Bengal Spice Herbal Tea
8
Percentile
9 ratings |
|
Commercial Description
Brimming with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and cloves, this adventurous blend is our caffeine-free interpretation of chai, the piquant Indian brew traditionally made with black tea. Try it with milk and sugar for a true chai experience.
Ratings & Reviews
Page 1 of 1 page with 9 reviews
74 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5Tchuggin' Okie (379 reviews) on Oct. 10th, 2019
This blend has occupied my curiosity for many months, especially given that:
1. I like chai in general;
2. I've tried a couple other "tealess" chais with mixed results, and
3. The reviews on this have been all over the place, to say the least. For the statistically inclined: boost the sample size by a hundred with the same distributions, and the standard deviations here still would be crazy.
All right, enough of being a math geek! Hesitant to pay full price for a whole box (even though it ain't much, on sale), I begged some off a co-worker who loves it and drinks it almost daily. "Bengal Spice" is not quite liquid cinnamon, but that ingredient does dominate all the others resoundingly. I've used the pro-wrestling analogy somewhere before but it applies nicely with this tea. In the battle royale of ingredients, cinnamon is the full-grown bear, grappling mere men. The cardamom and cloves whimper low in separate corners after taking their thrashing, but can be seen and heard. Meanwhile, ginger was nowhere to be found, present but unaccounted for, perhaps lying unconscious in shadows on the ringside floor, while the cinnamon bear stomps the mat and roars skyward amid-ring. This is true for dry-bag and wet-bag aromas, as well as taste. All are consistent in intensity and character, to a degree I've seldom experienced in herbal or blended teas. Fortunately the cinnamon seems to be good-quality, very warming in the mouth and in aftertaste, and has just enough of two other components still detectable to keep it from being boring.
Since I like cinnamon and strong flavor, and this tea becomes somewhat creamy and almost candy-like when sweetened, it gets a good rating—in the "caffeine-free chai" class of herbals, slightly higher than the more complex but weaker-flavored Pukka "Vanilla Chai". Still, I can see why some are turned off by its nearly one-dimensional nature and assign a Jackson or smaller on the RateTea star bar.
87 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 4/5Brytta Sóþword (333 reviews) on Feb. 28th, 2015
Oooh, tasty! A non-caffeinated chai that's a lovely balance of spicy and sweet, with enough complexity to be interesting. It tastes like a red hot candy without the heat. It should be a dessert tea, I think. Easily the most impressed I've been with Celestial Seasonings so far.
60 Aroma: 3/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 4/5Mariko (58 reviews) on Oct. 11th, 2014
I didn't treat this as an interpretation of chai as some other reviewers did; I just went to a friend's house, found the name interesting, and asked if I could try a cup. I don't find the spice unpleasant or overwhelming; on the contrary, I found it quite good, and I appreciated that the spice lent the tea a caffeine-free 'kick'. I found cinnamon and cardamom to be the primary flavors.
20 Aroma: 2/10 Flavor: 1/5 Value: 1/5MimiG (46 reviews) on Jun. 4th, 2013
This tea was very disappointing. Too much cinnamon and spice, not enough flavor. It tasted raw and nasty.
17 Aroma: 2/10 Flavor: 1/5 Value: 1/5Sylvia (215 reviews) on Apr. 7th, 2011
I'm a big fan of chai, so I would have thought this tea would be good, except I tried it because my friend said it was terrible. I was open to liking it, but she was right. It has an overwhelming flavor of cinnamon, looming to suck its victims into a drowning cinnamon abyss. I had about 3 sips of it, with added sugar and cream just like I drink my chai, and I couldn't drink any more. I'm usually neutral about herbal teas, but this one was intensely wrong.
100 Aroma: 10/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5morning glory (27 reviews) on May. 22nd, 2010
i love chai, but i'm trying to cut down the caffiene (decaf just makes me feel cheated, somehow) so i decided to try this herbal "interpretation" of chai. i wasn't expecting much- despite the picture of a tiger on the box i expected this tea to be kind of tame. but curiosity won out, and i made my first cup last night. i was VERY pleasantly surprised! it smells wonderful, for the first thing. the spices are so strong, it has that cinnamon heat going... not for the faint of heart! i adore it already. i don't miss the caffiene at all!
93 Aroma: 9/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5Laurie (1 reviews) on Dec. 7th, 2009
Bengal spice is one of my favorite teas right now. The spices are very warming and comforting and remind me of Christmas! It is a perfect sweet and spicy fall and winter tea. No stevia or sweetener added!! And like the others say, its gets very strong if you leave the bag in - delicious!
83 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 4/5 Value: 5/5Holly H (3 reviews) on Oct. 8th, 2009
Great for a spicy evening cup of tea when you don't want any caffeine. Just don't let it brew too long, unless you like a REALLY strong spice flavor.
87 Aroma: 8/10 Flavor: 5/5 Value: 5/5Anne (34 reviews) on Sep. 22nd, 2009
A great cheap option for a non-caffeinated chai. Very strong flavor, especially if you let it brew. Nice to drink after dinner.
Page 1 of 1 page with 9 reviews
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