Masala Chai

The Virginia weather has already begun its maddening oscillations between crisply chilly and damply warm. This typically begins some time during mid-September. I find myself waking up to a shockingly cool morning and ride giddily in my car with the windows down and the clear, unfiltered sunlight gently massaging warmth into the day. Bright breezes and dappled patterns of shade and light pattern the surfaces beneath trees as their branches rustle and sway. Only a few leaves have begun to turn at this point, with the early shifters revealing select hues of scarlet and amber.

Maybe it’s because the summer’s humidity wicks on a heaviness that makes me dreary by its end, or maybe it’s solely because the weather is just that glorious, but on this first true day of autumn I feel buoyant and bubbly; weightless but filled with joy. You can quickly identify fellow lovers of the season, as they are also brimming with this unspoken agreement towards lightness of heart – not allowing anything to deter themselves from soaking in every second of the beautiful day.

Because we know that in a day or two it will have left us.

During these hours of brilliance and ponies, I have to stop somewhere and get myself a seasonally appropriate drink. For years, this was usually either a pumpkin spice latte or a caramel apple cider from everyone’s corner coffee shop. Now, that drink is Samovar’s masala chai.

Don’t get me wrong. Seasonality doesn’t keep me from blissfully sipping this during the summer – it is absolutely delightful chilled. But, the blend of spices and the creamy caramel tones that the milk [I have used soy, whole, and 2 percent all with great success] and sugar add make the flavor profile delectably autumnal for me.

Earlier this week we went through a cool spell of weather, and so I spent a few hours out on the deck with a blanket, my iPod, my family’s new dog, and a steaming mug of masala chai. Being my last foreseeable autumn in Virginia, I can’t think of another way I’d like to celebrate it.

Happy Autumn! | http://bit.ly/8ZmC9I

And please enjoy this small moment of zen. | http://bit.ly/a8gLXj

Had another one of our chai outings with my coworkers today. This chai is so different than any other chai I’ve had. It’s really sweet. Makes me wonder how much sweetener they add, but it’s delicious! And peppery too! I was wondering today if anyone has bought this tea to make at home, and whether or not it tasted the same. Anyone?

One more awesome thing was that they are having a promotion, where a cup of tea to go is cheaper than usual! Nice!

I am sampling this Masala Chai thanks to the benevolence of LORI. I agree with her note that this is a smooth Chai with no one spice predominating. I think it is very well crafted and spicy.

If it were earlier in the day, I would be adding some black tea as one tasting note recommended. Overall, the is the richest and most robust Chai I’ve had. I’m not really tempted to embrace Chai as a way of life but if I ever feel compelled to keep it in stock (and I’m a very easily compelled woman) I may select this blend. Right now I’m marinating my own blend with a good strong Keemun base and several of the usual spicy culprits and some real vanilla beans (JacquelineM got me started on the vanilla bean thing). I’ll wait to see how that emerges.

With milk brought almost to a boil and some sugar this tea is a veritable meal in itself!

This is still one strong chai. I still have yet to make a chai w/the traditional water/milk/boiling technique. And this is one blend that would be perfect for that. No one flavor predominates but as it is strong! strong! – I need lots of milk/sugar to smooth it out.

I ordered this sample, I had heard some good things about this chai so I needed to find out for myself!

I split the brewed tea into two different cups so that I could have one for tasting without any additions and one for tasting as a latte.

Without Additions: Well, as most of you probably know, I’m pretty biased when it comes to chai, as I do believe that my own chai is the best ever. That being said, this chai lacks something. I was reading the label on the sample (which, may I say, I do have a tremendous appreciation for – the labels on these samples are very comprehensive), and it suggests adding a tbsp. of “your favorite black tea” – which suggests to me that this tea lacks a certain “umph” – and it does. The body of this tea – the base – seems relatively thin.

The spices, on the other hand, are delightful. Not too spicy, with a certain sweetness to it that I’m quite enjoying. This would really be an excellent masala chai if it had a stronger black tea base.

With honey and steamed milk: It is quite good as a latte, although, again, it suffers from a thin tea taste. The milk and honey do give it a little more consistency and a nice texture on the palate, as well as bring out some of the delicious spices. But the tea is still dreadfully thin on taste.

If you haven’t heard, there’s a mega SNOWPOCALYPSE going on in NYC. Serious snownage.

It’s the second day of snowing, and they still haven’t plowed my block. It’s a bit depressing, knowing you used vacation days to be trapped inside of your house… but it’s a pretty good excuse to drink up some chai, the old fashioned way!

takgoti sent me this forever-ago. Yes, probably a year ago. I am very behind on these samples. It’s disgusting, I know. But she packaged everything in cute little snap-close Tupperware, so it all stayed fresh!

