Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Chai reviews.

I'm going to share my experience of brewing chai, which is about 12 months worth.

There are 2 sorts of chai: tea and latte. Your latte is usually a powder with milk powder, sugar and cinnamon in it. It makes a nice hot drink. Not good value though, at about 50cents a sachet.

Real chai is black tea with other spices in it. Sometimes there is too much anise.
  • T2. Loose leaf, very nice.
  • Scarborough Fair. 20 Bags. The first one was disappointing after the T2, but then the rest were very enjoyable. I would buy it again if it was in Coles or Woolies, but it's only from Tribes and Nations.
  • Twinings. Bags. Had a weird taste to get used to, probably more anise or ginger or something. With honey it was drinkable.
  • Lipton. 20 Bags. A little bit nicer than Twinings, it has black pepper which irritated when I sniffed the box, but no anise. The ingredients list includes "flavours" so who knows what they sweeten it with.
  • I bought a bag of loose chai from Morpeth honey shop, and it is awful. Dusty fine so it clogs my infuser. Way to much of something disgusting, probably anise.  I had to pour in a heap of cinnamon, and drink it with sugar and honey.
If you can recommend a nice chai, I'm on the lookout.

Here is a cool thing I invented yesterday. I cut a circle out of the packaging and put it in the lid of my tea jar! Fancy.

3 comments:

  1. Try the Tea Centre chai: it's supposed to be good. When eating out, I love Berkelouw Cafe Newtown's chai, as well as Sideways in our local area.

    I really liked Dilmah's chai because I like mine spicy but I haven't seen it anywhere in ages.

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  2. The best chai I've tried so far is Real Chai ( http://www.realchai.com.au/ ). It's even nicer than T2, I'd say. It's made of black tea and some spices, and you add soy milk and honey to it. Unfortunately it's not sold in supermarkets, only through the website and some markets.

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  3. I was looking at the Tea Centre, thanks for the rating, Karen. Also with Dilmah, I enjoy their Exceptional range but they seem to be phasing it out already. The Arabian Mint is gone, all I can find are the flowery ones. I'll keep my eyes peeled for their chai.

    THanks Claudine! I shall check this one out next, once I've finished my feral stuff.

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