I am learning to like spicy food. I used to hate it. Wouldn’t touch it. My brother, on the other hand, would put tabasco sauce on baklava if given the opportunity. I distinctly remember a dinner with family friends at a pizza place where he and the son of my parents’ friends drank some of the stuff out of the jar. Disgusting, but I digress.
I still consider myself to be towards the bottom of the curve in terms of appreciating spicy food. I still can’t eat most Indian food without spending the rest of the night in an…unfortunate situation. And anything super spicy will upset my stomach. However, I enjoy stuff with a little kick and the Chai Agni that Carolyn had sent me took me to a very happy place, so I was excited to give this a try.
If you took the heat out of kimchi and put it in a chocolate chai, that is what my experience with this was like. It was hot. Now your definition of hot might differ from my definition of hot, but this was hot enough to drown out any hope for me of getting much else out of it. I could barely taste the chocolate aspect of it, and the spices from the chai were completely gone.
It could be that I happened to get a particularly large proportion of pepper in it, and I really hope that’s what happened, but that experience has scared me off of trying this again for a while. I mean, it was so spicy I knew it was going to make my stomach very, very angry if I didn’t stop drinking it so I had to dump the lot. If you want to make yourself sad, spend a good 20 minutes making chai and then make yourself pour most of it down the sink. I’ll give it another try once the scar of the spice has cooled down significantly enough. For now, I can only recommend this to someone who finds the idea of chocolate kimchi appealing.
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Oooh, I actually hate kimchi. Not the hotness aspect, but the cabbage aspect. So I think that sounds kinda gross. Although I’m sure it doesn’t taste like cabbage… right? :O
And that was made with milk? YIKES! I can only imagine how hot it would have been made with just water! Eeep!
Spicy food is good for you. As long as it hurts you know you’re still alive. It’s when everything stops hurting and you’re overcome by this overwhelming sense of calm, that’s when you should really start worrying. That’s usually a sign that you’re dead. People dressed in black weeping over your prone body — also not a good sign. But if spicy food hurts, not to worry.
Oh, boo. :( Maybe if you just steep it with hot water the spices won’t be as strong? I’m guessing they put in ridiculous pepper so that some of it would come out in steeping and still be strong enough for milk. So then when you come all up in here with your stovetop methods, the pepper is like “nah, man”.
Wow. That started out so coherently, too. T__T
@teaplz Thankfully, no. I don’t think I’m ready to drink liquid kimchi. Nor do I think I’ll be ready for that…ever.
@Auggy I know! I took the first sip and had to let a big fat WTF fly.
@East Side Rob Point taken. Will need to eat spicy food more regularly to make sure I am still among the living.
@Hyrulehippie Hrm. I steep my chai in water before I add the milk. Maybe next time I’ll drain the water into a bowl to get the chai out and then pour that back into the pot before I add the milk. I’m hoping that it was just a bad spoonful, though, because that would make life a lot easier for me. [And HAH! It made sense to me…]
I love kimchi (and adore Indian and Pakistani lemon pickles). I do think that chocolate and hot spices should be blended in such a way as to compliment each other. Sorry this one didn’t work for you. It still looks fascinating to me, but it is clearly not going to be a tea to give my beloved since he’s very sensitive to spices (similar problems to you with his delicate stomach).
Perhaps a palate that is more accustomed to spicy spicy spicy will find this tea more enjoyable. All this talk about it has calmed me to the idea of giving it another go, so I might do it tomorrow. If it’s still too much for me I’d be happy to send you the rest!
Oooh, I actually hate kimchi. Not the hotness aspect, but the cabbage aspect. So I think that sounds kinda gross. Although I’m sure it doesn’t taste like cabbage… right? :O
And that was made with milk? YIKES! I can only imagine how hot it would have been made with just water! Eeep!
Spicy food is good for you. As long as it hurts you know you’re still alive. It’s when everything stops hurting and you’re overcome by this overwhelming sense of calm, that’s when you should really start worrying. That’s usually a sign that you’re dead. People dressed in black weeping over your prone body — also not a good sign. But if spicy food hurts, not to worry.
Oh, boo. :( Maybe if you just steep it with hot water the spices won’t be as strong? I’m guessing they put in ridiculous pepper so that some of it would come out in steeping and still be strong enough for milk. So then when you come all up in here with your stovetop methods, the pepper is like “nah, man”.
Wow. That started out so coherently, too. T__T
@teaplz Thankfully, no. I don’t think I’m ready to drink liquid kimchi. Nor do I think I’ll be ready for that…ever.
@Auggy I know! I took the first sip and had to let a big fat WTF fly.
@East Side Rob Point taken. Will need to eat spicy food more regularly to make sure I am still among the living.
@Hyrulehippie Hrm. I steep my chai in water before I add the milk. Maybe next time I’ll drain the water into a bowl to get the chai out and then pour that back into the pot before I add the milk. I’m hoping that it was just a bad spoonful, though, because that would make life a lot easier for me. [And HAH! It made sense to me…]
I love kimchi (and adore Indian and Pakistani lemon pickles). I do think that chocolate and hot spices should be blended in such a way as to compliment each other. Sorry this one didn’t work for you. It still looks fascinating to me, but it is clearly not going to be a tea to give my beloved since he’s very sensitive to spices (similar problems to you with his delicate stomach).
Perhaps a palate that is more accustomed to spicy spicy spicy will find this tea more enjoyable. All this talk about it has calmed me to the idea of giving it another go, so I might do it tomorrow. If it’s still too much for me I’d be happy to send you the rest!