Chai

mielhollinger's Note:

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Outdoors Series, Snow Country Cooking, by Diane Rossen Worthington (Time-Life Books, 1999).

• Total Time: 33 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 23 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 2 cinnamon sticks , broken in half
• 8 allspice berries
• 4 whole cloves
• 2 peppercorns
• 4 cups water
• 16 cardamom pods , lightly crushed
• 4 slices fresh ginger , lightly crushed
• 2 tea bags or 1 tablespoon black tea
• ½ cup milk (or to taste)
• 3 tablespoons honey (or to taste)

Directions:

1. With a mortar and pestle, coarsely grind the cinnamon sticks, allspice, cloves and peppercorns.
2. In a saucepan, combine the ground spices, water, cardamom pods and ginger.
3. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Set aside, covered, for 10 minutes.
5. Add the tea bags or loose tea in a tea ball to a teapot.
6. Return the spiced water to a boil and pour into the teapot.
7. Let steep for 2-3 minutes , then strain the tea and serve with milk and honey on the side.

Reviews

[Finney]

This was a great comfort food. Smells wonderful as it cooks. Reminds me of the holidays. We will be making this again!

[mianbao]

I scaled this down to one serving and treated myself to it today. It came out nice, but I think the flavor of the spices was a little weak. (Say, 4 1/2 stars.) The fault could be with my spices, however, which were not the freshest, so I'm rounding up the rating to 5 stars. I think it also might be better to try and make at least 2 servings next time, and maybe steep the spices longer. Thank you for sharing this recipe.

[UmmBinat]

Like another reviewer I found this slightly weak. I used some ground allspice as I did not have the whole berries on had, also used powdered ginger but the ginger wasn't lacking, 1 Lipton Yellow Label tea bag which I find stronger than others, homemade almond milk, to taste, which I always use in our chai to be dairy free, creamed honey, plus the rest of the ingredients. Not a chai I will make again.