Cola Chai

SIPDOWN!

The rest of this is on it’s way out the door in a swap and while it’s a little sad to see it go, i’ve also got more than enough tea to survive. I like this much better super hot than as it cools, since the spices come out to play a bit more as it cools, making it a spiced cola. However, there’s a part of me that wishes i thought to steep this in vodka as i think it might make for a pretty decent mixer. Ah well, happy to share this with folks, especially in the event kally does another awesome black friday deal!

This reminds me SO much of a tea I’ve had before! But I can’t recall which one. Actually, it reminds me of two. One being Rise n Shine(RnS) from Teaopia, which was awesome. The cola really popped. Mmmmm.
And the other… gah it’s driving me nuts!!
Anyhow, this is sortof a cross between RnS and your average rooibos chai. I’m somewhat unimpressed actually. I used my premium water… and still it turned out to be a boring cup! Hmmm. Not that it’s terrible. Just not all that memorable is all.
I’ll let it sit for awhile. Maybe now that I’ve opened the package it will settle differently. That’s helped with a number of other teas I’ve tried lately, fingers crossed that it does the same here!!

I thought I had seen this tea reviewed here before, but I guess not!

This is really quite an interesting tisane. I could distinctly smell the cola notes when I opened the sample pouch, brewed, the cola aroma is not there so much – it’s a spicier fragrance. But dry, it’s definitely cola!

And I can taste cola notes too. This is definitely one of the better rooibos chai blends I’ve had, and that’s difficult for me to say since I actually had a rooibos chai blend that I created when I was doing my flavoring and blending thing. But, I am loving the cola aspect of this chai. It is really awesome!

The combination of the cola flavor and the spices is really yummy, it isn’t overly spicy-hot, the cola tapers the spicy flavor a bit, making it taste like a spiced soda but … served at a warm temperature and without all the bubbles … I bet this would be really good if it were brewed at a double strength and then served with soda water to give it some bubbles. It’s good now, without.

Really, surprisingly tasty.

Thank you Sil for this tea.

I have tried one or two teas before from Kally and have been impressed, it’s a shame they don’t ship to UK. :(

Usually I don’t deal with Chai but there are times I make an exception to the rule and this is one of them. In dry form this smells like spicy cola cube sweets, it’s amazing! I have never heard of cola being mixed with Chai in a tea before. Also reminds me of a strong ginger beer.

Once steeped the tea is orange in colour with a thick cinnamon and cola essence. Yummy! The Rooibos is noticeable but down down slightly by the spice medley. It’s sweet and spicy with cola candy elements and a light, refreshing after taste. Luckily for me it’s not cardamom heavy :)

It might taste more like cola cubes and less like Rooibos if I were to add a sugar or two which I will try next time. The first cup is good though, I’m glad I gave this one a try. It goes to show that you can’t judge a tea by it’s ingredients alone.

This came free with my first Kally Tea order back in October, I thought I had given it all away during the secret pumpkin swap, but apparently the last little bit was hiding in a bag waiting to be rediscovered. This doesn’t sound like it would be my kind of tea, I don’t generally enjoy cola and warm cola seems a little odd, but it ended up being quite tasty. I think what makes it really work for me is the fact that the flavor is more chai and rooibos than it is cola.

This was a pretty interesting blend and I might consider reordering it again in the fall when I tend to drink more chai.

Hmmm….I find this tea interesting. It tastes good, but I’m not sure if I taste cola in it. Maybe it is because I have a cold, but for now all I can taste is the traditional chai flavor. It has a nice spice to it and I put two tsp of honey in this. I believe my cold is messing with me because I NEVER put that much honey in my tea.

I could kind of smell the cola before it was steeped, but not so much once I started steeping it. Once again, this is probably because of my cold.

I will definitely be trying this tea again when I feel better, therefor I’m going to leave my rating for another time; until then, it is still a pretty good tea.

Chai and I don’t relate well to one another. Normally I just don’t get it. I have had a white chai I liked. This is rooibos. I like rooibos but never crave it. There is just something about the combination of rooibos and chai that I find appealing. I found myself easily finishing this one. The spices are sweet and don’t overwhelm the senses. Cinnamon possibly being the most prominent but really they all blend well together. The rooibos is present mid sip. I think the vanilla (which I don’t taste) knocks the scratchy edges off, making the rooibos very well behaved. I don’t really taste cola other than as hints that may be subliminal because I expect to taste it. After the cup cools the spices grow a little stronger, but only a little, and I can taste ginger in the aftertaste. I found this to be one of the more appealing rooibos I have tried and amazingly it is a chai. Thanks CelebriTEA for sharing.

Tea #6 from the tea box. I’m not much of a fan of pop, cola, soda… whatever you want to call it. Not sure of how i feel about this one. It slightly reminds me of Long Island Cola by Island Rose. I can taste the cola and the chai just not sure of how I feel about them mixed together.

From the queue

This one came from the first round of the European Travelling Teabox. I was right in the middle of chai-curious phase due to a pleasant one that Scheherazade had shared with me earlier when I received the box, so I nabbed this one. It’s a rooibos base and it has a really interesting name to boot. How can one make something taste like cola without actually putting cola in it? How can chai spices and cola even be combined in the first place? And hot cola, how’s that gonna work? I am intrigued!

Intrigued, yes, but also needing, it seems, a bit of courage to actually try it.

I have finally done so. I made a cup with half boiling water and half milk which I had heated in the microwave. Plenty of leaf in a filterbag and then a good long steep. About twice as long as I thought I would do because I forgot about it. I got distracted, you see, by writing this. As it’s a rooibos, though, I expect it was only to my advantage. I’ve found that you can’t really oversteep rooibos. They sort of level out, so the only result you get from forgetting it is that it starts to cool down.

It definitely has cinnamon in it, and in combination with the warm milk it smells strongly of rice porridge with cinnamon sugar and a lump of butter on it. (Which is very traditional around Christmas, but I tend to find it rather cloying) I also saw that the leaf had some cardamom pods in, but I can’t pick up anything in that regard.

Doesn’t smell particularly cola-y, I have to say. Or rooibos-y for that matter.

It doesn’t taste like cola either. Again, it’s warm milk and cinnamon, and a little bit of a cardamom floral touch. (Cardamom has a floral flavour, I think) There’s supposed to be ginger as well, apparently, but I can’t find any. Mysterious, really, since ginger is one of those things where very little can be too much for me. I can pick up the rooibos base, not so much because I can taste rooibos, but more because I can’t taste black tea.

I have to say I don’t think it lives up to the name at all. It’s pleasant and I’m enjoying my cup, but it just doesn’t taste like cola.