Sweet Cinnamon Masala Chai

Love, love, love this blend! I tried this as a stovetop chai ( first attempt) and it was incredible. It was sweet, spicy, and cozy. I used 2 cups of water and 2 cups of milk with 3 table spoons of the chai blend and 2 tablespoons of Splenda/ sugar

Chai/ Assam is not my favorite type/blend of tea, but cinnamon black teas are, so I wasn’t sure how I would think this tasted. I have to say I wasn’t encouraged by the aroma as it was brewing, which I didn’t love, but I was quite pleased by the taste actually. This probably won’t challenge for my favorite cinnamon tea, but it was enjoyable and I will enjoy the rest of the packet that I have.

Mooore CTC bop and although I don’t like most of them, this one is a winner. Only spices are cinnamon and cardamom but they taste perfect in this blend. I guess they overpower the ctc taste ad I don’t have any issues with it in this blend. Add milk and some of the vanilla syrup that I have been into making the past couple of weeks and you get a yummy chai,

Latte Sipdown (288)

My sister bought me a chai sampler pack and a black tea sampler pack from Vahdam for Channukah. Today I was sort of just relaxing on the couch after class. Together my brother-in-law and I watch Ratched and we had 3 episodes left so we binged them while my sister did some work. Then I realized it was after 4 pm and I hadn’t had a cup of tea. I wasn’t feeling my usual matcha latte today so I went for a chai latte instead.

I used the whole sample for the package. It was a weird amount of leaf that was just shy of what I would use for a 16 oz latte so I debated about making a 12 oz latte instead but just committed to the 16. Maybe I should have gone for the 12 oz though because this is a bit bland. I get cinnamon but its flat. Like I know there is spice here but its all muted. Perhaps the others will be more successful…

Adventaggedon Day 6 – Tea 1/6

I definitely laughed out loud this morning when I saw what the tea was – I think this is pretty much exactly the call out that I saw in my Citrus Earl Grey tasting note yesterday when talking about tea name/flavour profile redundancies…

I was inspired by Cameron and the rest of my Vahdam Advent group chat on IG to make this one stove top today – something I haven’t done in years because I just typically find it to be way too much effort for a tea style I don’t generally enjoy. I definitely didn’t put as much love and labor into this as I could have – there was no multi hour simmer or anything crazy like that.

Because I don’t actually drink milk that often (I just use it occasionally for lattes or cooking), I didn’t happen to have any on hand today so I made my stove top Chai with cashew milk instead. I dumped most of the tin into a small little sauce pot with an unmeasured but generous amount of cashew milk and a hearty glug of maple agave and then I brought it up to a boil, reduced the heat and let it get rich, dark and thick for maybe a half hour before straining…

Honestly!? It was really good – very robust flavours but quite sweet as well. I got cinnamon and cardmom more than anything else and both spices were warming, coating and perfectly complimented by cashew milk base and the deep sweetness of the maple. I feel quite sure that this was likely leagues better than how it would have tasted if I’d just made a hot cup with a splash of added cashew milk. Was it worth all the effort/time!? Ehh… Maybe!?

I’m sure there will be more Chai in this advent to come, so I’m going to try and pick up some normal milk or coconut milk and try this again (maybe with something Turmeric?) because I think it’s going to make the rest of this advent more fun to explore. However, I still don’t think I’d take the time to do this outside of advent season…

Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIeSOftgdHs/

Vahdam Advent Calendar – Day 6

Ooh, another masala chai blend! I decided to prepare this one straight after having such difficulty with the first masala chai on the stovetop. And I am so glad I did!

This one is quite mild as well, and has a lovely sweet and warm cinnamon flavor that fills my mouth and throat and makes me feel so cozy. There’s cardamom here as well, with its lovely floral spiciness. The base tea is very mild, with a soft bready flavor. The large amount of cinnamon has a slightly drying effect and hint of bitterness in the aftertaste, which I don’t mind here.

It’s a fairly simple tea, though the cinnamon does seem to have a lovely depth of flavor and the cardamom adds another dimension of spice. I really like this one! I could imagine it being lovely with a splash of milk as well. :)

(today’s advent teas: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIdqxdfAjbO/)

I am getting close to the bottom of the bag, and somehow I don’t get a whole lot of cinnamon from this cup. I think most of the cinnamon pieces floated to the top of the bag, and I drank all of them last winter. This is one yummy cinnamon cup of soothing tea for a nice cold day. I think I liked the cinnamon more than the chai taste, which is still nice , but cinnamon says chilly fall days and warming up with a nice cup of tea.
If I get this again I’ll make more of an effort to equally distribute the cinnamon in each cup.

I have a few Vahdam sample teas left to try and this is one of them. It’s quite a delicious tea, I enjoyed it.

343/365

Another from the chai sampler, and still plenty to go! This one called to me today, and I can understand why since it’s pretty cold and I rather like cinnamon! The two seem to go together. It’s another with a CTC base; I’m beginning to suspect that most of them are, but I’m okay with that on the whole. I like my chai strong, and CTC definitely helps with that. I added milk to this one, although I don’t always. Call me odd.

In practice, I didn’t get a lot of cinnamon from this one – or at least, not as much as I was perhaps expecting. What I did get was cardamom, and lots of it. There is some cinnamon, but it comes across almost flat tasting, somehow. It’s hard to describe exactly, but it almost tasted slightly stale? Like it had been open too long, and the cinnamon had faded, or gone slightly fusty? I bought these fairly recently, but obviously I don’t know how long they were stored prior to that – most of the teas I’ve had from Vahdam have been fine, though, so I don’t think it’s a storage or age issue. Maybe this one’s just not for me? It happens.

I could perhaps pep this up a little by adding some extra cinnamon, but I feel I shouldn’t really have to do that. I’ll give it more of a chance before I write it off completely, but so far (and so sadly…) this one’s not a favourite.

I am still exploring the chai selection that I got from Vahdam – this is only my second tea that I’ve sampled from the whole bunch. In fact, this is only my second chai tea, period. Beyond a few cups that I’ve had at various Indian restaurants, I really don’t have much experience at all with this genre of tea.

That said, this is pleasant enough. To be honest, I noticed the spiciness of the cardamom more so than the cinnamon, which sort of hung out as an underlying base flavor and came more to the fore in the finish and aftertaste.

The flavor itself I found kind of mild. The only additions to the black tea were cardamom and cinnamon. Frankly, I think the additional spice in traditional chai helps to round out the flavor and add more depth.

So, if traditional chai with its cloves and stuff is a little too in-your-face for you, this might be a good alternative.