Serene Chai Biodegradable Pyramid Sachets

Not-Tea Review

Can we talk for a moment about how much I love Daylight Savings Time?

After our second night show (it was not a slump, but I’m not sure I should repeat our term for it on here ;) ), we all went out to Eddie O’s, a bar/restaurant downtown. By the time we got there it was late enough that no one was really sitting down and eating; most of us just got appetizers and split them. As the night wore on and everybody got drunker, we lost most of the people that had come with us. Finally it was almost 2, and we got up to leave – before realizing that we had to turn back the clocks, and it was actually only 1!

So we migrated outside, where it was cold, and those of us who were of age were very drunk. We ended up home around 1:30 ultimately, and I’m using this time to NaNo.

So I made a cup of tea to help me with that. I’ve already written about 1k tonight, and I’m aiming for another 800 before I go to bed. And then I’ll finish the other 800 sometime later today, and hopefully get ahead.

Tea Review

I haven’t had this tea in awhile, and I have to say, it’s still really just okay for me. It’s a delicate chai, which is good, as I’m not huge on strong ones (and we don’t have any milk right now), but it’s just not my thing.

Thank you Epi Tea for this sample

One of the things I do like about the design of the pyramid sachets is the large amount of room given for leaf expansion. When I placed the sachet in my cup and poured boiling water over it, I could watch the tea slowly grow and fill the bag along with the pink peppercorns, pieces of cardamom and ginger. For 5 minutes while the tea steeped, I played with a small spoon swirling the bag around in the water…watching the ingredients and smelling the aroma of spices curl up in the air around me.

I took a big sip and made an ick face, squishing up my nose.
The dark brew tasted odd. Somewhere the vanilla, spicey black tea tasted like an old pear was thrown in. Chai is better though when sweet, so I added sweetening but that didn’t help either.
I added milk. Chai with sweetening and milk is traditional I told myself, and if anything would make this taste good…this should do the trick.
In went the milk.

Errr…
It still tasted wierd.
It reminded me of benedryl.

For the first time ever, I’m not going to rate a tea. I know other people like this tea and I can’t tell you why, but the flavor hit me like the taste of medicine. It could be a personal thing.

After drinking the tea I could feel a little heat from the pepper and it was just the right amount. Very well placed.

Thank you, Epi Tea for this sample!

This tea has many different flavors and aromas that rise from the cup, that make it a tough one to breakdown. The cinnamon is certainly dominant, coupled with a marsh-mellow creaminess.

The sip is both smooth and thick, leaving a crave to try more. The aftertaste is minty, along with a small amount of dry astringency.

There is something missing, slightly, on delivering an overall impression of a chai tea. I will need to try this tea again with other variables, such as milk and sweeter to get a better grasp on it complete character.

Of the four samples sent to me from EPI Tea this is the only one I would have personally chosen for myself and I really have to be in the mood for Chai. Luckily today was an Autumn like day outside (LOVE IT) so I had to give this a go.
I am not partial to bagged teas as they all tend to be fairly fanning like but at least this had some lovely peppercorns and such.
The first aroma (before steep) that hit me was cinnamon.
I like cinnamon well enough but it takes more than cinnamon to make a good chai.
I will say upon sipping this the peppercorn does come out nicely with a slight bite but not too much. I do love teas with peppercorn in it!
The mouthfeel is very weak, watery, I would like more depth in my chai especially since often I want to make lattes with them or even more ice them or blend them so with this being so light I don’t feel I could do this unless I used two or three times the amount of leaf.
I do pick up a slightly vanilla flavor or more so an aroma than flavor even though the heavily cinnamon aroma.
I would agree though as their statement says – it is a GENTLE Chai and I am sure there is a good market for this!
I just feel it is a bit too heavy on the cinnamon for the ginger to really sparkle here.
Overall not a bad tea whatsoever just a little something missing.
Thank you to EPI Tea for sending me these samples!

This is my first warm cup of tea all week, believe it or not—I’ve really been in the mood for cold drinks but I had a stressful day and hot tea always helps me relax. I hadn’t tried this one yet and chai is one of my go-to “calm down, brain!” teas so into the cup it went.

