It's fairly common knowledge on this blog that I adore green tea in every way possible. I love the earthy, natural taste, the lightness, the sparkling colour and the different types of flavours you get with green tea. Some are grassy for example, whilst other's tend to be sweet.
I prefer it pure, unflavoured. Only last night I was enjoying a very high quality Dragon Well green tea whilst chatting about - tea - with a good friend. However, green tea also takes fruity flavours well, blueberry or peach are the nicest, though cranberry and lemon are also nice. In addition it adapts to floral tones well, you cannot not like a good jasmine green tea!
So, imagine my surprise when the lovely team at Solaris Tea contacted me offering me a green chai to try! I have never put green tea down as a contender in the chai stakes. But recently I was so impressed with their White Tea Chai that I was eager to try the green tea.
Recently I've really been enjoying chai tea's, but I tend to have to drink them with milk and sugar when taken as a black tea as many blends are quite overpowering. So, it's usually reserved as a treat tea, with me enjoying a cup only once or twice a week.
Considering that green tea has to be taken without milk would it provide me with a healthy, sugar free way of enjoying chai without overpowering me with spices leaving me feeling nauseous (which tends to happen when I drink black chai tea without milk or sugar)?
I certainly hoped so ...
Solaris Tea's Organic Green Tea Chai comes in modern, attractive packaging.
Upon opening the package I was instantly hit with a wonderful aroma. The blend of spices used - cardamom, cloves and star anis - are blended with orange and lemon peel, which makes for a sweetly spicy and gently fruity flavour.
The tea used in this blend is a First Flush Sencha green tea. If you don't know, Sencha is a tea that retains it's vitamin's and anti-oxident properties due to the fact that is the least processed tea. It's gently steamed, so the process, along with the fact that this is a first flush tea means not only is it over flowing with flavour but also with healthy properties, too.
This tea is something of a wonder. The spices are so well blended that you well and truly get a hit of amazing flavour, yet, it's not overpowering nor so strong that the tea is undrinkable. (If other chai blenders took as much care with the blending of tea and spices when making black tea I'd be able to take it without adding milk or sugar).
The spices are tasty and certainly bring some oomph to the tea, but they are delicate too, as not to overpower the tea. Green tea is more delicate than black so the blender of this tea has done a superb job making the tea tasty, but retaining the gentle qualities of green tea that I love so much.
One of the things I was most curious about was whether the green tea could support the flavours or would it just end up like a spicy tisane rather then a green tea. Well I'm glad to say that green tea works as well as a chai as black tea does. Underneath the spicy elements I can certainly pick up the smoothness of the green tea. So it's a well blended, well matched tea. The pairing of green tea with such vibrant flavours as cloves and cardamom actually does work and gives you a satisfying, refreshing brew.
Black tea can sometimes sit a little heavily on my stomach, more so in the hot summer months and even more so when milk and sugar is added. I tend to veer towards green tea in the summer months then I do in the winter as it's lighter and refreshing. So it's lovely to have that familiar and much appreciated lightness of green tea, coupled with flavours to make for a really interesting cup of tea.
Solaris Tea's Organic Green Tea Chai is well on it's way to becoming my preferred tea of the summer. It's refreshing taste, it's light qualities and it's all round scrummy, gorgeous taste has fixed itself firmly as THE thing to drink during the hot summer months.
And, in addition, this tea can be re-infused up to three times to it's likely to last you quite some time. The tea is good on it's second infusion, but by the third it's a far bit weaker so I would say, for my own personal tastes, two infusions is about right - but do experiment on this as you may find three is perfectly fine.
As a green tea lover this is awesome. As a chai lover, it's utterly unforgettable.
I would urge you to give this tea a try. I honestly don't forget you'll regret it.
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