Market Chai

I don’t know why I am on this chai kick lately. I’m so picky about it, I don’t know why I even bother trying new ones except what if they’re amazing? Anyway.

This one is not bad, but it’s not really anything to write home about. It smells fantastic, of course. Even terrible chai smells fantastic. And it’s definitely not terrible, but it’s very, very mild.

On the other hand, aside from the mildness, this really isn’t bad. It’s a little sweeter than I expected, with some muted spicy notes, mostly cinnamon. I just expected a bit more flavor, especially from the ginger and cloves, which are not really evident. I like my tea strong like ox, though, so I can’t see this becoming a regular in my kitchen.

I wish I liked this one. It smelled great! It smells like pumpkin pie and all things fall. It tastes weak and leaves me missing something. It doesn’t taste bad at all, just doesn’t carry the strong flavor I seem to crave.

2021 Homemade Advent Calendar Swap – Day 22
From Skysamurai.

There may be other ingredients, but this is a cinnamon tea. That is it. It’s straight cinnamon. No one can convince me otherwise.

I am on an ongoing (and thus far fruitless) quest to find a replacement for TeaSource’s old Reena’s Chai blend. Thus, every time I place a big tea order, I tend to throw in one of that company’s chais to see if it might be “the one”. This one is…fine. A pleasant, well-balanced chai with ginger and cinnamon and a malty assam base. It smells great and takes milk well. But it tastes exactly like a dozen other chai blends that I’ve tried for other companies. Nothing special or unique here and definitely not my dream chai that I’ve been looking for. The quest continues!

Here’s Hoping Teabox – Round Six – Tea #38
I’m finishing the last of this I had seen before in the teabox and removed it before the teabox went on its way. I thought I tried this one before but don’t see a tasting note. It’s an okay chai. It seems to have some extra ingredients like vanilla and nutmeg that make a chai special. Am I tasting these things though? Not really, it just seems like an okay chai. I wish the effort of the ingredients had shown through in the flavor. Just about any chai is good enough for me though (except for maybe that chai I had the other day that was WAY too much like dirt in appearance and flavor)!

A sample from Miss B! It’s pretty much properly winter now, so I’m finding that I’m drawn more and more to warming teas, and particularly chai, once I get to work on a morning. I like how they can vary so much from blend to blend – it’s like there’s always something new to discover, even though there are usually strong similarities too. I used 2 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 4 minutes in boiling water. I added a splash of milk. I’d love to try this one as a latte, but it’s western style for now because it’s just not really feasible to faff about heating milk at work. Sad as that is.

Anyway, the tea. The initial flavour is very gingery, which I’m enjoying. Sometimes ginger in chai can get a little lost amongst the stronger flavours, but it’s here in all its glory. There’s also a touch of corriander, which is no surprise as there were so many corriander seeds in my scoop. If anything, I thought it might actually be stronger because of that, but it seems like a pretty mild chai as they go. That’s good in one respect, because it allows the orange and vanilla to come through pretty confidently, and they’re nice flavours to have in a chai. This makes for a smooth, creamy, sweet chai with the slight sharpness of orange zest, a good warming kick of ginger, and a swirl of more generic “spiciness” floating around in the background. I enjoyed this one.

Grabbed this while at Pike Place Market in Seattle (Market Spice, I love you). Thought I’d tried this already… perhaps not. It’s a smooth chai, not as “bold” or strong as the description stated, but still a lovely chai. Some orange in there, a good kick of what I think is nutmeg, maybe cloves?

Chai, I am disappoint.

Chai’s one of my favorite tea blends, and this one smells amazing (as does most chai), but it is very mild. Now, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you prefer mild chai, but I like my chai on the strong side.

I’d like to find a go-to chai at some point, but I don’t think this is a contender.