Thai tea, the Cha Tra Meu orange colored version

 

I'm reviewing Thai tea, the standard orange colored, flavored, black tea version.  I'll drink it as hot tea, with milk and sugar, but it's more common to drink it iced, or blended with ice instead.

I've reviewed a relatively identical version of this tea before, here, in 2018.  Here was my input from that review:

Thai tea tastes like mild black tea with star anise and artificial flavoring added. It's not that far from orange creamsicle. 

a DQ Thai tea blizzard; it's for the best for my health that they don't sell this often

Review:

it's more colorful in real life

It's good; it tastes like Thai tea.  A little astringency stands out, related to brewing chopped black tea leaves for over 5 minutes, at a pretty high proportion, maybe 4 grams for a 14 ounce / 300 ml amount.  All that is a guess; this is weighed, and the volume is an estimate.  But the flavor is good, and that feel input is softened by milk being added, so it's not at all negative.

In describing it I'll be describing a standard Thai tea flavor; the review would be the same for almost any decent version.  Cha Tra Meu is the standard brand, so in many cases people would just be drinking this.  That translates as "hand brand tea," or literally word by word as tea brand hand, for what that's worth.  There is a "gold" version, and I've reviewed both in the past, the original and the gold, but they're not so different.

It tastes like there's a floral input in this, and some depth that's harder to place.  I've heard before that the original version was black tea, orange blossoms (flowers from an orange tree), and crushed roasted tamarind seeds.  I wouldn't really know if it tastes like that.  It might resemble vanilla a little, but to me it tastes more like star anise.  

The flavors are somewhat artificial, I think, although I should take a photo of the package to confirm that.  According to a label image cited in that much earlier review it was:

It's not so different if they are natural flavors, extracted from different inputs.  In that case they're just not completely made in a lab, from chemicals, but some of the same compounds would be included.  I suppose it would be like the case of vanilla, where the main compound can be synthesized using chemical inputs, or the real spice input includes a lot of that and also other range, so it should be more complex.

I suppose if one could discuss the "roasted tamarind seed" range more that might work as a flavor description.  It's hard to place though.  There's no other roasted seed range, or the like, that I can compare this to.  It's not completely different than roasted pumpkin seed, but also not that close to that.  I've considered trying to roast tamarind seeds before, since it's a common fruit type here (sold as a dried version, usually), but I don't think we have a good version of a spice grinder for processing something that durable.  It's not like a coffee bean; those have a shell that resembles wood.

I don't drink much Thai tea, even though it is pleasant.  There's a branch of Cha Tra Meu in my office building, and in lots of other places.  I could have this every day, without making it, but I've never bought it there.  I think I skip it because I don't want it to become a habit.  The flavor is fine, and it's not that unhealthy, probably, but sticking to plain, good quality tea just makes sense to me.

My son drinks a good bit of this sold through Cafe Amazon, a main coffee chain here.  Of course Starbucks is also prevalent, but there are probably more Cafe Amazon shops.  A standard drink costs around 60 bath there, with around 70 baht converting to $2, so it's inexpensive.  Starbucks charges more like 150, or around $5.  For something like Thai tea or matcha drinks there may not be that much difference in different versions, and how much coffee drinks vary would depend a lot on subjective preference and perspective, on judgment.  I buy coffee from Cafe Amazon from time to time, but not Starbucks.

It's interesting how where people get drinks seems to vary by social class identification more than the drink quality or type.  There's another level above Starbucks, presented as higher in quality, that's usually reflected quite a bit by well developed shop aesthetics.  A very clean looking off-white interior is common now, although industrial looking coffee shops based on more grey tones also come up.  The old theme of wood panel and plant input is mostly finished.

the Flat+White coffee shop in Bangkok (their FB page)

I might add that I often have Thai tea in a slushy form, how my son drinks it.  We went to a suki place that had this (suki is a soup version that you cook yourself, adding ingredients they provide, like meat and vegetables, or dumplings).  Maybe it's a little better blended with ice?  It's good hot too.

These ideas I've presented bring something to mind.  Am I not drinking Thai tea because of some social positioning input, maybe not as a class theme, since I'm just kind of middle class here, but because I see myself as more developed or sophisticated in relation to tea preference?  It could be that, instead of the health related input.  But I'm concerned that I already eat some ice cream, most often from Dairy Queen here, and more often Ben and Jerry's or else Breyer's in the US, and don't want to add other high sugar, significant artificial flavor input to that.  The dairy part should be fine, but in shops it's usually sweetened and condensed milk, so not a very natural form of that.

If I were to drink this even every other day then a significant part of my diet would move to this minor sugar and flavoring input.  I see specialty tea as probably being healthy, and positive (more whole leaf, naturally grown, etc.).  In moderation, drinking one or two of these a week, it probably wouldn't shift the balance that much, but those choices can add up.

Is this relatively low quality, mass produced black tea probably made with a good bit of chemical pesticide and fertilizer?  Yes, that's my guess.  But you never really get to know.

It works to conclude that Thai tea is one of my favorite flavored tea versions, or maybe my overall favorite.  I like it so much that I avoid drinking it, if that makes sense.  It could shift to become a regular habit, and I'm already using my own self-imposed unhealthy foods allocation on ice cream and donuts.