I’ve tried an awful lot of chai over the years.
Some brilliant. Some incredibly sweet. Some that barely taste of spice at all.
And one of the first things I would say to anyone choosing a chai for their café is this:
Taste it before you look at the price.
It sounds obvious, but chai is one of those products where the cost per bottle can completely distract from what you’re actually putting in the cup.
Start with the ingredients.
For me, chai should taste like tea and spice.
You should be able to pick up cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves and the warmth of those spices, rather than simply tasting sugar.
That was a big part of the thinking behind our own Jeeves & Jericho Chai Fusion. We wanted something that tasted brewed rather than manufactured.
The next consideration is sweetness.
Customers obviously expect a chai latte to have some sweetness, but it shouldn’t overwhelm everything else.
Too much sugar can make the first sip taste impressive, but by the time you’ve finished the cup it can become sickly.
Then think about consistency.
This is where a good liquid chai concentrate can be incredibly useful in a busy café.
You want one barista to make exactly the same drink as another.
If the recipe is straightforward — for example, a measured amount of chai concentrate topped with steamed milk — it becomes much easier to maintain quality when you’re busy.
Speed matters too.
A product can taste fantastic, but if it takes three minutes to prepare during Saturday morning service, your baristas are eventually going to hate it.
Then there is versatility.
Try the chai:
- hot with dairy milk
- hot with oat milk — MOMA is our favourite
- over ice
- as a dirty chai with espresso
A good concentrate should work across all of them.
I would also look carefully at dilution.
A cheaper bottle isn’t necessarily cheaper if you need twice as much product in every drink.
Work out what the concentrate actually costs you per serving, rather than looking purely at the bottle price.
And finally, think about the supplier.
Can they train your staff?
Can you get hold of someone if something goes wrong?
Can they supply consistently?
Can they help you develop seasonal drinks?
These things matter far more once you’re actually serving the product every day.
My advice would always be to get three or four concentrates side by side, make them all using exactly the same milk and serving size, and taste them blind.
You’ll normally know very quickly which one belongs on your menu.