I’m a bit perplexed by this blend. I like my chais spicy, and this definitely delivers, with that back of the mouth heat you get from whole peppercorns. There’s a bit of a bit from the ginger too, but I think the other spices are a bit lacking. I’m not getting much cardamom/cinnamon, and the vanilla is also very faint. The black base is also a bit underwhelming, with no real strong notes to tie everything together. I prefer malty bases for chais usually, and here I kind of taste that, you know, “tea” flavor but it’s really overwhelmed by the pepper and ginger. So it’s both strong and weak, which is kind of a funny conundrum. I think with a little bit of tweaking this could be a nice blend though, I am loving the addition of whole peppercorns!

This smells spicy and fruity but I’m not seeing any fruity ingredients in the contents list…ummmmm…well…and it smells a little like a holiday/adult beverage but I cannot put my finger on WHICH one! It does smell nice, however.

The taste is pretty intense for a bagged tea…a good amount of spices, and more notably the ginger and vanilla are pairing ‘just right’ in my opinion!

This is a goodie! The Red Peppercorns are pretty slammin’, too! Nice touch!

Yeah! The more I sip on this – the more I’m liking it! Good job Epi!

I’m not sure about this one, its ok nothing wrong with it at all but seemed like something is missing from it, unfortunately I got only one pyramid bag of each of my Epi Tea samples which just wasn’t quite enough to really get a good impression of this one it was just gone too soon and the resteep just wasn’t happening. from what I could tell from one decent cup is that it’s not that bad but I really couldn’t say it was good either, it was different.

Ingredients: Organic Black tea, Organic Cinnamon, Organic Ginger, Organic Cardamom, Organic Red Pepper & Natural Vanilla,Cinnamon and Ginger Flavorings.

I brewed it at boiling temperature and steeped it for approximately five minutes. While pouring my tea, I noticed the aroma of spices, including the red pepper. Honestly, I was a bit hesitant to take a sip and I’m glad I tried it. The liquor was a dark brown/black.
Well I must say that surprisingly, I kind of like this tea. I wouldn’t say that this was a taste that I would normally associate with chai tea but it’s interesting. I would say that the first sip, it tasted weird. The more that I drank the tea, I guess that it grew on me slightly.
I would say that when I looked at the ingredients on the label, I wasn’t sure if this blend would work. I personally think that maybe it should be renamed because I’m not sure that it would be considered to capture the essence of what most people consider to be a “chai tea”. I’m glad that I was able to have a new experience,which I would like to thank Epi Tea once again.

Thank you Michelle for sending some of these for your sale a while back! I’m not sure what a “serene” chai is. No such thing! SO I used two tea bags to make it less serene. It isn’t overpowering with two bags.. just right! The flavor does seem different than a typical chai. I’m surprised the black tea isn’t stronger… so I guess that is what makes it serene, even after a few minutes steeping. The ingredients aren’t particularly flavorful… and there is a flavor here that reminds me of cantaloupe. Different! I’m not tasting vanilla or much cinnamon… mainly ginger. Why are half of the same ingredients organic? hmm. Not a terrible chai but there are others I love more.

I am of the opinion that good chai needs peppercorns but few seem to agree. Epi Tea’s blend included both peppercorns and red pepper in addition to vanilla, with no intrusion of cloves. I picked this first from the samples, obviously. It certainly sounded like a great chai, vanilla, cinnamon, and cardamom present, peppercorns hiding in the back but when I tasted it, it was all vanilla flavoring. I got some cinnamon and an astringent Assam taste, but no peppercorns, pepper, or ginger. Re-examining the tea bag, I couldn’t find a cardamom pod and I could barely smell the peppercorns. I re-steeped in two ounces of warm water for an hour for a mild cinnamon and vanilla sip. Over all the advertised spices weren’t there, although the bag I received seemed full. Maybe a longer steep? I only had one bag to experiment.
Full Review:
http://sabiisphere.teatra.de/?p=60