When Everyone Agrees on a Tea - Or Not?

People have vastly different tastes in tea. This morning, a new review was posted to RateTea, which I happened to read, and this review was of Two Leaves and a Bud's Mountain High Chai. This tea now has five reviews on the site.

Interestingly, four of the five reviews seem to agree on one point: the tea has a strong spice aroma, but the base tea is on the weak side (or mellow/smooth, for people who prefer to phrase it positively). Some people seem to like this and others don't; one reviewer noted steeping the tea for 30 minutes!

I find this interesting, because it is rare that people seem to agree this much about a tea. In general, when I see four out of five reviewers agreeing about a certain characteristic of a tea, I'm likely to believe their reviews.

Checking Steepster, breaking the pattern:

Interestingly, I checked Steepster's records for the same tea and I'm not seeing the same pattern in reviews there. One of the reviewers noted bitter flavors dominating the cup if it is steeped too long.

No consensus on the aroma:

I also read Little Yellow Teacup's review of the same tea, and interestingly, I found that this review said that the aroma was dominated by cinnamon. I tend to strongly dislike masala chai blends that are dominated by cinnamon, and I've found that this one, in my perception, is dominated by clove (which I like more, although in this case I still thought it was a bit unbalanced). I've tried the tea many times over a long period of time too, so if the company changed their formulation, it produced only a subtle change that I did not notice.

I find this difference interesting, because it shows how people perceive aromas differently.

What do you think?

Have you tried this tea?

And do you have any idea why there seems to be clear agreement on RateTea's reviews whereas Steepster's don't seem to show the same pattern? Could the two sites perhaps be appealing to people with somewhat different tastes or different ways of perceiving tea? Or do you think it's just randomness? It is a small sample of reviews in both cases, after all.

And do you think that in general, people are more likely to perceive aromas differently and more likely to agree on flavor (i.e. bitterness, basic strength of a tea)? Or do you think that's just this specific case?

Masala Chai at Cafe Clave

I'm still basking in my success of "getting" as many people as I did with my April fool's joke. Tallying up the blog comments, comments on various forms of social media, and private remarks, I think I had well 100 people going. Mission accomplished!

I like finding different coffee shops in different areas, so that I can work from them on my laptop. When in West Philadelphia, I frequently work from Cafe Clave. This post is both about the cafe and about their masala chai.



Cafe Clave is a small cafe and coffee shop with a Cuban music theme to it. It is named after the claves, a key (haha) percussion instrument in Afro-Cuban music. In contrast to the music, the cafe tends to be rather quiet, and I've found it to be a good place to work on my laptop when working on my websites. The cafe also serves some very tasty home-made food, and serves Novus tea in whole-leaf sachets. If you are visiting Philadelphia and want to check this place out, it's on Locust Ave. between 43rd and 44th streets.

The cafe also has live salsa music; the picture says that the music is on Friday nights, but it has since been moved to Thursdays. I will say one thing...the band is amazing.

Cafe Clave's Masala Chai:

I recently tried the Masala chai made by Cafe Clave. This cafe serves its own proprietary blend of spiced tea, made from scratch by blending loose-leaf black tea and spices. The base black tea is itself a blend, including loose-leaf Turkish black tea from Caykur, and a slightly stronger black tea from Ahmad tea. If you want to know exactly what goes into it, go to the cafe and see for yourself!



I really like this particular rendition of masala chai. The base teas are high quality and balance strength with smoothness. The spices go heavy on anise and cardamom, two of my favorite spices. And the cafe sweetens it to taste, rather than pre-sweetening, so I was able to order an unsweetened variety.

Exquisite!

It is hard for me to find Masala chai that I like better than the stuff I can prepare at home, but I think I've found some.

