In an apparent ode to Back to the Future, Lipton, or at least its corporate boss Unilever, is again referring to this simply as, "Spiced Chai", as of Feb. 2020. Whether this is a renaming of their chai just for food-service purposes, or for keeps across the brand, remains to be seen. I uploaded a photo of the latest packaging.

This tea came from a cafeteria, but I brought an extra bag home to taste on the usual well water, in order that the local city water, which always has a good deal of chlorine and sometimes layers of algal and mud flavors atop that, doesn't unduly tarnish the rating. As bagged chais go, it's around the middle to lower part in my experience: overly heavy on cinnamon at the expense of the other listed ingredients (allspice, ginger root, black pepper, cloves) that could give it more character, if better balanced. That's not to say it's a bad tea; indeed, it's in the upper limb of Lipton's taste ranges, which I realize doesn't impress many folks. If you don't mind an overemphasis on cinnamon in chai, it ain't bad. I'd just like for the other spices to be more apparent too. One of the ingredients also is "natural flavor", but of what? Also, this tea contains soy lecithin. With the need for either flavoring or soy not apparent to me, at least in a quality chai, a few points got lopped off the rating.

Since I reckon most folks don't do this, the result could be only a minor deal, but for full disclosure: upon breathing through the wet bag, I was reminded distinctly of unscented model-airplane glue. That sort of experience likely was not intended by the producers. No, I don't huff airplane glue, and no, you won't get delirious off wet Lipton chai bags. :-)

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