Vanilla Chai

Comfort in a cup. After all the teas that I have sampled, this one tea remains my favorite. The vanilla and chai are in perfect harmony. Had this tea two ways tonight: plain and traditional chai method on stovetop. Yummy both ways:)
I am slowly getting back into wanting hot tea. It got so darn hot here this summer that the thought of hot tea turned me off (it did not help that I got sick drinking PG Tips this summer…I really hate that too, My tips no longer appeal to me…sad) but I am slowly emerging back into the tea scene. But my tastes seemed to have changed. The teas that I liked iced, I don’t like hot. I guess that is normal but I wish I had realized that before I placed my last GM order…sigh…and I don’t want milk in my tea anymore…bad memories…another sigh…

I bought this tea because my nephew Brennan said it was good and he thought I would like it. I was eager to cup this despite it being at least partially artificially flavored.

In my first cup I added a little skim milk. To be honest, even the small amount of milk seemed to hide flavors, although I thought I tasted vanilla and other Chai spices. My second cup was steeped without milk, per info below. I did taste a decent black tea base, vanilla & cinnamon, and perhaps cardamon in the background.

It was a decent cup of tea, but I did taste the artificial flavoring in this blend and it really distracted me, & disappointed me-even though I was expecting it. :// Hopefully, this tea will be better cold brewed.

Cupped & Reviewed: Thursday, July 19, 2012.

The third bagged tea of the day yesterday. My dad and I had teas while my mom was at a finance meeting in the evening (she’s the office manager/accountant at her workplace). He boiled the water, started a cup for himself, then asked me if I wanted anything while the water was hot. Yay for tea with dad!

So I picked this to have with milk and a touch of honey because for some odd reason honey vanilla chai sounded good then. I knew I was going to add milk to it so I steeped it the maximum recommended time. I got a mug of creamy honey spiced black tea. All of those things vaguely. But sweet and desserty so I enjoyed sipping while studying. He watched investment/finance channel shows then a vintage/older (think 80s)/sports cars auction show. Dads lol.

I’m not rating this tea right now because I made it with milk and honey and did not get a true sense of what the tea itself tasted like. But it would have definitely fallen within the nice bagged tea range this way.

Mmmm. This is my ideal dessert tea. Plain, although I keep meaning to try it with milk.

Sipping and reading Watchmen. Checked it out of my college’s library. This is one thick graphic novel.

You know I’m expecting a bad day when I broke out my final bag of this at 630 am…

Then I walked away from my plate and came back to find my cat licking the sugar off the top of my sugar cookie. sigh

sip

Alright Thursday, bring it on!

For some reason I’m in the mood for chai today so I think I will indulge in a trio of chais, which are all bagged. This will be tea 1 of 3 in my lovely trio which will hopefully help me decide which one I like better and which I can live without.

For all intents and purposes, I will be brewing each tea the same way: 5 minutes, adding milk and sweetener. I’m not going to worry about the stovetop method because that is a lot of effort for a bagged tea.

The taste is primarily of vanilla with a hint of spice. It is very smooth, but it is hard to isolate the black tea base through the flavors. This is a good go-to bagged tea that is warm and comforting. However, it doesn’t smack you in the face to announce “I’m a chai!” This is much smoother than traditional chai with balanced, almost muted spices.

I took a bag of this from the Travelling Teabox to have with breakfast this morning. The smell as it’s brewing is sweet and very vanilla-y – it actually reminded me of that Oregon Chai mix. Actually it tasted a fair bit like it too, though without all the sugary sweetness that made me dislike Oregan Chai’s stuff. I didn’t add anything other than some skim milk and really this tea doesn’t need it.

All in all I found it quite nice – and I may just grab all the remaining bags of vanilla chai from the teabox for myself. ;)

Being a pretty diehard fan of anything chai, I was disappointed by this offering. I found it to be weak, and the spiciness that I love so much was not all that prevalent in this one. I normally like Bigelow pretty well, though, so I’m not too put off. Maybe next time I’ll try a longer steep or less water. We’ll see!

Backlogging 7/4:

Morning wake call!!!

I had this yesterday at work after I had found in the break room. It’s pretty good, but almost too sweet of a vanilla? Perhaps I wont put as much sugar and see if that would mellow the sweetness out a bit? All in all this was pretty yummy!