Coconut Chai

Again, this is very good – nice and sweet, but not overpowering, and you definitely taste the coconut – but it’s very mild for a chai.

Backlog:

I ordered some of this chai for a friend as a Christmas gift, so I decided that I needed to get some for myself too. It’s a yummy chai.

The Assam base is malty and rich. I like how the malty notes of the Assam meld with the creamy sweetness from the coconut. The coconut adds just the right creamy touch to this for me, I don’t need to add milk or cream to have a latte-ish type of chai experience with this chai.

This is not an overly spicy chai: sweet cinnamon, warm cardamom and a kick of ginger. It’s warm and cozy tasting, but not really spicy … but still very enjoyable.

I have been nursing a cup of this all morning. It’s about done and I’ll be resteeping soon. There is a nice creamy coconut base to this with some spices on top. I have had it for a while and the coconut hasn’t gone bad yet, which is nice. It is a little more like coconut with spice rather than a chai, but either way it is hitting the spot right now.

Sipdown! (27 | 516)

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I ordered these samples from Zhi Tea, since I ended up with three coconut teas and it’s never a favorite flavor of mine…

This one smells a bit odd, I thought I was smelling stevia at first, and then changed my mind to licorice root. But neither of those things appear to be in this tea, so not sure what’s going on. It also tastes a bit odd. The base is coming off very earthy, when it’s apparently an Assam. Not sure what’s making it taste that way to me, maybe the ginger? The coconut is very light in comparison to the spices IMO. I mostly taste cinnamon, and it’s somewhere in between Red Hots and bark. I probably would have guessed clove as well, but there is none. Not really picking up on the cardamom either.

An odd experience, as it really doesn’t taste like I would expect from the ingredients list. I would probably swear up and down that this has licorice root in it if I didn’t know it doesn’t. Hmm.

additional notes: This ANCIENT tea is quite good for having old coconut in it. I’d say it ages very well! I love the mix of spice and coconut here, but I could never truly love it for the weak black tea base. Chai needs a strong base! Next time is a sipdown. I’m raising the rating from 73.

Dry leaf: Coconut Cream Pie with spices

Liquor Color: Cocoa Cola brown

Leaves: Dry – black broken leaves with stringy dried ginger, whole cardamom pods, cinnamon bark chips, and large strips of toasted coconut. Wet – all the spices have taken on the same color as the liquor. Still quite fragrant.

Notes: Ahhh, Coconut Chai. This has become one of my daily drinkers. It has one of my favorite two flavors ever, coconut and chai. The coconut is rich and toasty, and complements the spices well. As the for the chai parts in this blend, it’s a mellower chai and the cinnamon is the forefront. The ginger and the cardamom are there, just in the background. I love the shit out of cardamom, but some blends I have had lately use a heavy hand with that spice that adds a sickly rose-spice essence to the blend that I do not like. Fortunately for this tea, it was not the case. The combination of these flavors is a match made in heaven for me. The malty black base is also divine. It grounds the spices and the coconut and brings a fullness to the blend that makes it great for a cold morning, or even in a hot afternoon.

Today I brewed this tea in my western-style teapot and took it with me in my oldest thermos. No sugar, no milk. But I bet this would be great with some coconut milk :D