Notes on Chai

This week, I've been sampling Adagio's new Chai teas. The first thing I have to say about them is - don't expect to drink them in a traditional manner. None of them are strong enough to stand up with milk and honey, sadly. This leaves me still "wanting" the perfect, non-bagged chai. I'm afraid I'm not going to find it though. I'll note my favorite chai to date at the end of the post (teaser, no?).

Here are my basic impressions of the Adagio chai's I tried (sans milk & honey after I figured out they couldn't handle it):

Masala Chai - Good flavor, naturally sweet with cinnamon & cloves. Just a basic, average spiced tea.

Spiced Apple Chai - One of my favorites out of the bunch...the addition of apples made it more like tea's version of apple cider. I really liked it quite a bit, and with a pinch of sugar, it could easily substitute for apple cider.

Thai Chai - The spiciest of the bunch, I think, and my other favorite of this group. Very tangy, and has a lot of character. I'll keep this on hand - it will be great on cold winter days

Chocolate Chai - Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the point. The chocolate does smooth out the blend (much like when you add chocolate to chili), and adds a rich component, but it's not "chocolatey" as per say (which I think would be odd anyway).

There's a Vanilla Rooibos Chai too that I haven't tried yet - teas without caffiene tend to be put on the backburner around here until I'm in the mood for a cup late at night (and not too lazy to make one). It sure smells good though.

So now it's confession time - a secret that will make fellow tea snobs cringe with shock and horror. My favorite Chai of all time so far?

Stash Chai Spice Tea

I know! I'd actually forgotten about this until I rooted around in my neglected tea chest the other day, and found a bag. Yes, a *bag*. Stash is one of the first companies I ever bought tea from. We don't have much in the grocery stores here, so I'd order it online. That's way back when I started drinking tea, of course, back when teabags were really all I knew about. And I still have quite a few Stash bags in my tea chest, languishing under the weight of my loose tea tins now.

Seriously though? Stash Chai is strong, spicy, and it was heaven the first time I brewed up a big mug with milk & honey. Cinnamon roll in a cup, I call it, and I've been looking for a loose tea equivalent ever since. I still haven't found one. But I'll keep looking, tea snob that I am.

Evil Brews for Halloween

Yes, I was going to title this post “Witchy Brews”. That was before I did my “research”. Before I reached a sad revelation: Tea and alcohol don’t play well together.

So for your amusement this Halloween, I present for you my attempts at mixing our beloved daily beverage of choice with the liquid fire that is alcohol. It didn’t really work though a couple pairings have limited promise. I did get one decent cup out of the whole batch, so all was not entirely lost, at least. I wish I could say I had pictures to share with you, but you’ll have to make due with our eerie pool room mascot, who though you can’t really see it, has a hand propped up on a bottle of beer that my husband deems “undrinkable”, but keeps for the bottle. Monsieur Skeleton was the only witness present at my “tastings” aside from my dogs, who were quite happy that *I* was pretty happy, taste bud torture notwithstanding.

Without further ado, here are the 4 concoctions I tried:

Harney & Son’s “Florence” tea with Raspberry Pucker: I like chocolate. I like raspberry. I thought, what better thing than to combine a chocolate/hazelnut tea with raspberry alcohol (mind you, I’d just had a shot of PB&J, which is Frangelico, Raspberry and vodka, so it really did sound like it would work at the time). Needless to say, it didn’t. There wasn’t enough raspberry, and then when I added more, it was too sour. So I added sugar – too sweet. Then I added milk to tone that down, and it curdled in the face of all that alcohol. So yeah, the “Raspberry Florence” went down the drain.

Republic of Tea’s Cranberry Blood Orange tea with Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum and Apple Cider: This one would have been okay I think had I left out the spiced cider. The apple just didn’t go with the cranberry/orange of the tea. I did add sugar, and it was drinkable, but would have been better with just the tea and rum. I would hesitantly recommend this one, but only if you promise to leave either the cider or the tea out. We could call it something like a “Rummy Cranberry Orange”…but even so, it still is missing “something”. If anyone figures it out, please let me know. Heck, maybe it needs orange juice?

