Aldi – Chai and Masala Chai
What’s the difference between Aldi Chai and Aldi Masala Chai? This isn’t a trick question. I genuinely have no idea.
Yet there they were: two seemingly identical products, in different coloured packaging, side by side in the Aldi tea aisle. I thought maybe one was the old packaging, but they’re both on the Aldi website.
‘Chai’ in British supermarkets means ‘tea with spice in it’. ‘Masala Chai’ literally means ‘tea with spice in it’. The two products have identical ingredients, both comprising black tea, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves, anise and black pepper. They cost the same. The only discernible difference in the way the two are marketed is that Masala Chai is apparently “infused with a delicious blend of spices”, whereas Chai is “infused with an indulgent blend of spices”.
So one is indulgent, and one is delicious. ‘Delicious’ sounds slightly more appealing, to be honest. Obviously, I had to buy both and then pit them against one another in a head-to-head tea-off because that’s the sort of service we provide here at Tea Fancier Towers. I am disappointed (and a bit baffled) to report that they do, indeed, taste exactly the blooming same. If the cinnamon, ginger, and whatnot had been added in different ratios in the two blends, then it wasn’t apparent to this tea drinker.
Neither Chai nor Masala Chai are a bad cup of tea. But neither of them are a great one either. Compared to my go-to spice blend, Tea India’s Masala Chai, they were rather coarse and lacking in both black tea and spices. Which is odd because both Aldi and Tea India’s versions are made of 100% those things.
I’ll probably still polish them off during the course of my daily tea drinking, but I’m not entirely happy about it. Mostly because – due to Aldi’s unfathomable product innovation strategy – I now have twice as much of the stuff than I need have.
