Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Golden Tips
Tea Description:
Originating from India, Masala Chai or ‘Spiced Tea’ is one of the most popular black tea blends in the world. This ancient traditional recipe is prepared by blending a strong & robust black tea with an array of fresh & aromatic spices. Our signature ‘Masala Chai Spiced Tea’ is symbolic of the original house blend which has been cherished in India for decades now. A combination of Assam CTC & orthodox leaves blended in a varying ratio is taken as the base. The base tea is then blended with exotic and fresh indian spices including crushed cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, long pepper, dry ginger and clove.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’m always so excited to try a new chai – one that I’ve not yet tried. So, I was happy to find this India’s Original Masala Chai from Golden Tips in my stash of teas waiting for review!
The dry leaf is a very fine CTC. Even the spices are pretty finely chopped or ground, so it would benefit your teacup to give the pouch a good shake before you open it and measure it out.
To brew it, I measured out one bamboo scoop of the tea and then I shook off just a little bit from the scoop. Since the chop is so fine, you don’t need a whole scoop of tea! Then I put the tea into the basket of my Kati tumbler and added 12 ounces of boiling water and let it steep for 2 1/2 minutes. Again, since this is a finely chopped tea, you don’t want to steep it too long. 2 1/2 minutes produced a very flavorful cuppa for me – I wouldn’t recommend steeping it much longer than that otherwise you may wind up with a bitter tasting tea.
This is really good! The spices are ‘moderately spiced’ – that is to say that it’s not super spicy, but not what I’d call mild either. I think that if you typically shy away from a chai because it’s too spicy for you, you might find that this chai is to your liking. It’s warmly spiced without going overboard.
And I like that the spices are really nicely balanced. I taste cinnamon, clove, cardamom, ginger and pepper, but I don’t notice that any one or two of these trying to overpower the rest. It’s warm and zesty, like a delicious spice cake. All the spices are present and accounted for but they don’t overwhelm the cup or the flavor of the black tea.
And the black tea is the star of this cup. That doesn’t happen too often in a chai. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a good, spicy chai! But I also like other ‘chai’ blends that offer a balance of flavors like this one has achieved.
This tea offers a robust, full-flavored taste of black tea. The tea is an Assam tea so I get a strong malty character that I like. It’s rich and smooth. Not too astringent and not bitter (although I suspect it could be bitter if I had oversteeped it!)
And this tea offers a pleasant flavor of spices that tingle on the palate. The flavor of the spices builds, but it builds in a really pleasant way. I haven’t felt like “oh, that’s spicy!” Instead, it’s more like … nice! Warm! Zesty! Yum!
A really nice chai!
Darjeeling Masala Chai from Teabox
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black (Darjeeling)
Where to Buy: Teabox
Tea Description:
An exclusive in house creation by our master blenders. For this blend, lemon grass and fennel are mixed with aromatic Darjeeling black tea to create a medley of flavors.
The citrusy perfume emitted by the lemon grass is quite heady and gives a fresh twist to the chai. A must try for all chai lovers.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Darjeeling Masala Chai from Teabox is another ‘questionable’ use of the word “chai” – yes, I know that chai means tea (and I know that I’ve said that on more than one occasion too!) but we’ve come to embrace the word “chai” as a spiced tea – and those spices are generally a combination of the usual spices: cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom – sometimes one or more of these is omitted and other spices like pepper or nutmeg are added.
This “chai” has none of the usual spices and instead has fennel seed and lemon grass. But what really piqued my interest about this particular chai is not the substitution of spices but the fact that this is a Darjeeling base! I can’t recall having tried a chai with a Darjeeling base before. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t, just that I can’t recall.
So, I was certainly interested in trying this chai. And while it isn’t at all what most might think of when they think “chai” – this is really quite good. I may call into question the liberal use of the word chai by Teabox, but this is still a really tasty tea!
This isn’t really a ‘spicy’ tea, but it does have some warm notes from the fennel. The fennel is both sweet and gently ‘spiced’ with notes of licorice. It adds a certain comforting warmth to the cup. The lemon grass adds a hint of bright, citrus-y flavor to the cup and a light creaminess to the Darjeeling which has a crisp flavor.
It’s a lighter bodied tea, it would make a nice afternoon tea. I like the fennel and lemon grass with the Darjeeling, they certainly add some interest to the woodsy, floral tones of the Darjeeling base.
Overall, a very interesting tea. I don’t know that I’d call it a chai, but I suppose it’s alright if Teabox does. I enjoyed it, regardless!
Kolkata Street Chai Tea from Teabox
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Teabox
Tea Description:
This particular blend has been created using rich Assam tea and exotic Indian spices, including saffron, cardamom, nutmeg and ginger to make an extraordinary cup of chai. The flavor is virile and aroma heady. Savor a cup of this tea inspired by the city of joy – Kolkata.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The photo shows a few saffron threads in the Kolkata Street Chai Tea from Teabox, but I didn’t see that many when I measured out the tea into the basket of my Kati tumbler. In fact, I only saw one tiny piece of what might have been a saffron thread when I measured out my heaping bamboo scoop. There could have been more in there, I could have missed a small piece or two, but the picture shows numerous long threads of saffron. In reality, what I have is a fraction of a fraction of one thread.