Adagio’s Chestnut tea with Frangelico: If you don’t know, Frangelico is a hazelnut flavored liquor that is truly amazing…very good. I was going to try it with Gingerbread tea, but had a change of heart at the last minute, and this is the one drink that actually worked pretty well. I added sugar and milk to the tea, and a splash of Frangelico, and it was serious nutty goodness. Unfortunately, there’s no way to combine the names without being crass…the best I’ve come up with so far is “Monky Nuts” or “Frangel Nuts”, but it did amuse me. Suggestions?

Stash’s Irish Breakfast with Bailey’s Irish Cream: This is the second one that has potential. I think I brewed the tea too long, and used too much Baileys, but coffee drinkers would probably appreciate it. I think a lighter brew, and just an ounce or so of Bailey’s would work fine. I think Bailey’s would probably work well with Keemun tea too, but at that point, I’d had way too much to drink anyways, and a pretty good buzz going on.

I didn’t try a marTEAni, which I had planned to – I couldn’t decide which tea to use, and again, I was buzzed and it was really late by that time. Guess I’ll save that idea for another time…

So there you have it – a good reason it’s dangerous to have an almost full bar on hand with a serious tea stash to drink your way through. I’ll freely admit that I still have plans to pair the “Champagne of Tea” with actual champagne one day, and possibly mix puerh with a good sherry or merlot as well…but that will have to wait for another adventurous night. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll discover the perfect alcoholic tea!

In any case, it was fun trying. I’m not sure why anyone under 21 would be reading this particular blog, but if you are, spare me a lawsuit and don’t try this until you are of legal drinking age, please.

Whatever you’re drinking tonight, Happy Halloween!

Rou Gui Oolong Showdown

One main goal motivated me to do this particular showdown – I wanted to find out if Rou Gui actually did taste like cinnamon or not! I’d read descriptions of it, and tasted some teas individually, but never really grasped why anyone would compare it to cinnamon, so I thought perhaps if I tasted several varieties, maybe they would yield more info than previously. I also decided to brew them gong fu style, using gaiwans and filtered water. I ended up having to use a smallish fair pitcher for my third gaiwan, since I only have two, and had tea from three vendors.

The three rou gui’s I have are from Teacuppa, Stash, and Teaspring. I don’t know what year the Teacuppa variety is, as it was a sample included with an order, and they didn’t mark the year on the package. For that matter, none of my rou gui packs had years marked on them, so we’re in the dark there. I used filtered tap water to brew with, at around 180 degrees. I tried to use approximately the same ratio of leaf to cup for each type…around ¼ the gaiwan of leaf. Unfortunately, it was dark in my kitchen, so the pictures are less than spectacular, but you can sort of get the idea. In all pictures, Teacuppa is on the right, Stash is in the middle, and Teaspring is on the left (as you’re looking at them). I did rinse each of the teas with a 5 second rinse that was discarded.

So, right from the start, these three versions of Rou Gui all had a unique scent. The Teacuppa scent was sweet and woodsy, with almost a floral tone lurking in the background. The Stash was also sweet, but bolder, and with a more grassy fragrance. And the Teaspring was nothing other than a deep, chocolaty scent, a surprise since not one of them smelled like cinnamon, and all were very sweet and different.

The first infusion was 30s for all three. And they couldn’t have tasted more different! The Teacuppa was sharp, and very cinnamon-y, like straight ground cinnamon without the benefit of sugar to tone it down. It was a thin brew, and bitter, but not drying. The Stash was very bold, more of a roasted flavor, rather than cinnamon (I actually didn’t detect any cinnamon flavor in this one). It was bitter as well, without being astringent, and thin on the tongue. It was more complex than the Teacuppa brew. The Teaspring had more of the roasted flavor too, but was also very smoky, like charcoal more than liquid smoke (ie, not like a lapsong). There was no bitterness, it was slightly sweet, and another thin brew. Very interesting and complex.
The second infusion was 40s. The Teacuppa was lighter, smoky sweet and more woody, still with the cinnamon “bite”, but very drying in the mouth. The Stash was slightly smokey, carrying a very bold flavor with the distinctive cinnamon “bite” on the tip of the tongue. It was less bitter than the first cup, with a hint of astringency. The Teaspring was very roasty & smoky, but less flavorful with no bite, bitterness, or much of anything else.

