Chocolate Chai

500th Review…Woo Hoo! Tooting My Own Horn!

In less than a year I’ve consumed a great deal of fantastic tea! There was a little barfy tea in the mix now and then, especially in the beginning when I didn’t really know what I was doing.
Even now I screw up.
Oh go on…don’t tell me that you never make tea and forget about it?
“OH NO”…you shriek…“It’s the good stuff!” Proceeding to add water or sugar and milk to dilute your tea enough to still drink it. You WILL drink the tea if it KILLS you.

Selection of a tea for ‘Review 500’ has been difficult.
What tea would I pick? My favorite? A tea I’ve been saving for a special occasion?
Sigh…and more sigh’s.

I had just received a reblend sample of the Chocolate Chai from sTEApShoppe to try this week.
You may remember that many of us on Steepster participated in taste tests for sTEApShoppe on two Sunday afternoons, the last of which was in October.
Janet (the owner) kindly sent out samples of several tea’s and then we reviewed them at a set time here on Steepster letting her know what we thought of the tea.

But what happened after that?

Janet has been busy. She listened to what everyone had to say and has made some changes. This Chocolate Chai is one of the tea’s that I wasn’t too excited about originally. I think it’s way better
now though!

The new formulation has been warmed with fennel and the licorice has been removed. There’s lots of cocoa nib, some maple sugar and a mix of spices that gives a good bite to the Chai.
I’m not a person who would drink a Chai without adding milk because Chai is a strong brew. Milk was wonderful in this tea as expected, but the best thing was adding a little honey. OH YUM! Now that was the bomb!

Today being Thanksgiving Eve…my home is filled with the scent of yams and apples that I’ve been roasting…brown sugar and Vietnamese cinnamon. My house smells good!
Chocolate Chai with Milk and Honey…what more could I want?!

If you tasted the previous version of Chocolate Chai and said meh…give the new one a try. It’s not for the faint of heart though. This is real deal spicy Chai!
Ginger, Clove, Black Pepper, Cardamon, Cocoa nibs, Fennel, Nutmeg,
Two types of tea, Maple Sugar…oh…and all ORGANIC. (Well you know how Janet is about ORGANIC!)

I picked Janet’s tea because she’s the ‘Little Engine That Could’
and get’s that award from me. It’s not easy to kickstart a tea company by yourself.

Thank you to everyone for helping me get to review 500, for following me for selecting the like heart and making comments
that have made me feel as though I matter. You’ve kept me from true loneliness many times!

sipdown on this one as well since i’m sharing my small samples with my tea sister so that she gets to figure out if she wants more steap shoppe in her life outside of the cinnamon swirl bread. :) This is a great chai! It reminds me of a few of the adagio chai’s that terri shared with me but less “make sil sneeze.” What i do NOT get from this is chocolate. I nearly added some chocolate myself. I’m with bonnie on this is a great chai but there is a distinct lack of chocolate :( Which ironically is a bit funny since 90% of the other blends that i’ve tried from janet have all had an abundance of cocoa nibs in them :) Still though..not too shabby. deducted a few points for the lack of chocolateyness

This one is a sipdown from one of my many tea trades with Sil. I went on a french vanilla coconut milk creamer frenzy today, after weeks of abstinence from that stuff, & I’m pleased to report that it was really good in this chai too!

An inherently sweet with spicy warmth, the chocolate chai has such a richness. This dessert tea tantalizes your taste buds and delivers warmth in the evening!