I do realize that saffron is one of the most expensive spices out there (if not the most expensive) and to add it so liberally to a tea blend would be very costly. Given that they’re selling this blend for just under $10 for 100 grams of the tea, I can see why they need to be thrifty with the saffron threads, but don’t mislead the customers by showing a photograph with many saffron threads when the blend contains less than a fraction of that.
All that aside, this is a very tasty chai. The CTC Assam is very rich and malty. It’s somewhat astringent, but not overly so. It’s not bitter although I do get some bitterness from the saffron. I steeped the tea in near boiling water as per the suggested parameters on the website, and steeped it for only 3 minutes rather than the suggested 4 minutes. The black tea is full flavored and satisfying. It’s a good base for the spices.
I like the combination of spices here. Yes, I can taste the saffron (even a small amount IS effective). As I mentioned before, I get a slight bitter note from the saffron as well as a hint of honey like flavor from it. The honey-esque notes are a wonderful complement to the warm notes of cardamom and ginger, and I love the nutty flavor of the nutmeg in this.
I’m usually quite happy when I find a chai with nutmeg in the blend and of the many different chai blends that I’ve tasted over the years, I must say that this one has the most obvious nutmeg flavor to it! Quite a delight to taste!
I really enjoyed this tea despite my misgivings about the misleading photograph. The chai blend is very flavorful and I do recommend it. But I also would recommend to Teabox that they represent their tea more truthfully in the photograph. If someone buys this based on what they’re seeing in the photograph, they’re going to be disappointed when they open the package to find significantly less saffron than the photo suggests.
Organic Chai from Twinings of London
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Twinings of London
Tea Description:
Select black tea from Assam expertly blended with sweet and savoury spices including cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and ginger to deliver a flavourful tea with a warm, soothing aroma and a fresh, spicy taste.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
After trying two other rather lackluster teas from Twinings of London recently, I wasn’t sure what possessed me to actually try another today. But I tried to keep a positive outlook and without having too high of expectations, I brewed this cup of Organic Chai from Twinings of London.
My initial thoughts: this is better than both the two previous recent tastings of this company’s teas. I can taste the robust Assam tea beneath the bold spices. I like that all the flavors that I expected to taste are represented.
About now is where I might say something like “the flavor of the spices are well-balanced,” but I can’t really say that because they aren’t well balanced. I taste more clove than any other spice. I taste a hearty cinnamon flavor and in contrast, there is very little ginger flavor. The cardamom is tasted, but, it’s not as strong as the clove and cinnamon.
But! I do like the Assam here. It’s a rich and flavorful tea. It’s almost creamy because of its thick, malty texture and I find that very enjoyable.
Overall, it’s not a terrible chai. It’s certainly not great though. It’s not the tea that I’d keep stocked in the cabinet. There are so many great teas out there and this is simply average or perhaps even just slightly below.
Product Review: Gingerbread Chai Latte from Coffee Revolution
Product Information:
Where to Buy: If you live in Vancouver, WA: Coffee Revolution.
Taster’s Review:
As I’ve said before, I don’t stop in to my local coffee shop(s) often. Here in Vancouver, Washington – and pretty much anywhere in the Pacific Northwest – there’s a coffee shop at street corner, it seems. My husband and I often joke at the number of Starbucks that there are. If you happen to pass by a Starbucks, you don’ t need to turn around and go back, just keep going and there will be another one coming up on the next street corner. In Portland, I understand there’s a Starbucks inside a Starbucks.
So I was less than impressed a couple of years ago when Coffee Revolution appeared in Vancouver at a location not far from my house. I don’t usually go to the coffee shop, why would I go to this one?
But they hooked me in with their fancy digital billboard sign outside of their shop. It beckoned to me: Gingerbread Chai. How do I resist that?
As it turns out, I wish I would have. Essentially, this is the original Oregon Chai concentrate that’s been enhanced with Gingerbread flavored syrup. The result: an overly sweet concoction that tasted like gingerbread (with gobs of extra icing).
Yeah, I taste the chai. I don’t really taste much of the ‘black tea’ that is supposed to be in the Oregon Chai concentrate. When I’ve tried this brand of chai concentrate in the past, I didn’t taste the black tea either, so it’s not the sickeningly sweet gingerbread syrup’s fault that I can’t taste the tea. It’s the concentrate’s fault.
The good: I can taste the gingerbread. If this were not as sweet, I’d be a lot more pleased with it though. As it is, it’s just too sweet. It’s cloying. It’s so sweet that if I were a diabetic, I’d be worried about diabetic coma at this point.
On another note, I do feel bad. Because as I was standing there, waiting for the very cheerful barrista to finish with my latte, I’m sure she could see just how disgusted I was that my chai was coming out of a carton. It wasn’t her fault. She was just doing her job. So, if she happens to be reading this, I’m sorry if I came off as a tea snob. I am, in fact, a tea snob and I don’t apologize for that, but just because I’m a tea snob doesn’t mean that I should be rubbing others the wrong way with it. Sorry.