I made this one on the stovetop, and let it sit for a good ten minutes before the pour. On the nose, this blend is really very spicy. Chewy-spicy, almost. Like spice cookies. There’s lots of cardamom and cinnamon and glove. And the heat of ginger.

This chai steeps up with all of the spice of the dry blend, and then some. The correct word here is heady. It almost threatens to be overly potpourri-like, with the heavy-handed, assertive spicing. And at first sip, it almost doesn’t work. My taste buds were overwhelmed. There’s even a slight burn to this one, a heat that develops slowly on the tongue from the pepper and ginger. It’s a bit overpowering, to say the least. Strong chai coming through!

But it goes down really smooth, and the rawr-worthy spices almost become addictive after a few sips. I was able to finish quickly a mug and a half of this without even batting an eye.

I wish that the stovetop, traditional way of making chai was faster, because the results can be really very satisfying. Especially when you’re buried in 20+ inches of snow. I think I like Golden Moon’s Kasmiri Chai better than Samovar’s – it’s more gentle than the loud blast of flavor in store for you with Samovar. But I can’t help but love this chai-beast as well, for daring to be so flavorful and punchy.

Half milk, half water, some sugar, some tea. Not quite boiling. As it first started warming up, it smelled like a cross between Chinese food and some unknown holiday dessert that I can’t place. As it gets closer to boiling I’m getting more dessert and less Chinese food (which is probably good but the former was intriguing). I also think I dropped something on the stove because I also smell a little burning. Oops. Hmm, I think that dessert-like taste is like a Christmas cookie. Cinnamon-y and sugar-cookie-bake-y.

Doesn’t taste cookie-like though. Or if it does, I want some of those cookies. I wish I could pick out all the tastes, but I can’t. But it’s warm and spicy and sweet from something that isn’t just my added sugar. And I can’t stop drinking it. This is insanely addictive.

I have limited Samovar experiences. (HINT HINT…if anyone has some extra Samovar Blends I would LOVE to do a swap…)

Anyhow…because the spicy chai aroma was so VERY intense when I first open the package I decided to do a little less loose leaf that I usually do. It was about a half to 3/4 T worth in a 12-ounce cup – usually I do about twice that…I like my stuff strong…but chais are often UNpredictable so I have decided to play with them a bit.

The color is a pale medium brown. A little cloudy but it doesn’t have a texture or murkiness to it.

Eventho the scent of the cuppa is FULL OF SPICE the taste isn’t as intense and I am grateful. Most of the ingredients hold hands nice but I can taste the cardamom a little bit more out in front than the rest.

This is ok. I’m glad I infused the amount I did. It worked out well.

After today’s lovely pu erh experience, I decided I needed something sweet and chewy, and I thought for a minute about having some Tazo decaf chai. Then I thought since it was a relatively slow Friday, why not have something that was likely to be better when I had some time to make it.

So I broke out my sample of this.

OMG. OMG. OMG. This flavor. I can’t believe I even considered the Tazo decaf. I must have been temporarily insane.

First, let me say that I didn’t even follow the instructions very well and I used ingredients that would likely make purists wince. I used splenda instead of sugar (hey, I’m a middle aged mom and I have to watch those calories!), I used 1% milk instead of whole milk (same) and I used the only loose leaf “black” tea within easy reach and not flavored, and that was the Mariage Freres Princeton Darjeeling.

Second, there was a scary moment when all the water boiled away and I feared I would end up stir frying the leaves. I remember thinking when I dumped the leaves into the pot that 1 cup of water boiling for 10 minutes was likely to completely boil away and what then? The “what then” turned out to be that almost exactly at the moment the water disappeared, it was time to put the milk in. Whoa.

Third, I am the first to admit that I have only recently been deflowered when it comes to chai, and the chai I’ve had has been Tazo/Starbucks. So whether this is good on the scale of chais is something I can’t say.

But whether it is good in an absolute sense, I can. It’s like drinking freshly baked gingerbread. Even with 1% milk, it’s rich, thick, creamy. It is so yum, there ought to be a law.

And of course, I went to add it to my order and they’re out of it. Sigh.

Had the day off yesterday, and therefore the opportunity to take this final Samovar sample pack home and cook it up according to the directions on the label. I used regular white sugar as the sweetener and a Tbsp of Mariage Freres cinnamon-orange black tea as the extra as I thought those flavors would probably blend well.

As it was boiling on the stovetop it smelled really good – spicy and warm, perfect for a crisp fall day. The flavor was quite pungent – the sweetness was right on the mark but there was one element of the spice flavor that was really strong, and I have a feeling it was the cardamom. I did note several pods in the packet and find for me that this flavor, though I like it a lot, can easily go over the edge if overdone. If I were to try this again in the future I’d probably make sure there were no more than one or two cardamom pods in there. That’s just a matter of personal taste though; in general I found this to be very tasty and well balanced in the other spices – cinnamon, clove, pepper, ginger all found a home.