Chai White

My Tao of tea order came in yesterday while I was at work and between the busy evening and waking up later this morning I wasn’t able to devote the time for a full review, making me very sad. So I decided to perk up my mood with an old favorite. I swear, I collect Stash chais. There are very few chai/spiced teas of theirs that I haven’t bought. This one is strongly cardamom and cinnamon like the rest but the white tea base gives it a lighter feel? flavor? I’m not quite sure how to describe it. But it makes it a great tea for a morning with just a bit of a chill.

Stash is one of my favorite tea companies and I like many of their blends a lot. Their chais, not so much. I WANTED to like them, but just didn’t and it took me forever to break myself of the habit of buying more, hoping they’d get the next batch right.

So when I saw this blend, I had a few misgivings and suspected I might be making a mistake, but the white tea blend was one I hadn’t tried, so I took the chance.

For once, I was glad that I did.

A really strong chai can stand alone. This one was more subtle, so I added the obligatory coconut milk and sweetener. That was good and I suddenly realized what the blend of spices reminded me of.

Now it happened that I had in my refrigerator some pasteurized egg whites that I often use as a protein source for smoothies. I’d been considering all morning what to do with them. Now I brought out a stainless steel bowl, poured the tea and coconut milk into it, added the egg whites, and whisked the whole thing until it was frothy. Voila, a nice warm homemade eggnog.

Yep, that’s what the tea reminds me of. And it makes a wonderful base for eggnog. Didn’t need vanilla or anything. Seriously good.

I don’t know how much of it I’ll be drinking straight, but I’ve certainly found my mulling spice and eggnog base for this year.

very light tea with smooth undertones of the chai. this is really my first white tea experience. short steep with the water not too hot to burn the leaves. an ok chai experience but i still prefer the black tea chais more

The aroma is very satisfying. I added a little splash of milk to mine. I can only faintly taste the cinnamon and spices, but it has a very relaxing taste.

First tasting: This might be too subtle for me, but I’m not willing to write it off just yet. I can smell the chai from the teabag and the cup, yet can’t taste it except for a vague “spice.” Can’t recommend this until I know whether it’s just me or whether it’s the way I brewed it.

Notably used the 185 degrees recommended for white teas on my teapot, rather than the “boiling” temperature recommendation on the tea box so that could be it.

Very strong cinnamon fragrance, but the flavour offers a good balance of spices and a buried hint of white tea! The chai spices definitely dominate.

I use to drinking Chai with black tea but the white tea is nice switch. The spice make a decent blend. It is light and carefree!

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this tea. The spices are reminiscent of baby gherkin pickles… I usually love chai tea, but I’m not in love with this white chai tea.

Still not quite sure about this one. The white tea is obviously very mild but the chai spices are pretty strong so it’s kind of an odd combination. Black tea works much better with spices like these.

I guess I should give this a thumbs up? The spices were delicious, but they were all I could taste. I couldn’t taste the tea itself. A few of these would be good to add to some plain black tea…