Archer Farms Chai Tea Latte

I've always liked chai. I've had some good chai from cafes and coffee houses in my day. And of course, I've had some really good chai mixes from grocery stores. This product, unfortunately, is neither.

My biggest complaint is that it's chalky. I don't know what other word I could use to describe it. No matter how much shaking I did, I just didn't feel like the product was smooth. It felt and tasted like it had just come from a powdered mix. And there was...this, like, medicinal taste.

It wasn't all that sweet, and it wasn't all that spicy. It did taste vaguely like chai...but it was a second-rate chai at best.

A couple months back, we felt similarly disappointed with AF's Raspberry Dark Mocha Latte. Both Sonia and I thought it was "watery" or watered-down-tasting.

I felt the same about this chai. Rather than tasting a rich, spicy flavor—or even a milky flavor, I just tasted water and a goofy, lightly-sweetened powder. My wife thinks this product is significantly better than the raspberry mocha, but I would actually have to say that it's a little worse.

I was going to give this product the same score as the raspberry mocha, but after giving it a second chance and trying another bottle this morning, I am even more displeased than I was with the first bottle. These chai lattes are nasty.

I give this product 4 out of 10 stars.

Archer Farms Crème Cake & Berry Swirl Gelato

It's hot again here in Philadelphia. And that means it's time for a barrage of reviews on frozen treats from my local Target's freezer.

Compared to the other Archer Farms gelato flavor that I checked out on this blog, this one's definitely a bit tastier. It's got oval-shaped bits of sponge cake all through it, which add a welcome element of complexity to the product's texture. They taste pretty good, too. They're lightly sweet and bready. The gelato's also sweetened with various fruit juices, as well as sugar, so it's got some quality ingredients. It's not just a tub of cheap high fructose corn syrup.

The fruit gel swirled throughout the product tastes vaguely of berry, although considering there's plenty of actual fruit juice in the product, the reddish jelly part of it doesn't necessarily taste that way. I think it might be a simple matter of blending too many different berry juices together, so that it doesn't taste like any one fruit in particular. But that's not a dealbreaker—not by any means.

This product also lacks the nasty aftertaste present in the Cherry Amaretto version, so that's another plus. The vanilla part of the product is creamy and rich, and its quality falls juuust shy of gelatos I've had from actual gelato parlors—places where one tiny dish of ice cream costs as much as this entire tub.

So all in all, this is a big thumbs up. I could hardly keep myself from eating the whole container in one sitting.

I give this product 9 out of 10 stars.