Autumnal Cheer: Chai Tea

Before the sumac starts turning red and the first pumpkins are spotted for sale on the side of the road, this girl longs for autumn. Not simply because of the sweet relief it brings from the stifling summer humidity, though, that's a large part of it...but because of an exceedingly large amount of small pleasures that the season brings. I could write my longest post yet about my love of all things autumnal (small pleasure number one = the word "autumnal") because there is so much material. I have discovered that I'm not the only one. Yes, if you wax poetic about your love of fall in your Facebook status, I will be clicking the "Like" button. There's an enormous amount of people who adore autumn and I revel in the shared anticipation and, finally, the actual beginning of the season.

I have made the executive decision that instead of one loooong post which would define "verbose," I'll be making many short posts on the small pleasures of autumn. The first of which will deal with my way of summoning the season while it was blatantly summertime. It was stubborn but it must have worked. I have a feeling that God delights in seasonal changes that bring us so much pleasure.

Alright, I have to admit that I started my ritual of drinking hot chai tea every morning while it was still...gasp...very, very hot outside. There is such a thing as air conditioning, so the experience was entirely doable. Try not to freak out. If you've never tried chai tea...well, you must. Unless you don't like gingerbread or pumpkin pie spice or other marvelous things like that. There are some people who don't, you know. But I don't know any of them. Probably because they'd be too afraid to admit it to me; I can be very opinionated when it comes to tea and also, things that make my tastebuds rejoice. Especially my autumnal tastebuds. Which brings us back to chai tea. It's a black tea with ginger and cardamom and other spices. It's traditional to use half tea, half heated milk or cream to make this concoction. It turns out to be a very light-colored tea because of this major addition. And when you take a sip, you won't be able to deny that it tastes like fall. How happy is that? Very.

Of course, there are loose teas or chai tea bags you can use to great effect, but here lately, I have tried something new. Tazo tea has a boxed liquid chai tea - a chai tea concentrate - that is truly stunning. It has an excellent spicy taste, even more so that the loose tea I also frequent. It's already sweetened and you can drink it hot or iced. Both are equally good. Just add the milk or cream. Super simple. I believe I bought it at Target, but I think I've also seen it at the Wal-Mart.

Give it a whirl. And let me know what you think. =) And also, do you have any other favorite brands I should try? I'd love to hear from you!

Happy Autumn!
Kristen