The third infusion was for 50s. The Teacuppa was sweeter, less astringent, and had a good cinnamon flavor with less of a “bite”, and more texture to the brew. The Stash however was thin, very drying, and less flavorful, with only a slight cinnamon taste. The Teaspring was thicker and smoky, but with much less flavor, and very drying (though still not bitter).

It seemed like all three teas were wearing out around the 3rd infusion, even though the color was still quite good for all of them. I brewed one more infusion for a full minute, that resulted in very weak, thin brews not really worth commenting on. I think had I heated more water, and brewed hotter/longer, I may have been able to squeeze them a bit more.
The leaves were interesting as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t get good pictures of them at all – too dark. Surprisingly, the leaves from Teacuppa were the smallest…something I would have expected more from Stash. The leaves from Teaspring were the largest and prettiest when unfurled, though all were a lovely mixture of very dark brown and olive green.

I’m hard-pressed to decide which of these I like best, simply because they are all so different. This tasting did leave me with an incredibly dry mouth…not something I particularly enjoy, and warmed me up quite nicely. The teaspring version really had no cinnamon flavor to speak of, which is supposedly traditional in Rou Gui. I think for the perfect mix, I’d have to blend the Stash and Teacuppa versions together – for a smoky-sweet roasted cinnamon brew.

Even so, not my favorite kind of oolong, largely due to the very drying aspects of the tea (it really reminded me of trying ground cinnamon straight…very sharp and astringent). Perhaps I’d like it better if I brewed a teaspoon of leaves for 3 min. or so, English style. I may have to try that sometime.

So no clear “winner” for me, but I don’t think the Teaspring version does justice to the common description of “cinnamon flavor”.

Sweet Cinnamon from Stash Teas

Scent in package: Did someone say cinnamon bears?
Brewed in: Trusty tea-for-one pot here at work.
Steeping: 5 min. @ 212 degrees
Cup: Trusty tea-for-one cup

I’m not a very good “tea snob” sometimes, if only because of my penchant for flavored tea. And while I’ve explored several different tea companies’ versions of “flavored blends”, so far none have been better (or even as good) at flavoring tea than Stash, in my opinion (Republic of Tea is a very close second). When I drink a flavored tea, I want to taste *that flavor*, not lightly scented tea. Stash never fails at that, whether packaged as lose tea or teabags. So when I ordered this Sweet Cinnamon tea from Stash when it was their “Internet Special of the Week” (free tin with purchase of the featured tea!), I had high expectations, and I was not disappointed.

When I opened the pouch, the strong scent of fresh cinnamon poured out, and I was pleasantly surprised to see actual chunks of cinnamon almost equal to the amount of tea in the bag. It makes for a rather pleasing sight, and I love the smell of cinnamon, so I couldn’t wait to brew a cup. While brewing, the scent is like Big Red gum, spicy and hot and warm. The first sip bit me back, the cinnamon strong throughout the cup, and while the tea taste was still there, it was in the background, complementing the flavor, rather than the other way around. Perhaps most people wouldn’t like that, but I enjoyed every last swallow, and finished the cup feeling rejuvenated and energized.

It’s not a thick tea in the mouth, but rather a thinner infusion, with a pleasantly light feel on the tongue. It’s not astringent in the least, even when over brewed slightly (as I did at work this morning), and the aftertaste is what you’d expect from a cinnamon tea, though not spicy, but rather a bit dry. I’m sure that with a bit of sugar and milk, it would taste much like a lighter version of chai.

It’s a wonderful cup, and I’ll probably reorder when I run out, because it’s tasty, and not terribly expensive at $3.75 for 50g. And hey, cinnamon is good for the metabolism, tea is good for just about everything, so it’s pretty close to the perfect “health drink” too! If you like cinnamon, try some. You won’t be disappointed.