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This is the last of Tea India’s Chai range to be reviewed, and I’m rather pleased that I left this one till the end because it truly is a cracking cup of tea. We are ending this particular Chai-based tea journey on a high. Ginger Chai is a straightforward blend of 75% black tea and 25% ginger with none of your suspicious-sounding ‘flavourings’ (unlike its cardamom companion).
My goodness, you can really taste the ginger here. It’s like being attacked by an enormous piece of ginger root (in a good way). It reminds me of equally fiery crystallised ginger. There is no mucking about. In short, this is not a tea which takes its approach to gingeriness gingerly.
I would like to digress briefly to discuss the etymology of the word Chai. I did wonder if this tea could reasonably call itself Chai, given that there’s only one spice in here, and it doesn’t contain the usual suspects like cinnamon and cardamom. However Chai is derived from the Chinese word Tcha and simply means ‘tea’. It is Masala Chai which traditionally includes a combination of spices. In the western world, we have adopted the word Chai to mean tea with spices in it. (And sometimes, like in the case of Pukka’s Vanilla Chai, it doesn’t even have tea in it at all.) Wikipedia helpfully points out that Chai Tea Latte literally means ‘Tea Tea, Milk’.
So yes, this is a chai, it is just not a Masala Chai. And it doesn’t need to be. Tea India already have a perfectly good one of those. Tea India’s Ginger Chai is a full-flavoured full-bodied full-gingered tea which will clear your sinuses, relieve your travel sickness and quite possibly put hairs on your chest. And it tastes absolutely wonderful.
Throughout these Tea India Chai reviews, I have – for some reason I’ve now forgotten – been assigning these teas characters in some kind of Chai-based sitcom/romcom. (Except Turmeric Chai, obviously. That belongs in a horror movie all on its own.) Ginger Chai is obviously the heroine of the piece. A headstrong, fiery and determined character who makes their mark on the world. As long as we can avoid Geri “Ginger Spice” Halliwell being cast in the role, then we’re grand.
Today’s featured book is Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.
