Masala Chai

brrrr!!! I needed something to warm me up this frigid day, so I picked a nice chai. I opened the package to be greeted with a familiar chai scent. The usual cardamom, cinnamon, and anise. The only difference with this, is there was a sharp scent that I couldn’t quite place. I brewed a generous amount in my mug to hopefully cure my frostbite. The aroma was a thick sweet cinnamon with slight anise. The flavor was somewhat surprising. I assumed the black tea pellets was Assam, but this tea doesn’t have the all well known “malt.” Instead, this brew is very smooth and has a slightly watered down taste. This is a rather weak chai, which is okay. It warmed me right up and showed me a lighter side of the chai world.

Part of my morning of chai/find a replacement for Bollywood Chai line up.

This is bold. Very strong and astringent brew, with ginger, fennel and coriander forefront.

I think of the cups in front of me, this comes closest in flavour profile to the Bollywood Chai, though it’s a bit hard to tell how similar they are because this cup is just so, so much stronger. The Bollywood Chai has a clear, amber brown liquor, and this is almost thick and dark enough to be mistaken for coffee.

Definitely more pepper.

With milk, it’s clearer that this has more pepper and coriander and less ginger and fennel than Bollywood.

I really like this but it’s still pretty different.