lost in the black tea base which comes across a little bit astringent here. I could taste the eggnog but it’s mostly an aftertaste. I was drinking it plain so I added a splash of skim milk and that really improved matters, bringing out a sweet, creamy flavour with a hint of nutmeg. So I suppose the moral of the story is that like most chais this one is much better with milk.

(52teas (Anne) 2022: 40)

This smells like just a chai – heavier on nutmeg and cardamom – and when hot, tasted like one too. I’d written it off as just that… until I tried it after it had cooled down considerably and lo and behold – creamy eggnog chai! I got the same creaminess on the resteeps, so I think it was a bit of a temperature thing. I do wish it was creamier, but ultimately ended up being fairly satisfied, especially as the spice blend is heavy on my preferred chai spices.

I just had a latte using this chai – I have been neglectful lately at brewing a cuppa for my hubby so I decided to make up for it by making a chai latte which is his favorite tea beverage.

To be honest, I don’t often go latte with my cuppa chai because I rather like the flavor of the tea straight up (with just a pinch of raw sugar) – I grew to prefer it this way in my reviewing days. But I’m still one who does enjoy a latte every once in a while and this one makes a really nice latte – it brings out the creaminess of the eggnog notes.

I’ve been thinking over my holiday collection over the last couple of days. In truth, I needed to rush these teas and I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to to perfect the recipe because I failed to take into account how long it would take to get the Kickstarter going and to get those funds so that I could get everything rolling. That’s the best piece of advice I could give to anyone who is looking to start a Kickstarter – plan your time wisely. It will take 2 weeks after the Kickstarter is over to get your funds – so know this well in advance so that you can set your Kickstarter in good time!

Next year, I will take these lessons with me when I do the presale. I definitely will be using Kickstarter again because it’s very helpful to have the daily sales separate from the holiday pre-sales. My daily operations would have been a terrible mess if I had tried to do the presales on the website. I guess another option would be to start another website – but that would have been a tremendous amount of work and in the end it would have cost about the same – but with more work. So Kickstarter is the way to go.

I’ve also taken into account the various reviews and tasting notes that I’ve read about the teas – I do read them! If you have a blog and you’ve written a review for one of my teas , please point me in that direction!

Anyway, I do plan on doing some adjustments to the various recipes – I want to make the Hot Chocolate tea a little richer so I think I’ll blend the black tea base with some other teas, perhaps in addition to the teas from Verdant, I’ll use a rich Assam to enhance the body. The Chestnuts tea, I’ll go a little lighter on the Lapsang Souchong because it seems like most people tasted smoke and little else. Maybe I will also need to enhance that base with a Nilgiri to go along with the Malawi tea and Lapsang Souchong to add something extra to the body so that the smoke doesn’t present itself so strongly. And we’re also planning on bringing back the 12 Teas of Christmas – it will be a little different than what Frank was doing and will include the 5 Holiday teas – I’m not sure that I’ll do 12 brand new teas for the box but I’m also not nixing the idea either.

Wow – I’m chatty this evening, aren’t I?

My 52 Teas order arrived Saturday! Woot Woot. It arrived while I was away on a mommy getaway. Yep, my husband surprised me with a girls trip. 24 full hours away from the rugrats. I love them dearly, but it was so nice to be an adult and one of the girls again. It was a scavenger hunt that took us out to lunch, a winery, and to a B&B. Gotta love these husbands of ours!

So this tea….. OMG I love it! I have been rocking the chai this winter and this one was amazing. I loved the spices and the little something extra in here that made it taste very eggnog like. I wish I would have known I was going to love it so, I would have ordered the large size.

Ack!! I forgot to write my note about this tea!

My brother came up from Minneapolis to stay with me Christmas Eve. We spent the afternoon strolling around downtown Fargo and visiting various little shops . It was a wonderful time, and it was fairly warm until the last half hour. Once the sun went behind clouds it turned darned cold. When we got home I brewed a pot of this tea to warm us up. I come from a large family, and my brother Ross is the only other tea drinker. So you get not only my impressions of this tea, but my brother’s as well.

Ross isn’t a very adventurous tea drinker. He goes for traditional blacks, mostly bagged, with Earl Gray being a fave of his. I have him some Yorkshire Gold one year for Christmas and he liked that. He looked rather doubtful about this tea, as he doesn’t generally care of spice teas, but he politely tried it. And loved it. I couldn’t really taste it of course, but I could feel the spice. After he drank half his cup he got up and pulled the sample bag out of the drawer to look at the tea. He said, with amusing amazement, “There are actual spices in here! I can SEE the spices.” Then he spent the next two cups inhaling deeply and letting the tea rest in his mouth so he could get all the flavor. He told me he could taste vanilla, and caramel, and of course the spices.

So Eggnog Chai was a hit and enjoyment was had by all. :)

This tea is like eggnog spiced to the max, makes sense as it’s also a chai! A quick summary – it tastes like eggnog spiced chai, hahaha! The base is a malty assam and I think this one, out this year’s 52 Teas holiday teas, would make the best latte.

hmmm, make this with eggnog and it’ll be crazy spicy good!

Full review, along with the other 52 Teas Holiday teas on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/52-teas-2015-holiday-teas-tea-review/