Ginger in Tea and Herbal Teas

I love ginger; it is one of my favorite spices and I use it heavily in cooking. I have even grown ginger...it is relatively easy to grow indoors. In the spirit of raising awareness between the food, tea, and herbs we eat, and the plants they come from, here is a picture of a ginger rhizome, sprouting:



Ginger is the rhizome of a grassy plant, Zingiber officinale; the rhizome is storage area below the ground, looking like a root but technically part of the plant's stem; the rhizome stores energy, nutrients, and water so that if the above-ground part of the plant is threatened or dies, the plant can regrow when conditions are right. This adaptation allows ginger to survive drought, as well as having its leaves and stems eaten. The strong-tasting chemicals which give ginger its flavor are concentrated in the rhizome, to protect this most important part of the plant. I wish I had a picture of the ginger plant that I grew for two years, but I cannot find one. The ginger plant looks like a grass, here's a photo of the ginger plant on Wikimedia commons. This picture looks nearly exactly like what my plant looked like.

This next photo shows fresh ginger root which I have sliced in order to brew up a batch of iced tea:




Dried Ginger vs. Fresh Ginger:

One reason I feel particularly compelled to share these pictures and this post is that, over the years, I've tried a number of blends containing dried ginger, and they just don't do it for me. I think that ginger is one of those spices that is best fresh, and that loses most of its character when dried.

Still, I do sometimes enjoy teas and herbs which have been blended with dried ginger. I will say, I do not have any dried ginger in my cabinet, and I have never bought it; fresh ginger root is a staple in my household.

Medicinal Properties of Ginger:

Ginger is a fairly common ingredient in herbal blends. It has potent medicinal properties, or supposed "health benefits", to use a buzzword I have become slightly annoyed with lately. Ginger is used traditionally to settle the stomach and provide relief from nausea. I personally find it to be very effective for this purpose. Wikipedia's article on ginger is fairly well-referenced and explains these medicinal uses, and what is known of the chemistry of ginger, in more depth.

Ginger as a Flavoring for Tea:

Ginger is also used as a flavoring in black tea, sometimes on its own, but often when paired with peach. Adagio Teas sells a black tea flavored with ginger, and a number of brands, including Adagio, Republic of Tea, Revolution, Stash, Bentley's, and many others, sell ginger peach tea. These ginger-peach flavored teas, usually but not always black teas, are very popular. I used to regularly visit a coffee shop in University Heights, OH, which sold a ginger peach tea, and it seemed that more customers ordered this tea than all the others combined. I will say, even though I'm not a huge fan of flavored teas, I do like this combination.

Ginger is also a common, but not necessarily defining ingredient in masala chai or spiced tea. I like including some ginger in chai, but I generally do not miss it when it is absent (unlike cardamom).

Ginger in Herbal Blends:

Ginger is widely used in herbal blends. One of the most common combinations is lemon ginger. While I find that lemon and ginger go very well together (one of my favorite combinations for an iced herbal drink is boiling fresh lemongrass and fresh ginger root, then chilling it), I find that most herbal blends focusing on ginger, and relying on dried ginger, just don't do it for me. Teatulia has an odd ginger herbal infusion that also includes the herb Vasaka (Justicia adhatoda). I wasn't really a fan of this either...the Vasaka is extremely bitter; while I normally like bitter flavors, it was too bitter for me, so I suspect it is probably too bitter for a majority of others as well.

How about you?

Do you ever use fresh ginger as a flavoring for tea, or for making herbal infusions? Do you like the presence of ginger in masala chai, or other blends? Do you notice much of a difference between fresh and dried ginger? Have you ever tried growing ginger?

Cloves in Tea

Over the past couple years I've started thinking more about individual ingredients, both in cooking, and those used as flavorings in tea. Cloves are an interesting spice. They're fairly mainstream--something you might expect to find in anyone's cupboard--but they're also not necessarily the most versatile of spices: a lot of people may go for a long time without using them in anything, and they certainly don't go well with all foods.


Cloves have a strong, distinctive aroma, which can easily overpower other spices or flavorings.

Tulsi, or Holy Basil, and Other Basils, Resemble Clove:

As distinctive as cloves are, their aroma is not completely unique. There are a number of other plants, including unrelated ones, which have aromas sometimes suggesting clove. The plant that I've found that most closely resembles clove in aroma is tulsi, or holy basil. I find holy basil has a warmer and gentler quality than clove, which can come across as harsh or dominating.

