One Stripe Chai Co.

Sipdown! (4)

The last one from my December Sips by box, hooray! Prepared on the stovetop with half water and half milk, and sweetened with a bit of honey.

Unfortunately, I’m getting a lot more black pepper this time. And it’s a lot of pepper… There’s some ginger and cardamom underneath, but mostly I’m getting a lot of black pepper.

Clearly I shouldn’t have used the very bottom of the bag, that’s where the black pepper lived. XD

From my December Sips by box!

This is the second masala chai that I’ve gotten from Sips by. I checked my preferences and, sure enough, I marked chai as “Love” for some reason… Don’t get me wrong, I do like masala chai, but I wouldn’t say I love it. So now that’s fixed!

I prepared this on the stovetop according to the package directions – 1/2 cup each of water and milk with two teaspoons of tea, brought to a boil and then boiled for 5-8 minutes. I actually doubled the recipe because a cup didn’t seem like enough for the amount of effort. I also added some vanilla syrup as my sweetener.

It’s pretty good. The cardamom is the strongest note for me, and it melds fairly seamlessly with the black pepper. I’m having a hard time separating out the ginger from the mix, as the three spices blend together very well. I do miss cinnamon, as it’s probably my favorite spice in tea. I get a bit of malt and cereal flavor from the CTC base, though it’s fairly drowned out by the strong spices.

Overall, I like it, but I wish there was some cinnamon here. But that’s obviously more of a personal preference.

ETA: The black pepper built up a bit too much as I continued to sip on this…

Received this in my SipsBy box (I just subscribed), and immediately brewed it up on the stove in an oat milk/water blend. A nice, cozy chai sounded so nice. Unfortunately, I’m not a fan of this at all. The lack of cinnamon really makes a difference- there’s just nothing to tie together the ginger and really spicy black peppercorn. I can’t taste any cardamom. I actually used caramel sauce to sweeten this, and it’s still just way too peppery.