Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Chai Tea’

I love the look of the leaves! The leaves are a nice dark green, long stems and mixed in are big chunks of spices. The smell of the leaves dry left me a bit disappointed as all I could smell was an unrealistic cinnamon flavoring. I love ground cinnamon, but this was more like cinnamon red hot candies.

The wet leaves carried over the red hot candied scent, and left the liquor a light yellow green. The first few sips are very lightly spicy. I taste the cinnamon candy flavor first, followed by a bit of cardamom. I think I may have brewed this too light. I used 2 tsp for 16oz water. I think I will double it next time and do 2 tsp for 8oz water (as I think that’s what I have left of the sample). I don’t care for this blend. I’m not a fan of cinnamon flavoring, I prefer ground cinnamon or cinnamon sticks to this flavor. I won’t pour it out, and wouldn’t refuse it if it were my only choice for tea, but there are plenty more teas I enjoy much more than this one.

You can purchase the Bengal Green Chai directly from the Adagio website.

With much fanfare, Rishi Tea has reintroduced its Chai concentrate – it is now available with new packaging, a high profile association with Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots program, and a change in the recipe. The ingredients listed are filtered water, black tea, cinnamon, cardamon, black pepper, cloves, ginger, dried cane syrup, blackstrap molasses, vanilla extract and lemon juice – all organic, and the tea is also organic as well as fair trade certified. The concentrate is described by Rishi as “a microbrewed blend of energizing spices and rich vanilla infused with a full-bodied single origin forest grown black tea. Unlike other companies that use soluble tea and flavor extracts, we use traditional Indian spices that are slow brewed for more than 20 hours and ethically sourced, wild-grown black tea leaves from an ancient tea tree forest.”

Straight out of the box the concentrate was dark and slightly murky, but redeemed itself with the rich aroma of traditional Indian masala spices which according to Rishi are slowly brewed in small batches before the addition of the tea leaves – a process which takes almost a full day.

Mixed with an equal amount of milk and heated to the point of steaming, the result was a mild, pleasantly flavored latte although I did find that the molasses smell and taste was quite noticeable and took away from the “chai-ness” of it. I appreciated that the concentrate wasn’t overly sweet and the taste of the black tea wasn’t lost in the mix.

Formerly only available in recyclable glass quart bottles, Rishi Masala Chai Tea Concentrate is now packaged in a carton and can be conveniently purchased online and shipped to you. Rishi as a company has a commendable reputation for its green initiatives and it’s nice to know that proceeds from each sale support a good environmental and humanitarian cause through the Jane Goodall Institute.

You can purchase the Masala Chai Tea Concentrate directly from the Rishi Tea website.

The dry leaf smells like cinnamon and star anise, though predominately of star anise. Through the bag I could distinguish long black tea leaves mixed with small bits of what appeared to be the ginger and cloves. I’ve never had a tea with star anise, but apparently it is a licorice type flavor, so here goes.

I brewed this tea using 6 oz. of almost boiling water for 4 minutes as suggested on the package. Taken plain, the tea tastes unsurprisingly like black tea flavored with licorice. If you like licorice, then you will like this but I’m not a licorice fan. I added milk and sugar to make it more chai-like which seemed to even out the licorice slightly. The cinnamon was also more noticeable but I could not distinguish any of the other chai spices that were included in this blend.

Overall, this is a decent tea for licorice fans who like black tea but is not my idea of a chai since the majority of the chai spices aren’t present in the taste.

You can purchase the Bombay Chai directly from the Mighty Leaf Tea website.

On the Mighty Leaf website this description is given: Bombay Chai with a melange of spicy notes conjures the steamy, aromatic delights of an Indian street market. Black tea leaves with subtle hints of Pepper, Orange, Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Clove make up our chai, the Indian word for tea. Bombay Chai is delicious when brewed fresh and blended with heated milk and sugar to taste.

Having recently given up coffee I drink Chai every day, as I find it is the only tea that has enough of a flavorful kick to get me awake and out the door in the morning.

When I tried Mighty Leaf’s Bombay Chai I found that it was pleasantly smooth and warm. However, generally Chai is distinguished by the bite of its spices, which didn’t seem particularly present here.

When I added milk I found that this overpowered the spices to the point that they were barely even noticeable. To me this tea seems to be suitable as a spiced black tea, but without knowing what it was I wouldn’t identify it as chai.

You can purchase Mighty Leaf Bombay Chai directly from their website.

From Adagio Teas Bengal Green Chai is an eastern fusion blend of green tea from China and a traditional mix of chai spices from India. It is described by Adagio as ” Our smooth China green tea with a chakra warming spice combination. Its natural sweetness and fiery kick will bring you back to center, no matter how polarized you’ve become. OOMMMMM OOMMMMM”

The loose tea presents very well, long leaves of green pekoe tea, lots of cloves, big chunks of cardamom pods, cinnamon bark, ginger root and orange peel; once brewed it makes a cup of tea that is a nice amber color. The aroma of the tea is rich and spicy and stays with the tea even after it is brewed.

I found the flavor of the cloves to be the most pronounced, almost a little too strong, but the ginger, cinnamon and cardamom worked nicely together as an underlying flavor. Overall, I liked the tea but I think that the mildness of the green pekoe was overpowered by the spices. I often add milk and sugar to a traditional black chai blend but I found that this tea isn’t robust enough to hold up to the addition of milk and sugar without losing too much of it’s color and taste.

I followed Adagio’s suggested brewing instructions of two heaping teaspoons per 6 oz cup – 3 min at about 180 degrees. This actually seemed like a lot of tea required to make a cup but I guess it has to do with the loose mix of big leaves and spice pieces – the more tea you use the more likely it is to get a consistent proportion of cloves, ginger, cinnamon and cardamom.

You can purchase Adagio Bengal Green Chai directly from their website.