Wild Chaild

Chai and I are just casual friends. I don’t dislike it. I just never crave it. I have finally come to the conclusion it is because I can’t taste the black tea base. If they left it out, I’m not sure I could tell.

That said, I emptied the cup pretty quickly. The biggest flaw is it contains stevia. It isn’t overly sweet, especially for chai, but enough so as too make adding my preferred sweetener problematic. On the positive side the flavors are all well balanced. The aroma is cinnamon, clove, and cardamon. The taste begins more cardamon, then drifts towards but doesn’t reach banana. Banana? Neat twist. Then things straighten back to a cinnamon, pepper, and ginger end. I do catch faint banana in the aftertaste. I did not catch caramel as promised. Maybe had I added milk. If you let the cup get cool, there are notes of star anise. I did not notice it while hot, but then I like the flavor. If I were a hater it might jump out more.

For chai, not shabby.

Can’t deal with the intensity of the star anise that seems to be in every Good Earth tea!

this was yummy! since in my experience, Good Earth has quite the knack for packing a punch with spice, i used only 1 bag of this & added 1 bag of Tazo Awake english breakfast to give it more of a black tea kick.

this Chai came as a surprise. since Tabby gave such a glowing review to Sweet Chai of Mine, which is sort of along these lines (similar spices et al.), i figured the spice in this wouldn’t be offensive or brash, and they weren’t! this was even light on clove…..hallelujah!

what this does have is a nice chai profile (in my opinion) with a solid sweet element and yummy caramel and banana flavoring. i could taste the banana, and it was actually delicious (quite unusual flavor pairing for chai, but fun!) i don’t so much get caramel, but it’s there.

though cinnamon is an ingredient, it doesn’t overpower the blend, and neither does any other spice for that matter. it’s really a nice balance!

with (soy) milk & brown sugar this is perfect. i added much less sugar than i normally would because this is already pre-sweetened with Stevia (which i’m happy to report i couldn’t taste!)