Tea Reviews | It's All About The Leaf

Posts Tagged ‘Chai Tea’

These teabags are adorable; little bendy strings with the leaf, the pyramid shape leaving room for the leaves to dance, the packaging.  They’re highly engineered and very cute.

However, it’s what’s inside that counts, and as a chai, it didn’t really stand out.  Chai should be bold and brave and spicy.  This is a delicate chai.  A demure chai.  Not quite a wall-flower chai, but definitely not the belle of the ball.  Nice to drink, but not something I’d actively seek out.

What I found that I really liked using this tea for was making cocktails with it.  I originally got this idea from a class I took at a local tea shop.  They had gotten the Tea Forte tea cocktails set in, and this is a modification of one of those recipes.  This is a LOVELY decadent drink, to replace dessert when you feel like laying about and being pampered.

1 Bombay Chai Tea Pyramid
Double shot of Whipped Cream flavored vodka (can be done with regular vodka, but this adds an extra dimension of yum)
ice
simple syrup
whole milk (or half and half if you feel REALLY decadent)

Take the bombay chai tea pyramid and put in a small cup.  Pour the vodka in, let sit approx. 5-8 minutes. Remove tea pyramid. Take a large juice or highball glass, fill with ice.  Pour in steeped vodka.  Then add at least 2 tbsp of simple syrup, more if you like things sweet (you can adjust after finishing the drink).  Fill the glass with milk.  Taste, adjust the sweetness with more simple syrup as needed.  Then enjoy.

The tea pyramid can be resteeped two to three times for more drinks.  (For you, or your friends - if you want to share.)  It’s amazingly yummy.  Completely decadent.  Lovely.

You can purchase the Bombay Chai directly from the Tea Forte website.

So, I’m a geek.  It took me a long time to accept it, but as I’ve been a medieval re-enactor since before I could drive, cut my teeth playing video games on my TRS-80 and used the campus role playing gaming groups as potential dating pools, it’s pretty clear.  I’m a geek.  In the last few years, I’ve accepted and embraced my geekiness.  Recently, as I was buying a Wampa Rug from ThinkGeek for my new home, I noticed their loose leaf tea sampler collection.  Tea?  On ThinkGeek?  SWEET.  I couldn’t help myself; I bought it.

The collection was created by Adiago, and includes four teas:

- Tea Earl Grey Hot (black tea with bergamot, choice of the best Starfleet captain)

- Timmy’s 1UP Jasmine Green (sweet and intoxicating like the feeling of having multiple lives)

- Zombie Blood Orange (caffeine-free herbal tea blend of blood orange and sour apple)

- Pirate Chai (spiced black tea guaranteed to fight off scurvy)

So, for you today, I have a four-for-one special.  Here are my reviews of the tea collection:

- First, I tried the Timmy’s 1UP Jasmine Green.    I’m a fan of jasmine, so I was quite curious about this tea.  Good looking leaf, but not highly fragrant.  On drinking, it shows itself to be a nice, fairly standard jasmine green.  A little heavy on the green.  The jasmine was not soapy (always a worry with jasmines) but didn’t quite have the sparkle or lively quality of other jasmines.  It was a little flat.  But in general,  a nice standard jasmine.  Quite drinkable.

- Zombie Blood Orange was the next sample on the menu.  For being an herbal, it’s got something in it that looks very like green tea leaves.  It’s also got some hibiscus – to give the blood color.  I’m not a hibiscus fan – it tastes bitter to me.  Definitely has orange peel.    But, it all comes down to the taste right?  It’s very hibiscus.  VERY hibiscus.   I think there’s orange in there somewhere.  I still don’t know what that green tea-leaf looking stuff actually is.  I don’t like this at all.  But as I said, I don’t like hibiscus.  This might be better iced and highly sweetened.  Otherwise, blea.  Not my cuppa at ALL.  Apparently I am NOT a zombie.

- To get the taste of the Zombie Blood Orange out my mouth, I decided to try the Pirate Chai next.  Oh!  This one smells amazing.  Heavy on the clove.  I love cloves, and I love spicy teas.  I’d like to do this in a traditional method, but as I’m sitting at work, I don’t have the necessary equipment.    Once I started drinking however, it seems it’s pretty much just a clove blend.  Maybe they were trying to make this like a Bay Rum style chai?  For me, a truly good chai needs the spicy heat of the cardamom and pepper which this tea is missing.  But, as a clove tea?  It’s a great clove tea!  In fact, my mouth is even getting slightly numb from the clove oil.. so you know it’s clove-y.

