When seasons collide! Today I brewed up DAVIDsTEA’s Pumpkin Chai as an eggnog latte, combining a Fall favorite with a beloved holiday classic. The end result? Perfection!
Pumpkin Chai is one of the blends that people wait for each fall as it brings together both the Fall flavors of Pumpkin Spice and Chai. Add to that some caramel and you have a winner that people will buy year after year.
Brewed up as an eggnog latte, the sweet gooey caramel really shines. Underlying that is the creaminess of the eggnog that plays off the spices in the tea making for a decadent sugar and spice treat. Imagine a spiced bread pudding with a creamy vanilla-caramel icing. Awesome!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: David’s Tea
Description
Let’s face it, the best thing about fall is pumpkin pie. And this spiced black tea is arguably just as delicious. It’s got all the warmth of cinnamon and cloves, plus the sweetness of caramel and pumpkin candy. For a true autumn treat, top it up with steamed milk and stir in a spoonful of brown sugar. It’ll make you wish it were fall all year round.
ingredients
Black tea, cinnamon, cloves, caramel (milk, sugar, glucose s yrup, butter, sorbitol, mono and diglycerides), carrot, lemon peel, pumpkin candies (sugar, rice flour, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, corn starch, gum arabic, cellulose gum, yellow 6, confectioner
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Organic Masala Chai from Hope & Glory. . .
Hope & Glory is a new company to me but this was a lovely introduction to their teas. While exploring their site, I noticed they had an interesting assortment of tea collections which see the teas sorted by certain characteristics. This particular tea is part of the Rajah Collection which is Hope & Glory’s collection of special and unique teas.
In keeping with the idea of “special and unique” I decided to do something new and different when I prepped this tea. I used a glass of skim milk and about 2-3 teaspoons of tea and heated it over the stove, bringing the milk to a boil and then dropping the heat and letting it simmer for 10 minutes. Alright, so maybe it isn’t that innovative a brewing technique, especially for a chai, but this method was new and different for me.
As I stood at the stove whisking away for the entire 15 minute process, all I could think was “this better be worth it” and now that I am sipping away at the tea I made, I think I can say it was. Normally I brew chai the same way I would a latte, by steeping it in boiled water and topping it with steamed milk. This honestly brought everything together much more harmoniously. As someone who doesn’t love chai, this is a drink I am really enjoying.
What stands out to me is the ginger. It isn’t contributing heat but there is a huge punch of ginger flavor that is providing an awesome contrast to the more sweeter flavors here such as the milk, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The cloves are also front and center, contributing another flavor punch while still feeling as though it mixes perfectly with the rest of the ingredients. Creamy and delightful, this tea has a whole lot going for it. As someone who finds spices in chai are often way off balance, this one is really doing it for me. Now I am wondering if that is the tea or the prep method? Either way I am glad I have some more of this sample left so I can have this again. It’s the perfect spicy/sweet treat to keep warm with on the cold evenings ahead.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: Hope & Glory
Description
A full-bodied blend of organic Ceylon black tea and spices, Masala Chai derives from the Hindi literally meaning ‘mixed-spice tea’. Spices such as cardamom and cinnamon have been expertly blended to give a warming, rich blend of flavours and a sweet aroma.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Spicy Honey Chai from Blue Hour Tea. . .A Different Take on Chai. . .
Waaaaaay back in the day, I was a barista. Not the cool, hipster baristas we all know and love now, but the nerdy high schooler kind who like making weird drink concoctions when the cafe is slow. I’m sure you can imagine it.
Anyways! Even back then, before I knew how much my love of tea would grow, I wasn’t a coffee drinker either, and was constantly looking for a new warm concoction that I could sip will slinging drinks to our customers. Enter: chai. I instantly fell in love with the creamy, warming spices and found myself finding new ways to brew it on the daily.
