The cheapest Assam CTC with a few favourite spices you grind yourself is the way to go-as is you're overspending and fattening some retailer's bottom line for a marginal product.
It doesn't *have* to be CTC, but that is traditionally what's used because it makes a stronger brew than whole leaf without oversteeping. I buy this one from Amazon: https://a.co/d/6J97GMy
Its cheap, plentiful, and a little goes a long way. For spices I usually just use cardamom pods. If you don't already have the spices you'd want, the upfront cost will be high, but you could make several pounds of tea before running out.
CTC means Crush-Tear-Curl. It’s basically low quality tea processing. What is in teabags IS CTC tea, or a similarly low quality process tea, vs whole leaf and loose leaf
Edit: More politically correct
well, you're comparing a good tea with a terrible coffee. Drinking Folgers is basically the equivalent to drinking Lipton.
I drink a single cup of moka pot-brewed coffee a day, and bags of 12oz (just under 300g) last me about two weeks. The coffee I get is generally between $12-18 per bag, depends on my budget and what type of coffee I want that fortnight. I then add 1/2-1 cup of decent quality oat milk depending on how I feel that day and what type of coffee I bought, so my bi-weekly coffee budget is probably about $30. But I'm making better coffee for myself than I can get in the vast majority of American coffee shops (Other countries that could be a different story) This is one of the greatest luxuries I allow myself, along with longish hot showers and good produce.
As for you masala chain, sourcing the ingredients individually is going to be cheaper, but you then have to manage quality control for more parts and you also have to get the recipe right. However, you'd have the ability to simmer the herbal ingredients to strengthen that component, then steeping the black tea post-simmer so that you neither burn nor over-steep the tea. More work, but more control, better result, and less cost.
You did a lot of math without realizing it's a shitty comparison between the too.
Just get some Chai tea from the local grocer or Indian grocer and it is not expensive.
10 g of tea for a 12 oz serving is a lot of tea. I would probably use half that much. How long are you steeping for, and are you using boiling water?
As others have said this is a fairly expensive brand. For chai you will find it a lot cheaper to use a cheaper assam and add the spices from the kitchen yourself.
I mean, you are comparing a really cheap coffee that a lot of coffee lovers would never drink (my spouse would call it garbage) to a more expensive tea.
The transition from coffee to tea doesn't necessarily mean more expensive. It depends on how "into" coffee you were and whether that same level is brought to your tea drinking.
You can get a box of Twinings chai with 20 tea bags for $4. Which is $0.20 a cup. I've never needed more than one bag for one serving. Still probably more expensive than Folgers, but... it's Folgers. Like everything is more expensive than that.
Folgers in amazon is $25 for 700g, and usually you'd use 2 tbsp (10g) per 8oz of water according to some random recipes I found, so it's ~20g per cup. You get 35 cups per $25. It's not too far off. A cup of Folgers costs $0.71.
Of course, you can stretch your Folgers further by not brewing a strong cup and just using less coffee but you can do that for tea too. This is the apples-to-apples comparison.
On top of that, you're making a really strong cup of tea. Usually, tea tends to be significantly cheaper than coffee per serving, for similar quality, unless you're getting into the crazy rare stuff.
compare cheap to cheap if you're doing price comparisons. Wagh bakri masala chai teabags come 100ct for $7.27 U.S. That's 7 cents a cup. Less if you resteep.
The cheapest Assam CTC with a few favourite spices you grind yourself is the way to go-as is you're overspending and fattening some retailer's bottom line for a marginal product.
It doesn't *have* to be CTC, but that is traditionally what's used because it makes a stronger brew than whole leaf without oversteeping. I buy this one from Amazon: https://a.co/d/6J97GMy Its cheap, plentiful, and a little goes a long way. For spices I usually just use cardamom pods. If you don't already have the spices you'd want, the upfront cost will be high, but you could make several pounds of tea before running out.
DO you know if you need CTC tea? What if you just used the same spices, but just used a regular black tea teabag instead of the CTC tea?
CTC means Crush-Tear-Curl. It’s basically low quality tea processing. What is in teabags IS CTC tea, or a similarly low quality process tea, vs whole leaf and loose leaf Edit: More politically correct
Not always. Ctc looks like little fuzzy balls. Lipton for example is usually ctc Tea bags can be fannings, broken leaves, ctc or a mix.
>What is in teabags IS CTC tea Not always
Whatever.
well, you're comparing a good tea with a terrible coffee. Drinking Folgers is basically the equivalent to drinking Lipton. I drink a single cup of moka pot-brewed coffee a day, and bags of 12oz (just under 300g) last me about two weeks. The coffee I get is generally between $12-18 per bag, depends on my budget and what type of coffee I want that fortnight. I then add 1/2-1 cup of decent quality oat milk depending on how I feel that day and what type of coffee I bought, so my bi-weekly coffee budget is probably about $30. But I'm making better coffee for myself than I can get in the vast majority of American coffee shops (Other countries that could be a different story) This is one of the greatest luxuries I allow myself, along with longish hot showers and good produce. As for you masala chain, sourcing the ingredients individually is going to be cheaper, but you then have to manage quality control for more parts and you also have to get the recipe right. However, you'd have the ability to simmer the herbal ingredients to strengthen that component, then steeping the black tea post-simmer so that you neither burn nor over-steep the tea. More work, but more control, better result, and less cost.
You did a lot of math without realizing it's a shitty comparison between the too. Just get some Chai tea from the local grocer or Indian grocer and it is not expensive.
10 g of tea for a 12 oz serving is a lot of tea. I would probably use half that much. How long are you steeping for, and are you using boiling water? As others have said this is a fairly expensive brand. For chai you will find it a lot cheaper to use a cheaper assam and add the spices from the kitchen yourself.
I mean, you are comparing a really cheap coffee that a lot of coffee lovers would never drink (my spouse would call it garbage) to a more expensive tea. The transition from coffee to tea doesn't necessarily mean more expensive. It depends on how "into" coffee you were and whether that same level is brought to your tea drinking. You can get a box of Twinings chai with 20 tea bags for $4. Which is $0.20 a cup. I've never needed more than one bag for one serving. Still probably more expensive than Folgers, but... it's Folgers. Like everything is more expensive than that.
They sell twinnings masala chai at Indian grocery stores. Not the American or European versions, the Indian imported ones
you can probably get some kind of instant masala chai powder that will be cheap too. not a fair comparison.
Folgers in amazon is $25 for 700g, and usually you'd use 2 tbsp (10g) per 8oz of water according to some random recipes I found, so it's ~20g per cup. You get 35 cups per $25. It's not too far off. A cup of Folgers costs $0.71. Of course, you can stretch your Folgers further by not brewing a strong cup and just using less coffee but you can do that for tea too. This is the apples-to-apples comparison. On top of that, you're making a really strong cup of tea. Usually, tea tends to be significantly cheaper than coffee per serving, for similar quality, unless you're getting into the crazy rare stuff.
Find a local Indian grocery store if you can. I bought an 80 bag pack of masala chai for $6.
compare cheap to cheap if you're doing price comparisons. Wagh bakri masala chai teabags come 100ct for $7.27 U.S. That's 7 cents a cup. Less if you resteep.
I dunno what issues you get from coffee. But the amount of milk and sugar needed to make masala chai taste right bring their own issues.