Jul 10
Jamie’s Teaview Snapshot
 | " I would have liked to detect a bit more of the cardamom, but overall, this was a very enjoyable tea. I would enjoy it with dessert, especially a spicy winter dessert like gingerbread or pumpkin pie, or with a nice Indian style meal."
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I love the smell of chai, sometimes even more than the taste. I remember drinking it at Indian restaurants in high school and later in college, and always falling for the sort of heavy, luscious spiciness of a chai blend. Despite an extra $1.50 on my bill, which adjusted for my pauperized college days wallet was more like $10.50, I gladly forked over the dough to enjoy chai with my Indian meals.Golden Moon's Kashmiri Chai has a richly mellow, cardamom-y scent to it, and is chunky and exciting to look at as well - longer leaves of tea are interspersed liberally with whole cardamom pods, cloves, chunks of cinnamon stick, and other spices. In scent, the cardamom and clove are most prevalent, and during the steeping process, which I held to 3 minutes using near boiling water, the clove scent is so strong that it almost eclipses other spicy scents.
I took this to be a bad sign, as I am truly not a big clove fan. In baking, I generally omit cloves, as even the miniscule traces called for, like an eighth of a teaspoon, sometimes spoil a whole recipe for me, taste wise. And considering that I'm usually baking something I'm really looking forward to eating when I'm using cloves, I have tried to remedy this situation by just skipping them. But my worries were for naught. Despite the clove-y overtones, which threatened to overwhelm, this was really mild in the actual flavor.
I steamed a pan of soy milk to blend into this tea, and used about 1/3 mug soy milk to 2/3 mug tea. This was really good! I made it sweet, which I liked, and my second cup I made slightly sweeter, which I thought balanced the flavors a bit more and brought out a bit of spiciness. My second cup I also omitted the soy milk, and was really impressed with how good this tea is straight. In some ways, I enjoyed it even more without the milk added. I also think a dash of half and half would be excellent with this tea.
The tea has a lightly lingering clove aftertaste that wasn't oily or regrettable. I did find the blend to be surprisingly un-cardamom-y. The spices seem to be blended so that none, excepting perhaps the clove, really stand out on their own. It's really just pleasantly spicy all around. That's kind of nice, actually, with the only drawback being that no particular spice really stands out and shines. I suppose the clove kind of does, and not badly, but knowing my reservations about clove, you will understand my not giving heartfelt congratulation for that. I guess I would have liked to detect a bit more of the cardamom, but overall, this was a very enjoyable tea. I would enjoy it with dessert, especially a spicy winter dessert like gingerbread or pumpkin pie, or with a nice Indian style meal.
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