Making Chai
Fundamentally, Chai is simply milk, tea, and Indian spices. There are a lot of approaches and recipes to get you there, but the best recipes I've found is to break it into two steps;
- STEP 1 -
Make the chai-spice + water infusion;
basically a very strong Chai-spiced black tea - STEP 2 - Add in the milk, cream, and sugar, and warm it to finish the Chai
The reason this works best is that you can make a giant pot of Chai tea, and then cool and store it in the refrigerator for quick use later. You also can more easily vary the ratios of chai tea and milk/cream/sugar.
Important notes
- You need the sugar, or the flavor of the spices will not come out at all. Unfortunately, cutting the sugar also cuts the spiciness.
- For a slightly healthier alternative, go with honey.
- Experiment! Try coconut milk, different sweeteners, different levels of spices. Life is all about learning.
Ingredients
I prefer to make my Chai from scratch, using a simple black tea, and add in your cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and other tasty spices.
However with the growing popularity of Chai, it is now easy to find pre-prepared Chai Tea mixes at your local tea shop, and even in the grocery aisle of your local store.
These are often in leaf or tea bag form, and you simply brew them as you would any other tea.
e.g.