DIY Chai Tea

October 11, 2011

Sometimes all you need if a warm drink to comfort you on a cool day. Chai tea is perfect in the morning to wake up your taste buds or to snuggle up with at night. The aromatic spices permeate the tea creating a rich and complex flavor. You will taste cinnamon and sweet cardamom with a hint of spice from the peppercorns. I suggest using black tea for this recipe but feel free to use your favorite. You may even want to visit a tea shop and pick something exotic and complementary to the above spices.

Chai Tea

Ingredients:

1 cup Milk

2 cups Water

4 pods Cardamoms

1 pod Black Cardamom

2 pieces Cloves

2 pieces Peppercorns

1 small piece Cinnamon

2 teaspoons Tea Leaves

2 teaspoons Sugar or to taste

Directions:

Boil water in a pan with five spices, black cardamom, green cardamom, crushed pepper corns, cinnamon & cloves (lightly crush to bring out the flavors).

Cover the pan with lid, as to my experience, there is a huge difference in the aroma of tea made covered and uncovered.

Bring the water to boil and add Tea Leaves.

I prefer brewing Taj Mahal Orange Pekoe or Brook Bond "Red Label" for my Chai's, can't beat the flavor.

Let the tea leaves brew for 4-5 minutes in boiling water.

Add 1/2 cup of milk and sugar to taste at this point & simmer for few minutes.

When the tea is done, give it a grace period of another one to two minutes with lid covered, to let the spices lose all their flavor to the chai.

Use a strainer to filter the tea into your tea cup.

Lastly, to make every sip a complement, I like to garnish the tea with crushed green cardamom, lends it a great flavor...turning milk-addicts like me into tea lovers...!

Image Sources:

uteart

Comments

Permalink Anita@Chai Tea Site
December 6, 2011

That is a great staple chai tea recipe. For variety, you could add anise seed sometimes, or boil it with milk only. Also, using different teas, like Yerba Mate or Rooibos is also interesting. You can check out some ideas at http://chaiteasite.com