Assam Masala Chai Tea

Alright, here is my last review for the day. I finished a sample pouch of this chai around the start of the month. Normally, I am not a huge fan of chai blends, but this one was pretty much excellent.

I prepared this tea in the Western style. I steeped 3 grams of the loose tea and spice blend in approximately 8 ounces of 194 F water for 5 minutes. I neither performed a rinse nor attempted any additional infusions. I also tried this blend with and without an addition of 2% milk.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaf and spice mix emitted aromas of ginger, cardamom, clove, and cinnamon that were underscored by hints of black pepper. After infusion, scents of malt, cream, and caramel emerged. In the mouth, the liquor was brisk, biting, and astringent, expressing wood, caramel, cream, malt, brown toast, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, and black pepper notes before a spicy, peppery finish heavy on lingering cardamom, cinnamon, clove, ginger, and black pepper impressions. The addition of 2% milk tamed the astringency and briskness of this blend somewhat while allowing for greater integration of the aromas and flavors of the CTC black tea and the added spices.

To be totally honest, a preblended masala chai will likely never be able to top one that is homemade, but for what this was, it was more or less excellent. I could see it being good for those instances when one is craving chai, but does not have the time to prepare one from scratch. Overall, I have no real complaints with this blend. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a quality masala chai.

I love Chai and have set out to sample as many as possible. This is my first chai from Teabox, I bought the chai sampler, so I will follow with more. There is a strong cardamon taste, I wish there was more ginger flavor. I do like assam tea very much so I do like the black tea taste, but the chai part is a bit too subtle for me. I steeped it according to the recommendations, I wonder if more tea would have made for more chai flavor. If you like subtle chai flavors, this one might work for you. Okay chai, but I have had better.

Ben and I are, after many years, replaying Mass Effect, the whole series. It was my favorite game series ever, well until the infamous ending of Mass Effect 3, which in all honesty burned me out on fiction and games with an RPG element for a while, but I might have taken it too seriously (I do that) With the talks of Mass Effect Andromeda in my future, and having finally gotten over the ending, it was time to revisit my favorite series, but problem is we both wanted to play again. Joint playthrough time! It feels good, very nostalgic, so much so I had to bring my Dropzone Desolator…which just looks like a Reaper…to live on my desk once more.

When one is busily playing video games and snacking on Haldiram’s Kaju Mix snacks, one needs a robust Masala Chai to provide sustenance. Today I am looking at Teabox’s Assam Masala Chai, a blend of CTC Assam, cinnamon, cardamon, ginger, cloves, and pepper corns. I love Masala Chai blends that include lots of pepper and cardamon, so this blend makes me happy. You can really smell the cardamon and ginger too, the pepper is not faint, and the other spices are robust but less so. A lot of Masala Chai blends tend to go heavy on the cinnamon and cloves, both of which I like, but to me they say Christmas rather than tea, so I am happy for those two being on the milder side. The Assam adds a sweet and robust malty quality that is not totally overpowered by the spices, which is most excellent.

Into a pot of milk and a bit of water the tea goes for a simmer, my kitchen smells great now, strong cardamon and ginger, pepper and cinnamon, and of course a bit of cloves and rich malty tea fill the entire room. Making Masala Chai smells great, and I love how it just inundates the entire area like a spicy potpourri.

I decided to sweeten the Masala Chai with a sugar stick, because I never get the chance to use them, Masala Chai and Ostfriesen Tea are the only time I ever sweeten my tea anymore, or use creamy additives for that matter. This is a wonderful Masala Chai, but I am a sucker for a Masala Chai with an Assam base, it gives the tea a richness and a briskness that I love. The spice blend was quite well balanced, with more focus being put on the cardamon and ginger, with a more gentle accompaniment of pepper and cinnamon, with a bit of cloves. I actually wish the spices would have been a bit stronger, I can always go with more pepper or more cardamon, but for people who like a milder and well balanced chai with a wonderfully tasty base tea I highly recommend it.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/06/teabox-assam-masala-chai-tea-review.html

This is a great tea, but I would expect it to be even more spicy. I used the instructions when it comes to the combination of water/tea, but would recommend using more tea if you would like it to really taste like a strong chai tea. The ginger in there didn’t really work that well for me, even though I usually love ginger.