Brundo Spices Shai Kimem | Traditional Ethiopia Tea Spice Blend | Crafted and Imported from Ethiopia | Mix of Cinanmon, Green Cardamon and Clove | Steep in water and Strain to Serve

I love the tea at a local Ethiopian restaurant, and this tastes just like it. Delicious hot or iced, with or without sugar.

So I'm torn about this spice mix. It is whole spices: cinnamon bark, cardamon and cloves. That's it - no more, no less. They are WHOLE, which means you may need to grind them up to maximize use of them. Also, in case you just want to buy these 3 individual spices, they are easily separated. They are fresh and smell great.However, if you want ground spices to use in tea or cooking, it is a bit of work to grind or otherwise smash them. Also, the description in the listing is wrong, it is JUST THOSE 3 SPICES. I tried using them whole to make chai tea, the flavor was quite weak. Next I ground them in the coffee grinder: it took a while, though now I think I over ground them as the flavor is a bit bitter!Still working to figure out the optimal use for these. If you know what to do with them, this is a great package. But if you're looking for an easy chai option, maybe try something else.

I use these spices in my iced tea. It is just as good as the tea at my favorite Ethiopian restaurant.

I went to make this tea and opened the bag and was confounded. There was three really large unprocessed cinnamon sticks filling the bag, making it hard to get two teaspoons of the other spices in the bag as I wanted to use this for tea. I don't know if they expect you to brew it all at once or what...The tea tasted nice, lots of cloves in it reminded me of Christmas.I really don't get those large cinnamon sticks that were included as I have no way to use them in tea, even if they were meant to flavor the tea, 3 wasn't enough for the entire bag if you're making cups. I don't understand why it wasn't broken down into pieces with the rest of the tea.The MSRP seems fine enough (11 dollars at time of review) for what you get, I just wish it were more processed, it's like they expect you to use a coffee grinder to make your tea.

First and foremost the smell of this is just incredible. Even before opening the bag, I could smell it and it smelled wonderful. When I opened the bag I was a little surprised to see whole spices. It is advertised as a tea and has instructions for making tea, but not how to measure or fit those whole spices into the amount for tea brewing. I'm pretty new to loose-leaf tea so I didn't really have a clue how to adapt it. I wound up putting some of the smaller bits in a tea ball and adding a cinnamon stick to the cup. It brewed ok and smelled incredible for the taste to me it really needed sugar. I don't usually add sugar to my tea, but the intensity of this really seemed to require it. I'm not sure if I will use the rest as a tea, my inclination is to make it into Potpourri because of the smell. I may try grinding it. Overall I really love the smell and recommend it for those who know how to use it properly.

The media could not be loaded. I am a huge fan of chai tea and I have converted my coworkers into fans as well.The spices in this bag are fairly fresh, compared to the stuff you'll get at the grocery store. As you can see when I run the spices through the grinder, they are dark in color with what appears to be moisture, this is the natural oils in the spices. I buy a lot of cloves, cinnamon, and cardamon in bulk to make my own chai spiced blend so I have a pretty good idea as to what fresh and not so fresh chai spices should look like.The weight of the product is good, you're getting the actual amount listed if not more.When you open the bag, the aroma hits you, if heaven has a scent, this is it.The bag indicates it's a tea blend which is misleading as there is no tea in the mixture. Since I buy herbs and spices in bulk, I was prepared with loose black tea to add to this blend and the results were amazing. It pairs lovely with coffee too.I let the spices and tea boil for at least 10 minutes to get the maximum flavor and I prepared a latte for 2 of my coworkers and myself, of course. The entire suite smelled so good, everyone who walked in commented on how amazing it smelled. My coworkers thoroughly enjoyed the latte. In my opinion, the best flavor comes when you add evaporated milk to regular milk and sweeten with honey.This product is worthy of 5 stars but I'm giving it 4 only because it implies that it's a tea when it isn't but that's not a bad thing. Some people don't drink tea. By having the spices alone you are free to add your favorite tea or drink it without tea.Do yourself a favor and get a grinder, it's the only way you'll get the best flavor.

Opening this bag was eye opening in a couple of ways. First, the aroma was fantastic - basically chai tea fresh from the field. Cloves and cinnamon and cardamon were flowing from the bag. Also, I was struck by the fact that everything in the bag was huge and whole. Five inch cinnamon sticks are a little hard to put in the steeper. This may be the first time that I actually needed my spice grinder rather than just trying to find excuses to use it. I broke up some cinnamon sticks and tried to get a good representation of the spices and ground everything into a more tea like consistency and steeped for five+ minutes in boiling water. Cloves were striking and reminded me why it has been used as a dental anathesia. It was delicously spicy. We did a second steeping with milk and it was very much like a Chai Latte. With almost nonexistant directions and raw materials, it felt like a journey of discovery, but made a good, spicy herbal tea.