Drink #15: ‘chai chaud’ | A Tale of Two Cities

The fifteenth drink of my thirty day book as a bev series – and official mid-way point – is a hot spiced chai latte with a whipped maple cream topped with freeze dried strawberries based on my hardback edition of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

I was planning on sharing a Project Hail Mary drink as I started that today, but my brother was hounding me for this because he really liked it, haha. I was told to write it out so he could make it on his own, lol. Guess I’ll share that PHM concoction once I finish reading.

This beverage’s name is:

‘chai chaud’

Name Explained: For those unfamiliar with the setting of this tale, it takes place both in London and Paris during the time of the French Revolution. It has the iconic words of “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” in its opening quote. The full line is much, much longer, so I wont write it all out, haha. Since this drink is a hot chai, I attempted to tie it to the novel’s backdrop in a direct way and translated it into French.

Spiced Chai: I’m usually a tea drinker so I didn’t have to reinvent anything here, it was my first time adding star anise and nutmeg and that definitely made it taste more authentically chai. Usually cinnamon, cardamon, ginger and cloves are my go to. I prefer using a loose leaf black tea but any tea bag is fine! Substitute 1 bag for 1 tsp of loose leaf tea.

Whipped Maple Cream: Since my soaked butterfly pea and turmeric powder concoction worked so well when making my last blue cold foam, I figured why not draw on that again this time, just in a smaller portion. I decided to give it a different flavor and went with maple as I felt that would complement the chai. I’ve never used maple butter/whipped maple before and why was it so delicious? If you don’t have any on hand, a regular 1:1 substitution with maple syrup should suffice.

RATING: Overall I’d give the final drink a 5.0.

Flavor Combination: Finally another five star drink 🎊 This drink came out perfectly. Can’t go wrong with a spiced tea. The ratios luckily worked out as I was just eyeballing everything and measuring them afterwards, haha. The whipped maple foam was perfectly sweet and complemented the tea and did not overpower or dim its flavor profile.

Ease: The was relatively simple to make. You just have to throw everything into a pot or kettle and wait for it to boil. The only thing that complicated it for me was soaking the milk to get that blue hue to match the novel’s cover, but you can omit that step and the simplicity drops down even further. I’ve made this again without the two and it tasted exactly the same, the cream was just a solid white and just as delicious.

Appearance: I’m so happy with the color match of the final drink! I feel like the photo doesn’t do it much justice. The strawberries were essential for tying everything together methinks.

Ways to Improve: I have no notes for this, happy to give it full marks and looking forward to enjoying it whenever I need a warm drink.