Oregon Chai Tea With Rice Dream Latte

I'm not much of a coffee drinker. In fact, I am not a coffee drinker at all. When I go to a coffee shop, I usually either get a hot chocolate or, more commonly these days, a vanilla chai latte. I had wanted to make my own vanilla chai lattes at home, but when I bought the tea bags, it just never came out spicy enough. Finally I discovered Oregon Chai Concentrate. It comes in a box, already prepared. You are supposed to mix it with an equal amount of milk, and drink it. I love it because it is just as spicy and flavorful as the chai tea I get in coffee shops! What I usually do is heat up the tea and the milk separately, and then use my milk frother to froth up the warm milk before I pour it onto the tea. Mmmmmmmm!

Because I'm attempting to try more vegan things these days, I don't even have any milk in my house right now. (My cat is not pleased.) So I decided to try making a chai latte with Rice Dream instead. I figured it would work okay, because although Rice Dream is not as neutral as milk, it has a pleasant flavor, and the spiciness of the tea would mostly cover it up. I thought. 

Here is what the Oregon Chai looked like by itself in my mug. I used a pretty large mug, because I usually like to drink a lot of chai tea. I heated it in the microwave for about a minute and a half. 

Next I poured some of the Rice Dream, heated it up for about 30 seconds, and then frothed it. I now realize that this picture makes it look like I was about to pour the Rice Dream directly into the frother and heat it up. That would be bad. I poured the Rice Dream into a different mug, heated it up, and then put it into the frother. 

I could tell right away that it wasn't frothing. When you froth milk, it seems like the milk grows larger. When I frothed the Rice Dream, nothing really happened... it just got a little bubbly but that was it. Still, I poured it onto the tea. With frothy milk, it will sort of stay on top of the tea for a while, until you stir it in. But as you can see from this picture, the Rice Dream just sank right into the chai tea. 

I figured, this was just a slight loss. After all, eventually you mix the milk with the tea anyways, right? It would not effect the taste. 

Sadly, it was not too good. At least, I didn't think so. It tasted okay at first, but it had a really strange sharpness to it. It was not spicy so much as it was just... weird. I tried to drink it anyways, but I ended up pouring it out. And now I feel a little nauseous. 

I don't blame the Oregon Chai Tea. I don't blame the Rice Dream. I like them both, separately. I just think they are not a match made in Heaven. 

I don't know what I will do about drinking chai lattes. I don't really like soy milk or almond milk at all. Rice milk, so far, has been the only "dairy alternative" that I didn't want to chuck across the room. But maybe one of them would be okay as a mixer? We shall see. 

In the mean time, I mentioned in another post, I am not officially vegan. I am a vegetarian who is trying out vegan things when I can. So you will see things in this blog that are not vegan. But I also wanted to challenge vegans to recommend their favorite snacks to me, so I could try them out and review them. The rules are, it has to be something that I can actually get in the Vancouver, Washington area... either at a grocery store (we do have Whole Foods and New Seasons and a few natural grocery stores) or at a restaurant or by ordering it online. It can also be a recipe, as long as it is pretty simple. Tell me what you'd like me to review, and I'll check it out!