Tea India

Tea India exists to put the chai you would actually drink in India, not the watered-down Western imitation, onto a British shelf. It brings traditional Assam, Darjeeling and above all the masala chai that in its real form is one of the great everyday drinks of the world: strong black tea brewed with milk and ground spice on the hob, sweet, hot and properly assertive. The Western coffee-shop chai latte is a distant, sweetened descendant, and the gap between the two is the brand's whole reason to exist.

The range covers traditional Assam, a workable everyday Darjeeling, and the spiced chai blends, cardamom, ginger and masala, that are the real signature, designed to be brewed strong with milk on the hob rather than steeped weakly in water. The blending keeps the spice and tea strength up where the authentic cup needs them. For our shelf Tea India is the chai brand to reach for when a customer is tired of watered-down Western chai-latte sachets. The Assam and cardamom chai is close to the cup you would get on a Mumbai street stall, properly spiced, properly strong and built for milk, and the Assam and Darjeeling cover the authentic Indian everyday ground competently. It is an authenticity play rather than a convenience one, and for the customer who wants that it delivers the genuine article rather than the export-market compromise.

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