ChaTale Subscription Review

For general/other topics related to tea.


May 3rd, '16, 16:54
Posts: 5
Joined: Feb 14th, '16, 12:52

ChaTale Subscription Review

by TastetheTea.blog » May 3rd, '16, 16:54

SPAMMER!!!

About ChaTale

“Cha” means tea in many Asian languages, therefore ChaTale is both a cute and appropriate name for an independent tea subscription box. Like most other tea subscription services, ChaTale aims to offer you a “completely new” and easy introductory experience to loose leaf tea. Although ChaTale is dedicated to delivering “the world’s tea to your door”, the predominant focus is on Chinese and Thai heritage. Many of the in-house blends bring tea together with culinary herbs and spices, making creative Asian style tea blends, a mix no doubt inspired by the co-founders backgrounds; Chantelle, growing up in a family of “tea artists” (blenders) and Ponk, owning restaurants in Thailand.

The Tea
Pandan Oolong
Ingrediants: Oolong and Pandan
I’ve never had Pandan in food let alone in tea, so I was excited to give this blend a go. Although the subscription doesn’t mention this, Pandan is a tropical plant widely used in south east Asia, known as the “Asian Vanilla” . Whilst I didn’t recognise the vanilla notes there is a slight sweetness in the cup, a hefty buttery and toasted note, that’s reminiscent of popcorn, and a grassy finish. Lovely.

” A daily dose of antioxidants, a great pain reliever in headaches, chest pain, arthritis and fever reducer” – ChaTale


Lots of Love
Ingredients: Organic Lemon Grass, Rosebuds and Roselle
Enjoyable hot and cold, with or without honey, according to the instructions. I’m not a massive fan of hot lemon, so bearing this in mind, I’ve tried to be as unbiased as possible. The lemongrass provides a subtle lemon note, that isn’t over powering, like many lemon based blends can be. The addition of rose provides a nice undertone of floral, but again, isn’t too overbearing. Despite having tried plenty of rose teas I have never tasted a blend with that contains roselle, a type of hibiscus. I was surprised that it didn’t leave any hibiscus trace at all, spiking curiosity and making me wonder what it’s flavour profile would be like on its own. This wasn’t the cup for me however; I can respect the unique twist to a common blend and understand how the gentle notes and mix of neutral and bold colours, of the dried tea, would be appealing to those exploring new flavours.

”Benefit of Vitamin C, helping to remove unhealthy food additives, chemicals and excess fats” – ChaTale

The website states that the subscription contains a leaflets telling you about the tea. Unfortunately I didn’t receive this in my pack. I’m not sure if this was a packing error or something the company has stopped doing. Either way I always feel that subscription packs aimed at helping people explore tea should contain as much information about the tea as possible. The addition of a leaflet in this pack would be a great insight to the teas contained within, especially for tea newbies.

Furthermore, despite the pack containing only two teas, I felt that both were great for introducing tea lovers to new flavours. Unfortunately, ChaTale focus’s predominantly on the subscription boxes and don’t sell individual tea’s or blends on their website, so if you discover something you love, you won’t be able to stock up. However, you are able to pop them an email and request to receive the tea you love, but this does reduce your tea discovery down to just one tea. Oh the perils…

Want to read more oe see the pictures? See full review here: http://www.tastethetea.co.uk/2016/05/03/chatale/

May 3rd, '16, 17:38
Vendor Member
Posts: 1301
Joined: May 27th, '12, 12:47
Location: Boston, MA

Re: ChaTale Subscription Review

by ethan » May 3rd, '16, 17:38

It seems sensible to me to mix pandan w/ rough oolong tea. Pandan is soothing on its own & good for smoothing out the roughness of other ingredients. I have a blend of pandan & lemongrass from Thailand that gives me a pleasant lightly buttery mouthfeel & freshening light taste of lemon. (I had 50-gram packs of this on sale in TeaSwap but removed it when I got down to one).

I would not expect ChaTale to produce many good blends. In the last 20 years I've spent half of my time in Thailand & come across only one good blend. I believe it is such a relaxed place that blends would be made too casually in Thailand.

I like to infuse dried Bael fruit. Though it is common in Thailand, it is rarely prepared as well as it could be. Flavor is enhanced when one heats the dried slices just a bit. (5 - 10 seconds in a microwave, 15 seconds in a broiler, 20 seconds in an oven), but Thais are satisfied just throwing the slices in water. (Which is fine but not ideal.)

If you keep getting the subscription, I'd love to hear that the blends are good so my prediction was wrong. Cheers.

User avatar
May 6th, '16, 21:06
Posts: 20891
Joined: Apr 22nd, '06, 20:52
Scrolling: scrolling
Location: Back in the TeaCave atop Mt. Fuji
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: ChaTale Subscription Review

by Chip » May 6th, '16, 21:06

This guy is a spammer ... did a lot of spam posts for his company by the same name as his blog.

May 7th, '16, 11:19
Posts: 319
Joined: Jun 29th, '14, 21:26
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: ChaTale Subscription Review

by daidokorocha » May 7th, '16, 11:19

Spammer or not, I had never actually thought about pandan in tea. I love pandan. I wonder how that oolong and pandan would be.

+ Post Reply