Ever since then, even if my tea tastes have expanded, chai remains my first tea love. So when I dug this sample out of my stash, I was SUPER pumped to go back to my roots and give it a chai (see what I did there? ;))! First things first– the dry leaf is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Blue Hour adds honey to this blend so that the leaves harden together a bit, to unfurl when steeped. I brewed as they recommended, warming a small pot of coconut milk on the stove and tossing the leaves into steep as it warms up.
The result is a creamy, slightly-sweet-but-not-saccharine (from the help of the honey), ginger and pepper spiced cup of goodness. This chai perfect tows the line between hitting all the traditional notes I love in chai while being like nothing I’ve ever had before. It was delicious, and brought me right back to the good old barista days. I’d definitely drink this one again!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: Blue Hour Tea
Description
Our Spicy Honey Chai is made using our unique blend of whole roasted spices, a Single Estate Assam black tea with a bit of heat from black pepper and ginger and it’s all finished off with a good portion of raw honey fromCoal Lake Honey Farm. This makes for a well balanced mug of chai, which is best when brewed in milk.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Spiced Chai from LucidiTea Co. . . An Earthy Chai to Try!
Spiced Chai from LucidiTea Co was a tea and a tea company I discovered while attending the Erie VegFest in late September. They were one of the vendors at the festival and for that I am VERY grateful! I ended up buying 3 of their teas and this was one of them.
This chai is a great starter chai because the spices are not overly intense like some others I have tried. Don’t get me wrong I like both Chai’s…the ones that are more mellow and the ones that are intense. There is just a time and a place for everything and this time around I was looking for something on the quieter side. Enter Spiced Chai from LucidiTea Co. I really appreciate that they used a Darjeeling as the base for this chai. The vanilla seemed to smooth out the ending, too!
Spiced Chai from LucidiTea Co makes my mouth happy! It’s comforting and warm but not over the top spicy. Great for a fall day – or any day – really!
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: LucidiTea Co
Description
Our organic Spiced Chai blend is wonderfully aromatic, warm, and delightful. It has deep earthy tones as well as alluring accents from various warming spices making it our favorite tea to drink in the colder months. This blend produces an exotic flavor that is sure to comfort and please your taste buds. Not only does it smell and taste incredible, it proves a stable clean energy for hours while regulating metabolism.
Ingredients: organic darjeeling tea, organic ginger root, organic cinnamon bark, organic nutmeg, organic cardamom, organic cloves, and organic vanilla bean.
Ideal steep time is 3-5 minutes. Recommended serving size is 1-3 tsp depending on strength preference.
This blend contains caffeine.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Spiced Apple Chai from Adagio Tea
This tastes spot-on like spiced apple cider. It tastes precisely like something one would buy at a farmer’s market from an Amish person. You could imagine them hand-mashing it, mulling it, and dropping in a dallop of cinnamon. Totally real ingredients, all the indulgence, with none (or almost none) of the calories.
You’d then carry your cup of this cider into a pumpkin patch, with your partner, who wants to “share” it with you. But really, s/he wants to drink 75% and not hold their own cup. Then, when it’s drunk down, you didn’t get enough (there is NEVER ENOUGH of something so tasty). AND you’re left holding an empty cup in your hand and no trash can.
In vengeance, you make them carry the pumpkin in line to the weighing station, and then make them pull the goop out of the pumpkin’s head at home while you drink wine and watch reality TV.
You insist on a “cute” pumpkin this year instead of an “elaborate” pumpkin.
You get your way. Because you gave them some of your cider (or tea that tastes like cider, in this instance), and it was the bomb.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Black Tea
Where to Buy: Adagio Teas
Description
Our Spiced Apple Chai features the timeless, comforting combination of apples and spice. A lively blend of black tea, classic spices from Indian Masala Chai and bright notes of crisp apple. Juicy and pleasantly sweet, like warm applesauce, with a clean, refreshing texture. We suggest two heaping teaspoons per 8 oz cup. Sugar, cream or soy if desired
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
