Does chai contain caffeine? | How to handle the evening cup

The conclusion, in three lines.

· Chai is a drink made with black tea. It contains caffeine.
· It is finished with milk, though, so it is not the same as drinking the same volume of black tea straight.
· On days when the evening concerns you, there are options that use no tea leaves: Vetiver Tea and the cocoa.

Chai is a milk tea

“I thought it was caffeine-free, being a spice tea.” We hear that in the shop from time to time.

It is not. The base of chai is black tea. Inspice chai uses Taj Mahal Tea leaves from Brooke Bond in India. So yes, it contains caffeine. We would rather begin by not being vague about that.

So how much?

Honestly, we cannot answer with a single figure. The amount of caffeine changes with the quantity of leaf, the brewing time, the temperature, and the volume you finish with. Declaring “X mg per cup of chai” would be dishonest.

What is worth knowing as a rough guide is that black tea is generally held to carry less caffeine than the same volume of coffee, and that chai finishes a cup by combining that brew with milk.

Choosing by time of day

Morning. Between tasks. A pause in the afternoon. These are the hours where chai settles most comfortably, we think. The aroma of the spices, the sweetness and the warmth all meet at the right point.

The evening is the question. How caffeine feels varies a great deal from person to person. Some are entirely fine with it; others avoid it after late afternoon. Neither is right or wrong, and going by your own sense of it is enough.

For the evening, a cup without tea leaves

You want an aromatic cup in the evening too. For anyone in that position, Inspice has another road.

Vetiver Tea Symphony No.1 puts naturally grown domestic vetiver from Hoshinomura in Yame, Fukuoka, at its centre, joined by butterfly pea and echinacea from Kahokugata in Ishikawa. Vetiver is a grass root. No tea leaves, no coffee beans. It smells of earth, and of something oddly familiar.

the cocoa is a sugar-free cocoa built from pure cocoa and cacao nibs with nine spices and rock salt. It, too, uses no tea leaves. Cacao itself does carry a trace of caffeine, though, so if you are looking for none at all, choose Vetiver Tea.

On writing it honestly

Writing “caffeine-free” would probably sell better. But for anyone avoiding caffeine because of their health or their circumstances, a vague label is simply a nuisance.

What is in it, we write. And on top of that, we make sure another option is properly there. Days that are fun, glad and good to eat begin, we think, with being able to choose in confidence.

Frequently asked questions

Q. Is Inspice chai caffeine-free?
A. No. Chai is a drink built on black tea, so it contains caffeine. Both the Spice Pack and CHAInstant use tea leaves.

Q. How much caffeine is in a cup of chai?
A. It changes with the quantity of leaf, the brewing time and the volume you finish with, so we do not give a single figure. Black tea is generally held to carry less caffeine than the same volume of coffee, and chai is then finished with milk.

Q. Is there a spiced drink I can have in the evening?
A. Vetiver Tea uses no tea leaves. the cocoa uses none either, but it carries a trace of caffeine from the cacao. If that concerns you, choose Vetiver Tea.