White teas have not always been my favorite kind of tea, but they have grown on me with every new flavor I try. Since I already like chai teas, I was predisposed to enjoy White Cap Chai from Beach House teas.
This is a wonderful take on the lighter side of chai. The white tea is earthy and smooth, and gently floral. It makes for a vegetal chai without being grassy like green tea. I was thrilled to find a new low caffeine option for chai that isn’t based in rooibos teas.
I adore the mix of spices in this tea, especially the addition of fennel. Fennel occupies that space between sweet spice and savory herb, and brings a new layer to the expected spices like cinnamon or ginger. Added peppercorns also play into the more savory earthiness of the flavors.
Despite some big chai spice players like cloves, anise, and cardamom, the spices themselves are gentle enough to still allow you to taste the white tea and more understated peony flavors. This kind of balance with a spicy tea really shows that the blenders at Beach House Teas know their stuff.
I will have to stock up on White Cap Chai to help balance out all the other black tea or rooibos chais I’ve got in my cupboard. White Cap Chai is versatile and unexpected, perfect for the changing of seasons or for my ever-changing palette for tea.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Beach House Tea Co.
Description:
White Cap Chai is a lighter version of the traditional chai making it delicate and unique. This beautiful chai is made with 100% organic white peony tea leaves and organic spices. It’s a modern twist on a sweet and spicy classic. The chai gives you a smooth, mellow taste with subtle layers of flavor.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Cricket from Whispering Pines Tea Company. . . . .
Today I’m drinking tea to try to cut through the hazy, dizzy feeling from too many of my mother-in-law’s mimosas. My in-laws are a rowdy, touchy bunch that imbibes, as opposed to my silent, book-readng, tea-drinking clan. I’m not with my family today, so I have to channel them via tea.
This cup is a gentle white tea with flowery cinnamon notes. It’s like a summer morning in a flower-strewn prairie. The tea itself takes a backstage to the dainty main notes.
When I looked up this tea on the Whispering Pines site, the author talks about a cricket song dancing through a desert plain. I was super-hype that I’d come up with the “outside flowers-in-an-expanse” visual.
Were the Whispering Pines dude and I connected? Am I a psychic? Should I take up tarot reading or palmistry or numerology or astrology? Or maybe I could acquire a crystal ball? Where does one acquire a crystal ball? Ebay, as it turns out. It’s also possible to get pendulums, runes, and scrying stones.
I could become a full-fledged witch. I think both my families would be accepting. If they aren’t, they can throw back mimosas until they can handle it.
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Whispering Pines Tea Company
Description
The summer air was dry and warm as I watched the sun set over the high deserts of Prescott, Arizona. I could see the monsoon rains forming in the distance and feel a chill in the air as the plants braced for what was to come. A soft breeze carried the aroma of desert sage, juniper, and mesquite across the open land. The manzanita painted crimson lines into the sandy ocean of a desert, perfectly matching the sunset. An owl flew across the darkening horizon and the lizards scurried into their places, decorated with wildflowers. The land was silent, for no creature was brave enough to stay out in this storm. As the storm rolled in and I turned to leave, I heard the soft chirp of a beautiful cricket. I smiled and wondered how such a seemingly small creature could fill the entire desert with just a simple song.
Cricket is a desert-inspired chai blend. The base is a sweet white tea with strong notes of sage, and it’s blended very delicately with safflower and elderberries. The final touch is adding our classic chai spice blend and to pull it all together, adding a small amount of rubbed sage. The finished blend is immensely sweet and delicate with smooth spice and warm sage notes. The aroma of desert berries and mesquite spice fill in the final pieces of the experience, creating a synthesis of flavors that can bring anyone to the high deserts.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Sororitea Sisters’ Tri Pi Chai Blend from Uniq Teas
Tea Type:
Black Tea/White Tea Blend, Chai
Where to Buy:
Uniq Teas
Product Description:
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
Follow us: @uniqteas on Twitter | UniqTeas on Facebook
Tasters Review:
If you are a regular reader of ours here at Sororitea Sisters you are aware that Uniq Teas allowed the 3 of us here to blend our own tea and this is mine in the series of 3!
The Tri Pi Chai was the one I blended thru their wonderful service!
You can find this blend here
http://www.uniqteas.com/products/sororiteas-tri-pi-chai#ixzz2DRbhkaPT
It’s made up of:
70% White Chai / 15% Caramelicious / 15% Raspberry
I wanted to do a Chai but not a ‘regular’ chai. I’ve always been intrigued by WHITE Chai’s – I can’t really explain why but I like them and like the tinker with them. This was the very first thought I had when I saw that as an option on their site!
But I also wanted both WHITE and BLACK Teas in them. I didn’t want the black tea to over power the white, tho. BUT…I did want to taste both. Most of the other attempts I have tried with the black and white combined you can’t taste the white…so…fingers crossed!
I also wanted this to be just a little sweet and a tad fruity so that is why I went with a little bit of the caramel and raspberry combo-ed offerings!
I wanted to try infusing this a 1 minute or under FIRST so that is what I did.
Here were my findings:
First…the DRY leaf aroma – right from the tin – smells like white tea, gentle spices, raspberries, citrus, a pinch of sugary and I am chalking that up to the caramel, as well as a little woodsy. It has some interesting yin and yang or masculine and feminine type aromas to it. I like how the opposites seem to attract in this!
This blend – at 1 minute or under – infuses to a medium brown color with a neat copper glow.
To the nose – the liquor smells warming, comforting, mellower, and slightly fruity, floral, and woodsy…all at the same time! WOW! How different…but that is what I was HOPING for!!!
Now the taste…
“Oh…WOW!” were the first two words that came out of my mouth! WHITE TEA! YAY! But there was MORE to it!
It has a nice white tea flavor up front that is mellower but still pushing thru and noticeable. The Chai Spices are subtle and I am ok with that! I didn’t want them to over power! The white tea also provides an interesting floral flavor working with the spices or maybe just a tad more than the spices. The Caramel is also hiding out in the background and does contribute an oh-so-small-hint of sweetness to possibly tone down the floral flavor. More importantly – I think the Caramel assists with the texture and gives it a nice creaminess to the middle of the sip. However, as it continues to cool at room temperature I can taste the caramel more and I like it! I also think the black tea working with the caramel works well, here, again, I didn’t want it to overpower the white and I really don’t think it did. YAY! Also as it cools the Raspberry started to come out to play more and it’s really welcoming and fun! It’s just enough to make you say “What’s that? Fruit!?” So, yeah, I guess I just really wanted this to be complex…but I wanted it to be interesting and diverse, but jive in it’s own certain way. Just like a Sorority I guess. So far…I think this reached those things.
I named this Tri Pi Chai for a few reasons! One being…The SororiTEA Sisters are made up of 3 Tea Lovin’ Sista’s…Liberteas, Azzrian, and myself. We are all different but we all love tea and we all work well together. I also named this Tri Pi Chai to do a little Play on Words to work hand-in-hand with SororiTEA Sisters. Also because I used 3 different offerings Uniq Teas offered.
The more I drink this the more I like it and as it cools the flavors dance around and become more youthful and seem to morph at different temperatures!
I will experiment with this at different temperatures but I am really liking it with a shorter infusion time, so far.
Special THANKS to Uniq Teas for this awesomely-fun opportunity!
