Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Judging Chai

Kitten Update

No kittens, though it looks like two of my last group of fosters have been adopted.

BUT...

Tomorrow I'll be driving a big box of puppies up to Auburn (about an hour away), so that has to count for something!

BookBub Ad Update

791 impressions served, 0 clicks. Thus far I have lit $1.88 on fire. On the one hand, it's cheap entertainment. On the other, it probably means I need to change my ad graphics or something. I may wait until after the weekend to change it up, just in case people hold off on reading their mail until Saturday (which is apparently a thing).

Judging Chai

Two important things:

  1. I enjoy drinking chai lattes.
  2. I am lazy.
Yes, you can make your chai latte at home by boiling water and adding tea and a bunch of spices and milk. I have tried this many times.

You know what that makes? A big mess. I cannot pour from any of my pans into a mug without having it dribble all over the stove or counter. Also, my efforts have produced some pretty mediocre drinks, so I'm not incentivized to get new pans. Plus, I tend to get distracted while waiting for things to boil, and it's a wonder I haven't burned the house down yet.

So what I'm saying is the chai concentrate they sell at the grocery store is my kind of thing. Mix it with milk and pop it into the microwave and you're done. But not all chai concentrates are the same. Here's my ranking in order of worst to best:

Oregon Chai: It's sweet and it's brown, but that's about all it has going for it. This is the "Taco Bell hot sauce" of chai concentrates. Might as well stay at home and dump honey into a mug with a Lipton tea bag. I've even tried the less sweet version to see if I could taste anything other than "sweet", but then it was just less sweet and brown. What's the point of this stuff?

Rishi Masala Chai: This is new at my grocery store, but I bought a carton yesterday because my new favorite drink at the local coffee shop is Rishi Mystic Mint tea, which is an amazing blend. (No, my grocery store doesn't carry their mint tea. Oh well.) The chai concentrate is not bad, but it has a weirdly floral flavor. Black tea, cinnamon, ginger root, cardamom, black pepper, molasses, lemon juice concentrate, clove — none of that should be giving me a floral taste. I don't understand.

Tazo Chai: This is definitely my favorite, though it's inconsistent. Some cartons are much stronger than others. The bigger problem is that my grocery store runs out constantly. (This is an ongoing problem at my grocery store. I love them, but I wish they would look at what sells out every week and take that into account.)

Are there others? Do you disagree with my ranking? Wanna fight about it in the comments? Come at me!

Pet Picture of the Day


Oh, to be able to sleep like a kitten...

Accomplishments of the Day

  • Met up with friends at a write-in and was pretty productive.
  • Added 919 words to the urban fantasy novel.
  • Remembered Holidailies for the 13th day in a row!
  • Worked on the newsletter. I still have one section to write and then it will be almost ready to go.
  • Yesterday's step count: 21,935. Today's will be less because I was sitting at Crepeville instead of walking on the treadmill.

3 comments:

bozoette said...

Ha! My post today sort of about tea, but really about coffee. I do like a good chai though.

Sherck said...

I'm not a big chai drinker. I had a brief love affair with chai tea lattes, and I've tried to DIY it at home with similar results as yours, but I've never used the concentrates. I'll occasionally feel the spirit move me to buy one at a coffee shop, but mostly I'm a coffee guy.

Theresa B (of Nebulopathy) said...

I wish I liked coffee because it's the easiest thing to find most places, but I don't even like the smell of it. Oh well.