Here's a tea that seems to work the gourmet/artisan angle hard, presumably in order to justify the exorbitant cost, and just doesn't live up to the billing. The first thing I noticed about the dry bags (fairly standard-sized pyramid sachets with string and tag) is that the dry product only filled about 1/4–1/5 of it. I thought that was rather parsimonious, especially for such an expensive tea. The wet bag swells only to about 1/3–1/2 full, whereas many good teas I've had in this bag style swell up to fill it all. Why so much extra, empty space? My solution: just use smaller sachets and save some packaging. Better yet, fill more in this size for a stronger brew!

One can spot a lot of ginger pieces. Indeed, the dry aroma and tea flavor are quite ginger-dominant to me, with vanilla next, and cinnamon taking a backseat. I've been having trouble finding cardamom in the sachets, though I can taste it, faintly. The aftertaste is where the vanilla really moves to the forefront.

It's a smooth, reasonably pleasant-tasting tea, one I'd gladly pay 1/4 as much to drink. It came on a discount sale at an H-E-B store in suburban Dallas area, but its usual price for a 15-sachet tin is insane (around $8.50 there or $11 on the tea company's site). I paid too much even at discount! This would have to be the greatest chai in human history to compel me to spend full price, and instead it's simply slightly better than average, and in woefully insufficient quantity. Save your money and/or wait for a monumental discount.

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