Chai Tea from Scratch

Submitted by COOKGIRl

"No coffee creamer or instant tea here. Wait until you catch the aroma of this wafting through your house! Adapted from several online sources with inspiration most notably from my own spice stash, but also from the side box of Yogi tea, and chaitearecipes.com, etc. Be sure the milk or milk substitute you use is very fresh!"

 

• Ready In: 40mins
• Ingredients: 15
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 2 cups filtered water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1⁄2 teaspoon minced cardamom pod, slightly crushed
• 1⁄2 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 3 whole cloves
• 1⁄4 teaspoon fennel seed
• 1 inch piece vanilla pod, split open lengthwise
• 2 star anise
• 3 -4 saffron threads
• 1⁄4 teaspoon anise seed
• 1⁄8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 1⁄3 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 tablespoons loose black tea leaves (read *NOTE) or 2 tea bags (read *NOTE)
• 2 cups milk (soy milk is good, too) or 2 cups rice milk (soy milk is good, too)
• honey, for sweetening, to taste (I prefer honey to sweeten my chai but I also like cane sugar-aka Sucanat)

directions

1. *NOTE: Any number of black tea varieties can be used in this recipe: Ceylon Orange Pekoe, Darjeeling, English Breakfast, Earl Grey, etc. You'll have to try several types of tea to find out which you prefer.
2. Pour the water into a heavy bottomed pan. Add the spices and tea bags (or loose tea placed in a tea infuser or muslin cloth).
3. Bring to a boil, partially cover pan and simmer about 20 minutes to allow spices to intensify.
4. Add the milk or milk substitute and heat through WITHOUT boiling until hot.
5. Pour chai tea through a strainer into tea cups. Add sweetener of choice if desired.
6. Sit, sip, close your eyes, relax, enjoy!
7. Servings are estimated.

Reviews

[Jociecee]

What a wonderful, flavorful chai recipe-great blend of spices that smelled and tasted heavenly!I made this for Best of 2010 cookbook tag-thanks for the great recipe!

 

[magpie diner]

Fabulous chai, well worth the effort. The only spice I had to leave out was the anise seed. I used to live in staff accomm with many Indian friends. Someone smuggled in a hot plate and they used to make chai using this method. I have made it many times this way since then, but never using this many ingredients, and what a difference, this hits all the right notes. Thanks Cookgirl! A definite highlight of ZWT6!

 

[Tea Jenny]

Mmmm, this was so so nice. The flavors of all the spices can be picked out one by one with every sip you take, is just wonderful I used Assam tea bags, as they are my all time favourite. I didn't have saffron, and I used filtered water, I sweetened it with raw cane sugar. It's worth making for the aroma it fills your kitchen alone, but sitting sipping this and relaxing is just heavenly. Thank you so much for posting. Made for ZWT#6 2010

 

[Thymestudio]

FANTASTIC. I love chai and had no idea how much better this would be than what I already had. New favorite!!! Thank you for posting it. ZWT6

 

[realbirdlady]

An easy and aromatic morning drink. Especially if you have access to fresh bulk spices, this is a nice dress-up for plain old black tea. I used my usual tea leaf strainer, which left the liquid a little gritty, so I would use a coffee filter next time. I think you could probably mix up the tea and spices ahead of time, and just brew it in the morning.