Celestial Seasonings India Spice Chai is my favorite tea. Prepared according to the package and served with a bit of milk, it’s simply the best out there, and I’ve tried them all.

In many countries of South Asia and the Middle East, “chai” simply means “tea,” but there’s nothing simple about a cup of India Spice Chai. This complex blend of robust black tea and piquant spices like black pepper, cloves and ginger has its roots in India and is traditionally enjoyed with warm milk and honey. India Spice Chai was specially created by our Blendmaster to bring you an authentic taste of India with every sip.

Ingredients: Black tea, spices (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, black pepper and Chinese star anise), roasted chicory, natural flavor and vanilla bean.

At around $2 per box, it’s as affordable as it is good!

I saw these in the store and was immediately intrigued. Who wouldn’t want to taste a brown rainbow?

Chocolate Skittles comes in five flavors: S’mores, Chocolate Pudding, Chocolate Caramel, Vanilla and Brownie Batter. How they consider “Vanilla” a chocolate flavor is beyond me, however, I wasn’t going to let a technicality stop me from trying.

When I opened the packet I was surprised. They actually smell a little coffee-ish as opposed to cocoa or chocolate. I was expecting more of a hot cocoa mix of a smell, since they’re chocolate flavored and all, but I guess I was wrong!

I poured them all out and organized them by flavor because I’m just weird that way. The brownie batter and the chocolate pudding were a little hard to tell apart, maybe because I was using bad lighting, but the former is a dark brown and the latter had a reddish tint to it. S’mores was the most common flavor by far and outnumbered the others followed by a tie with brownie batter and chocolate pudding, then vanilla, with chocolate caramel coming in last with only five pieces.

Smores:Sweet at first, but once you start chewing it a graham cracker-like flavor appears. There’s a tiny hint of toastiness to it too. No chocolate flavor to be found.

Vanilla: Very buttery. I feel like I’m eating cake frosting with this. Very, very sweet.

Chocolate Pudding: Pretty flavorless. I chewed these and smacked my mouth quite a few times trying to find the flavor. It’s just sweet, with a hint of cocoa, but it’s practically not there. Disappointing.

Brownie Batter: Ugh… this tastes like… someone took fake, store-bought chemical-y brownie mix and blended in a tablespoon of cold butter. Maybe that’s what brownie batter tastes like to some people, but whoever it was obviously never had the homemade stuff. Yuck.

Chocolate Caramel: Again, this just tastes sweet. I don’t get any chocolate flavor or any sort of caramelized/burnt/milky sugar. Just sweet.

My two favorite flavors of the bunch, the Vanilla and the S’mores, didn’t taste of chocolate at all (not that they should have, considering that only 1/3 of a S’mores is chocolate and vanilla is, well, vanilla) and the other three didn’t even have any flavor - much less chocolate flavor. So try these if you’re curious because they’re not awful by any means.  These just aren’t chocolatey like I expected.

That won’t stop me from buying the next bag.