Wikipedia says that chai is the word for 'tea.' Masala chai is tea with spices, milk and sweetner. The tea is usually Assam, which is a very strong black tea, and it's made by boiling the heck out of the leaves in a pot over heat, with milk, sugar and fresh spices. You get a very strong tea flavour with a milder spice flavour. The caffeine content is higher than your regular steeped-tea-in-a-bag, which must be why I like it so much. I drink it in the morning instead of coffee. My approximation is to buy tea packaged as 'Masala chai' from a tea store, which is looseleaf Assam and dried spices. I steep a fair amount of it for 5-10 min. in a pot, to get the strength, then add some milk to my cup.
Chai tea bags, therefore, are too weak for me to like them. They don't taste anything close, since they have a weak tea flavour (boo! hiss!) and too much spice flavour in comparison. I also think that they make most of those tea bags from Darjeeling or generic black tea, not the Assam.
The Kashmiri tea is green, or a green and black tea mix, with milk, sweetner and spices. Maybe it is good made fresh? I've tried the looseleaf + dried spice kind and didn't like it. It had a very delicate tea flavour vs. the spice flavour. I want the tea taste and don't like when the spices take over. However, a lot of people seem to like it, so perhaps I didn't give it enough of a chance. Or need to try it with fresh spices and the stove-pot method.
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Date: 2009-11-18 03:41 am (UTC)Chai tea bags, therefore, are too weak for me to like them. They don't taste anything close, since they have a weak tea flavour (boo! hiss!) and too much spice flavour in comparison. I also think that they make most of those tea bags from Darjeeling or generic black tea, not the Assam.
The Kashmiri tea is green, or a green and black tea mix, with milk, sweetner and spices. Maybe it is good made fresh? I've tried the looseleaf + dried spice kind and didn't like it. It had a very delicate tea flavour vs. the spice flavour. I want the tea taste and don't like when the spices take over. However, a lot of people seem to like it, so perhaps I didn't give it enough of a chance. Or need to try it with fresh spices and the stove-pot method.
Tea! It's good stuff.