Asda – Chai
I love a spot of Masala Chai. Being a pretentious tea fancier, I always refer to black tea and spice blends as ‘Masala Chai’ rather than just ‘Chai’, which simply means ‘tea’. Asda has no such pretensions and are happy to sell their own-brand tea and spice bags as simply ‘Chai’.
Asda Chai is a very nice brew and hits all the right spicy tea blend spots. As is customary on these occasions, I pitched it head-to-head against my tea shelf Masala Chai favourite from Tea India.
And do you know what? There was really nothing to choose between them. Both are deliciously rich, dark teas with a punchy hit of spice.
There’s a reason for the similarity between these two teas. When you compare the ingredients list, they are absolutely identical. Asda Chai contains black tea, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, black pepper and anise. So does Tea India Masala Chai. In almost exactly the same quantities.
Although Masala chais do tend to follow the same basic agenda, there’s usually a bit of variation in teamongers’ recipes. Look, I’ve even made a handy infographic to compare Asda and Tea India’s efforts against Twinings, Offblak, Teapigs, and Chai Wallah Margate so you can see for yourself.
This can’t be a coincidence. The Asda Tea Innovation Task Squad must have sat down and said, “Shall we just copy Tea India verbatim?” And if you’re going to nick someone’s recipe, Tea India is a good shout. (Asda T.I.T.S probably read about it on here, to be fair. I assume that all tea innovation task forces follow the Tea Fancier.)
Bearing in mind that Asda’s version is considerably cheaper (2.8p versus 5.5p per bag), would it be terribly immoral of me to switch my spicy chai allegiance from Tea India to Asda? Sure, Asda have been mighty cheeky, but it’s not as though Tea India are a small artisan teamonger operating out of someone’s back bedroom. They’re an American company whose parent company Harris Freeman also owns Dorset tea, Red Rose tea, Lancashire tea and Newman’s Own Organic Tea.
I think what will probably decide which brand of Masala Chai I buy next will depend on what shop I’m in or what online teamonger happens to catch my eye. So it’s probably not a huge moral quandary. Sometimes it isn’t about the principle of the thing, it’s just the thing. And the thing here is a lovely cup of spicy Masala Chai at a very reasonable price. Even if Asda have been utterly shameless in their tea blending methods.
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