Holiday Chai

Holiday Chai is a festive blend of premium black teas along with an exotic melange of spices including nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, clove, and cardamom. Natural flavorings of gingerbread and rum also enliven this unique tea.

All of the spices in Holiday Chai have been valued for centuries. The following information illustrates the role of these spices throughout history:

• The nutmeg tree is a large evergreen native to the Moluccas (the Spice Islands) and is now cultivated in the West Indies. It produces two spices - mace and nutmeg. Nutmeg is the seed kernel inside the fruit, and mace is the lacy covering (aril) on the kernel. The Arabs were the exclusive importers of nutmeg to Europe up until 1512, when Vasco de Gama reached the Moloccas and claimed the islands for Portugal.
• Cinnamon is the inner bark of a tropical evergreen tree. In ancient Egypt cinnamon was used medicinally and as a flavoring for beverages. It was also known in medieval Europe, where it was a staple ingredient, along with ginger, in many recipes. Native to Asia where its use as a culinary spice spans at least 4,400 years, ginger grows in fertile, moist, tropical soil.
• Ginger is native to India and China. It takes its name from the Sanskrit word stringa-vera, which means "with a body like a horn", as in antlers. Ginger has been important in Chinese medicine for many centuries and is mentioned in the writings of Confucius. It is also named in the Koran, the sacred book of the Muslims, indicating it was known in Arab countries as far back as 650 A.D. It was one of the earliest spices known in Western Europe, used since the ninth century. It became so popular in Europe that it was included in every table setting, like salt and pepper.
• Allspice takes its name from its aroma, which smells like a combination of spices, especially cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg. Allspice is the only spice that is grown exclusively in the Western Hemisphere. The evergreen tree that produces the allspice berries is indigenous to the rainforests of South and Central America where it grows wild. Unfortunately, the wild trees were cut down to harvest the berries, and few remain today. There are plantations in Mexico and parts of Central America but the finest allspice comes from Jamaica where the climate and soil are best suited to producing the aromatic berries.
• The word "clove" is from the Latin word for "nail" - clavus. The clove is native to the North Moluccas, the Spice Islands of Indonesia. It is cultivated in Brazil, the West Indies, Mauritius, Madagascar, India, Sri Lanka, Zanzibar and Pemba. The Chinese wrote of cloves as early as 400 BC, and there is a record from 200 BC of courtiers keeping cloves in their mouths to avoid offending the emperor while addressing him. Arab traders delivered cloves to the Romans.
• Cardamom is one of the world's most ancient spices. It is native to the forests of southern India where it grows wild. The ancient Egyptians chewed cardamom seeds as a tooth cleaner; the Greeks and Romans used it as a perfume. Vikings came upon cardamom about 1,000 years ago in Constantinople, and introduced it to Scandinavia, where it remains especially popular to this day.

Caffeine

Caffeinated