Not surprisingly, these plants both share the same primary component of their essential oil, a chemical called eugenol. Eugenol is a biologically-active compound, and is responsible for many of the medicinal properties of both cloves and tulsi, such as the anaesthetic properties of clove. This chemical is also present in other species and varieties of basil, including regular sweet basil, giving other basils a clove-like quality as well.

Cloves in Masala Chai:

Cloves are usually only used to flavor tea in the context of masala chai or spiced tea. Because cloves are so strong and distinctive, adding clove alone to tea will generally give the tea more of a "spiced" character, even if you do not add any other spices. My own perception is that if I add cardamom to tea, I'll taste "tea with cardamom", whereas if I add cloves to tea I'll taste "spiced tea".

I find that cloves go most well with strong black teas, such as Assam. Lighter teas tend to be overpowered by the clove aroma. Personally, I rarely like adding clove to anything other than black tea; the aroma does not seem to blend well with green, white, or most oolong teas, although I could imagine clove might go well with some of the very dark, roasted oolongs. I also rarely use cloves in tea on their own: I usually blend them only as one spice among many, and I tend to add only a hint of them, using other spices, like cardamom, as the dominant character.

When I add cloves on their own to anything hot, it's to hot fruit juice, especially cranberry juice or a blend of cranberry and orange. Especially when I have a cold, in the winter, I find that a mix of orange and cranberry with clove often makes me feel a lot better.

What do you think of cloves in tea?

Hojichai - Masala Chai made from Hojicha

I'm not normally a fan of milk in tea, but Lahikmajoe's recent post milk in tea got me thinking about the question: when do I most enjoy milk in tea? I puzzled at this question because I couldn't think of a single tea that I really preferred with milk. But then I recalled that I always add milk to coffee.

Perhaps, I thought, it's the roasted aroma that blends well with the milk, at least for my palate. I love roasted oolongs, but the thought of adding milk to them did not seem at all appealing. This brought me to the idea of adding milk to hojicha, which is one of my favorite teas. I decided to use Upton Tea Imports TJ41, Organic Ho-Ji Cha Kamakura:

I picked this tea because it had the darkest roast of any of the hojicha I had on hand--this was important to me as I was seeking a tea which had a coffee-like aroma). The results were good, but a bit on the bland side...hojicha is already a gentle tea, and adding milk took it too far in this direction; I then had the idea of adding spices to create "hojichai", which I admit appealed to be in large part because of its terribly gimmicky name. After some experimentation I settled upon the following process, which is somewhat different from how I would normally make a spiced tea from black tea.

Recipe for Hojichai:

This spice combination, as well as the ratios and process, might strike you as a bit odd, but I found it worked well for this tea. Part of the strangeness of this recipe is due to my own personal tastes (I'm not a big cinnamon person), but part of it is due to the fact that hojicha has a very different character from black tea. Here's what I came up with:

• Two teapsoons of loose hojicha per cup
• Three pods of green cardamom per cup
• Three thin (~1mm) slices of fresh ginger per cup
• A dash of powdered allspice
• No sweetener -- I would recommend honey if you wish to sweeten it though.

I brewed the tea for 3 minutes; I used a little bit less than one cup for each final cup, leaving room for milk. After brewing I removed the tea leaves and kept the tea warm over water (not boiling) with the spices for about 5 more (or to taste--longer = stronger spice flavor). Then I took it off the heat and added milk (about 1/10th of the cup) at the end. I tend to avoid heating milk, although it is fine as long as you don't let the water get too close to boiling. You can then remove the spices if you want.

People experienced in making chai will realize that this recipe calls for a very large quantity of ginger. This is to add "kick". Normally, masala chai is made from a fairly strong black tea. Hojicha may have a rich, full roasted aroma, but its flavor is extremely smooth and mellow. I occasionally add ginger to masala chai, but in this case I found it to be mandatory. When I tried making the tea without ginger, it smelled nice but the flavor was lacking something. Three slices of ginger added just the right amount of bite.