- Now, the final tea in the set: Tea, Earl Grey, Hot.  Mm.. takes me back to sitting around in Watson Hall, watching Star Trek: TNG with the Sci-Fi/Doctor Who club on Saturday nights.  (And reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg’s character’s stupid hats for some reason.)  The leaf of this tea smells VERY bergamot-y.  Brewed up, it’s a fairly solid Earl Grey.  Not too bergamot, not too strong.  My guess is that the replicators of Starfleet do a generic blend of the various types of Earl Grey. 

Overall, it’s a nice sampler.  I hope it’s placement on ThinkGeek helps others of the geeky persuasion find a new facet of their geekdom – being a Tea Geek.  Now, if I could only get a d20 teapot, life would be perfect!

You can purchase the Timmy’s Tea Sampler directly from the Think Geek website.

There seems to be more and more tea infused chocolate products coming to market. We have reviewed Matcha Chocolates here before, and this time, we have the chance to review some tea infused chocolates from a local company, Tea and All Its Splendour.

The owner of the company, Raelene Gannon, has a professional background in the chocolate and confection industry, and is also a certified tea sommelier. Combining the two, she has created Chocolate t – tea infused chocolates!

We received a large sampler box from Raelene, a mix of packaged-for-sale chocolate bars, and loose sampler type squares. There was plenty for tasting here, so keep an eye out for future reviews from some of our other reviewers, who have it in their expert hands (mouths?) now In the sampler was Dark Chocolate Raspberry Black Tea, Dark Chocolate Ginger Black Tea, Milk Chocolate Temple Chai Tea, Milk Chocolate Passion Fruit Green Tea, Milk Chocolate Cream Earl Grey Tea and White Chocolate Matcha and Sencha. They all smelled incredible, and while I know personally that the While Chocolate would be my personal favorite (without even tasting it!) I also enjoy Chai blends, so that is the first one I decided to go with.

The very first thing I noticed was that the chocolate had bits throughout, and as I looked at all the other chocolates, I noted them in those ones as well. As it turns out – these are the actual tea leaves! Raelene not only infuses the chocolates with the tea flavours, but also the actual loose leaf tea its self – what a unique concept! The chocolate its self is in a bar – that is, flat with ridges, not truffle type shapes like the Matcha Chocolat ones were. This makes it more commercially viable, and probably easier to produce consistently.

The scent I get from the chocolate is that of a fine Milk Chocolate, with a bit of a clove’y, spicy scent – what I would expect from a Chai – but of course, more chocolaty I am the kind of person that eats chocolate by melting it in my mouth – I love the feeling of smooth chocolate on my tongue, and I did exactly that with this chocolate.

The first taste that hits you is the smooth, sweet milky chocolate. You can tell that this is a good quality chocolate base, as it is not waxy or tasteless at all. The milk chocolate taste is quickly followed up with a spicy flavour – I would not say that it is clearly relate-able to a chai blend – since there can be such a variety of this type of tea, but it is more of a sense of spiciness, but not in a hot, burn your mouth way, but in an exotic, not familiar to my everyday meal palate, kind of way.

The next thing that strikes me are the crunchy “bits” in the chocolate – which I know now is the actual loose leaf. With my first couple of tastes, I crunched them, and found it not quite a pleasant experience – I like my chocolate smooth! But with my second round of tasting, I let them soften in my mouth without chewing, and it released more of the chai spice flavour, which was quite enjoyable! If you have ever eaten actual tea leaves – well, it is not a good tasting experience, but these leaves have mellowed enough to be a real treat!

Overall, this was a good tea infused chocolate. I got more chocolate than tea, but it IS a chocolate, not a condensed tea. I personally would have preferred to get more of the spiciness that you can get from a good Chai – but by the same token, this is probably would appeal to a wider audience, like an introduction to Chai.

This is not the only one I have sampled to date, and not my favorite of all of them, but it is a great starting point, and it is exciting to see more and more of these products coming to market – and great to see one local to Toronto! Stay tuned to this website for more reviews of the Chocolate t products from myself, and our other reviewers!

You can purchase the Milk Belgian Chocolate with Temple Chai Tea directly from the Tea and All Its Splendour website.

I made this tea according to the directions on the package: 1 1/2 cup water and 1 cup milk. Bring to boil, add contents of package. Simmer for 3-5 minutes.

The dry leaves look like lemongrass. The smell is vegetal with spices. With this Green chai, you do not get the traditional brown color of Chai that you would get with a black tea base. This tea is much less spicy than Rishi’s Masala Chai which makes this a good choice for a green tea fan who wants a chai.

You can purchase the Green Tea Chai directly from the Rishi Tea website.

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.