Boston Marathon and David's Tea - The Chai Collection

I was in Boston last week. Boston is such a neat city, besides all the history of the place there are so many things to see and do there. Whenever I get a chance to go to Boston I take it. While I was in Boston I took a walk over to the David's Tea store on Washington Street, the staff was friendly and I was relieved to read that they are safe. I saw signs for the Boston Marathon and even though I am not into sports I thought the Marathon would be something interesting to see.

I am deeply saddened by what happened at the Marathon. Three people killed, including an 8-year-old boy, so many injured... Such a thing should never happen.

Of course there are already rumors circulating about the Marathon bombing. Please verify before you click share or forward. Snopes and ThatsNonesense already have pages up on the Boston Marathon. Also there will probably be fake charities run by scam artists using the Boston Marathon so be careful who you donate to. The One Fund is a genuine charity set up to help the victims.

Two Pumpkin Teas - DAVID's Tea and Adagio

Ok, after doing my tea post last minute last week I made up my mind to make my tea post early this week.

And here I am writing this at 10:30 on Thursday.

I blame classes.

Adagio Pumpkin spice

I was going to review the teas I got from Adagio but still I have not had time to properly review them all... But I have a half-done review on Adagio's Pumpkin Spice tea.

Here is my Steepster review:

Tastes more flowers and spices than actually like pumpkin. A little disappointing. But not too bad a tea by itself.

Adagio Pumpkin Spice

I thought I could improve it by using brown sugar instead of white... but it still does not taste much like pumpkin, just pumpkin pie spice. Very inferior to David's Tea Pumpkin chai.

Yeah, I'm afraid I did not like the Adagio Pumpkin tea very much. It stained my teacup really bad too.

But I have had some good pumpkin tea this week. I got a little of DAVID's Tea pumpkin chai. It's awesome. Steepster Review:

David's Tea Pumpkin Chai

I have been wanting to try this tea for months and finally got it in a swap. I am not disappointed. It tastes like pumpkin, really like pumpkin, not just like cinnamon and nutmeg like a lot of pumpkin teas. I had it with some brown sugar and some half&half.

I will need to order a couple ounces of this. 

It costs $6.75 for 50 grams (about 1.75 oz, 15+ cups), then another $5 for shipping... So I will need to scrape together a bit of cash for it. It is more expensive than most of the other pumpkin teas I've looked at but worth it. Check out the ingredients:

David's Tea Pumpkin chai

Black tea, cinnamon, cloves, lemon peel, squash, carrot, caramel bits, pumpkin candies.

 The pumpkin candies are mostly to make it look pretty, the candies (sprinkles really) melt in the first steeping and do not add anything to the tea itself. The dried pieces of squash and carrot are what really make it taste like pumpkin (Most pumpkin pies/pumpkin pie filling is actually squash) .

Celestial Seasoning - Sweet Coconut Thai Chai

I got an order in from Adagio last week, but have been too busy to do a proper tasting with photos and all thanks to my classes. And all but one of my teas from Adagio contain caffeine and I have been having trouble falling asleep so I resorted to a decaffeinated bagged tea last night for my blog.

  I prefer looseleaf teas but there are a few decent bagged teas out there. Also bagged teas are cheap, I can usually find Celestial Seasoning teas on sale 2 for $5. A while back I had gotten some of their Sweet Coconut Thai Chai.It is one of the first chais I have ever tried and still one of my favorites.

The tea part is a mix of rooibos (which is already caffeine free) and decaffeinated black tea. There's a bunch of different spices and coconut flavor.

My Steepster review:

Is it just me or does this tea get better when you’re getting closer to the bottom of the box?
This is a bagged tea but it’s still really good. Very spicy, strong hints of coconut. Even awesomer if you use a flavored coffee creamer, like pumpkin spice or chocolate, like most milk teas are improves with flavored creamers. When I can’t use fancy creamers I use milk (whole milk is better) and add honey instead of sugar.

I decided to try the chai iced last night. This added a few extra steps. I was supposed to add the milk to the ice separately, and to allow the chai to cool before adding it to the ice. The chai was still warm when I added it to the ice so the ice melted and the chai turned out weak and watery. But it is still a good chai if you make it properly.

Chocolate Chai

All out of cocoa mix so I made chocolate chai this week. Following recipe is for about two 12 oz cups.

Vanilla chai

• 1 1/2-2 cups water
• 1-1 1/2 cup milk
• 3 tsp chai tea (I prefer vanilla chai) or 2-3 chai teabags or put together your own chai tea
• About 3 tsp loose tea leaves (or 2-3 teabags) I prefer black
• The following spices - about a 1/4-1/2 tsp of each (Feel free to leave out anything you don't like or most likely do not have):



Cinnamon chips

• cinnamon (I prefer cinnamon sticks or chips over ground cinnamon)
• ginger (Fresh will be hotter, but dried or ground will do)
• cardamon
• nutmeg
• peppercorns
• clove
• vanilla (extract will do, piece of vanilla bean if you have it) vanilla helps to bring out the chocolate taste

• 2-3 tbs powdered baking chocolate (Or hot chocolate mix would be even better, but I don't have any tonight) 
• 2-3tsp sugar and/or 1-2 tsp honey 

You'll also need a tea strainer, or rig up something to strain out your chai, any kind of mesh strainer or a coffee filter and funnel. I assume anyone reading this has a pot big enough to hold 4 cups of water. 

1. Set the water in a pot on the stove at a medium heat. Add the chocolate, and if you're making the chai from scratch add the spices at this step. 
2. When the water starts getting hot (Starting to steam) add the tea leaves. 
3. When the water starts to steam add the milk, you can also add the sugar/honey at this step. Or you might want to hold off and add the sugar/honey to your cup.
4. Keep the chai at a medium heat until it just starts to boil. Of course if you're like me you'll turn your back for 10 seconds and when you turn around it will be boiling over and making a mess of the stovetop. If you added the sugar/honey at step 3 it will be extra sticky. 
5. Strain the chai into cups. If you are not wiping the sticky mess off your stove right now add the sugar/honey to your chai now. 
6. Caution: Chai will be hot enough to burn your lips, tongue and if you swallow it will burn your throat. Sip carefully until it cools. Do not sue me because you scalded yourself. 

I thought it would be fun to add a candy cane to my chai. I even had the foresight to unwrap it first. The crook was broken off so it was less visually appealing. Unsurprisingly the chai was so hot it melted the candy cane really fast and I got to watch it slowly sink into the chai like a giraffe in quicksand. I do not recommend adding a candy cane to chai, though it did give a nice hint of peppermint.