What is this "Hojichai" like?

In some ways it's like any kind of masala chai, but in other ways it's very different. The strong roasted aroma of the tea I find that because of the mellowness of the hojicha base, the aroma of the spices comes out more. I also find that, although the final tea I settled on was strongly aromatic and flavorful, it was considerably gentler on the stomach not only compared to straight tea, but also compared to Masala chai. Hojicha tends to be lower on caffeine and I found this blend did not feel particularly caffeinated to me...but also, the ginger I think settles the stomach. I felt very mellow and settled after drinking this tea.

If you like hojicha, and you like masala chai (and perhaps even if you don't), I'd recommend making some of your own hojichai--and if you do, please let me know how it turns out and what recipes you come up with!

Cardamom: My Favorite Spice for Tea

When I was growing up, I was familiar with a number of spices, including cinnamon, ginger, cumin, coriander, nutmeg, and even allspice and mace. However, for some reason, it was not until years later that I became acquainted with cardamom. Cardamom is commonly used in India and the middle east, and to some degree in southeast Asia, but it is rarely used in American or Western European traditions. Cardamom is related to ginger, and comes in two main varieties: green and black. While I love black cardamom (especially in barbecue), it's green cardamom that I love in the context of tea.

Green cardamom comes in greenish-gray pods:


Each pod contains a number of small, hard black seeds which contain most of the flavor.

What does cardamom taste like?

I find cardamom very hard to describe. One of the reasons I like it is that, in my opinion, it doesn't taste remotely like anything else. Although related to ginger, it has none of the sharpness or spiciness that ginger has. Its aroma is soft yet very strong...and also very fresh. But its freshness is not piercing in the way cilantro or parsley is. It's distinctive yet versatile, equally at home in a cookie or a savory stew.

Cardamom in Masala Chai or Spiced Tea:

To be honest, I'm not the hugest fan of spiced tea. I usually like my tea straight (no sweetener, no flavorings, no milk), but I do enjoy a well-made masala chai from time to time, and I've noticed that I have strong preferences about what spices go into it. And I've learned that, for my own personal enjoyment, cardamom is the key. My favorite spiced teas are those in which cardamom is the dominant spice, cinnamon is totally absent, and the other spices are solidly in the background.

Whole or ground?

In my opinion there is absolutely no question here: buy whole cardamom. There are multiple advantages to this. Although its aroma seems gentle, cardamom has a surprisingly dominating character to it; in powdered form it is very easy to add too much of it to something. Using the pods in tea have the advantage that they can be steeped together with the leaves, and the aroma permeates more gradually, giving you more control over the outcome. Whole pods also make measuring easy--simply count the number of pods. The last advantage is freshness. I have found that whole cardamom pods stay fresh a very long time, whereas the powdered spice, even if stored in an airtight container, loses its aroma much more quickly. If you ever need the ground spice for cooking, you can use a mortar and pestle to grind up the pods yourself--because you usually need so little, the extra time and effort is not much of a big deal.

Where to buy?

Cardamom can be expensive, but I've found that the best place (both with respect to quality and price) to buy it is in specialty import stores. Make sure you can smell it before buying it. Here in Newark, Delaware I buy it at a small Turkish store. If there are any middle-eastern or Indian import stores near you, consider looking at them to see if they carry this spice.

Cardamon + Honeybush

I often find Rooibos and Honeybush usually do not work well with brewing more than once. Perhaps this is because they are broken into fine pieces, and thus a lot of surface area is exposed so after a brief brewing period, most of the flavor and aroma has already gone out into the cup.

The other day I brewed some honeybush from Adagio teas...and I thought...hmm...maybe I could add something else to it to add more flavor when I re-brew it. So, I added two cardamon pods and a bit of coriander. This is close to my version of a "chai"...I don't like cinnamon in tea, and I love cardamon.

The result was pretty tasty. There was enough flavor left in the honeybush that between it and the spices, I had a cup of flavorful brew. Yay.