Pumpkin Spice Chai from The Tea Spot


pumpkin-spice-chai-teaTea Information:

Leaf Type:  Black

Where to Buy:  The Tea Spot

Tea Description:

Our NEW seasonal Pumpkin Spice Chai may soon become your favorite tea to look forward to each Fall! This chai blend boasts a perfectly-balanced full leaf Assam black tea base with cinnamon, clove, cardamom, allspice, and pumpkin flavor to get you warmed up for Fall. This tea makes an amazing pumpkin latte with the simple addition of steamed milk. This seasonal treat will have you jumping in piles of rainbow-colored leaves in no time!

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This year (at least this time of the year this year) seems like it’s been the year of the pumpkin chai!  I’ve reviewed quite a few different pumpkin chai teas this year!  I’ve enjoyed most of what I’ve tried (nothing comes to mind immediately that I did not enjoy, but some I definitely enjoyed more than others), but I think I’m saving the best for last!  This one – this!  This is one of the very best pumpkin chai teas that I’ve ever tasted.

The first thing that really impressed me when I opened the pouch of this tea is the aroma!  Wow!  I can really smell the pumpkin!  It is a distinct pumpkin-y fragrance.  It smells like the kitchen on Thanksgiving morning when the pies are baking!  I smell notes of spice and black tea too, but the pumpkin notes are prominent!

The aromatic pumpkin notes are there in the brewed tea too.   The fragrance wafting out of my teacup right now are scrumptious!   To brew this, I used my Kati Tumbler and measured 1 heaping bamboo scoop of tea into the basket.  I like to use just a little more leaf when I’m brewing a chai!  This is especially important if you plan on going latte, because you want to accommodate for the heavier flavor of the dairy – or whatever product you’re using to make it a latte.

I brought 12 ounces of water to boiling and poured it into the tumbler and let this tea steep for 3 1/2 minutes.  I usually stop at 3 minutes with a black tea (and especially an Assam, which this is!) but because of the spices, I wanted to give them a little more time to develop so I crossed my fingers and hoped that the Assam would let me steep it a little longer!

Fortunately, the Assam didn’t seem to mind the slightly longer steep.

This is a really delicious pumpkin chai.  The pumpkin notes are distinct.  They are THERE.  There’s no mistaking the pumpkin here!  This isn’t a pumpkin pie spice type chai where you’re tasting the spices of a pumpkin pie but no pumpkin flavor.  This is PUMPKIN!

And even though the pumpkin flavor is strong, it is a true-to-the-squash type of flavor.  It doesn’t taste artificial.  It tastes like someone liquefied pumpkin puree and added it to my teacup.

The spices are nice.  They’re good and strong – flavorful – without pushing it to the spicy level!  It’s a distinct, spiced blend.  Not just warmly spiced, but not quite “spicy” either.  It’s somewhere between.  Consider the amount of spice that you’d find in the typical pumpkin pie.  Let’s call that mild spice.  And then there’s the super zesty, spicy level … this is somewhere in between.  This tastes like a chai that is also a pumpkin tea.

And I like that the spices are so thoughtfully balanced.  I like that this tastes like a chai!  I taste each of the spices:  cinnamon, cardamom, clove, ginger.  I am also tasting the allspice which is nice (and not always something that’s added to chai!)  It’s warm, it’s cozy, but it’s also got a certain zippy invigorating quality that I get from a well-spiced chai.

You might think that with all that pumpkin and spice, that the tea winds up on the short end of the stick.  But no!  This is an Assam tea and it’s got some gusto!  It is a rich, malty tea and the sweet, caramel-y notes together with the malt really play nicely with the flavors of pumpkin and spice.

For the purposes of this review, I didn’t go latte with this chai.  I wanted to experience the tea straight up, with just a little bit of raw sugar added to enhance the spices a little.  (This would also be amazing with honey!)  After I finished writing my thoughts about the non-latte chai, I decided to add some steamed milk and it’s awesome like that too!  So rich and creamy and yum!  Better than what you’d find in the local coffee stop!

This is a very clever, well-crafted pumpkin chai.  This is the best of the pumpkin patch!

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