Chai Tea Recipes

To get you on your way I have collected a few recipes to give you a jump-start

Masala Chai

This warming beverage is easy to prepare by steeping spices in hot water and milk before adding black tea. It's not as milky as the chai often sold at American coffee bars. To make it richer, add more milk and sugar to taste.

Serves: 4
4 whole cloves
2 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick, broken into pieces
3 cups water
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons Black tea

In a mortar, crush the cloves, cardamom pods and cinnamon. Transfer the crushed spices to a small saucepan, add the water, ginger and pepper and bring to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat, cover and let steep for 5 minutes. Add the milk and sugar to the pan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the tea. Cover and let steep for 3 minutes. Stir the chai, strain it into a warmed teapot or directly into teacups.

Spiced Chai

Serves 2

2 1/4 cups water
1 stick cinnamon
8 cardamom pods
8 cloves
3/4-cup milk
6 teaspoons sugar
3 teaspoons any unperfumed black tea (Assam, etc.)

Put the water in a pan. Add cinnamon, cardamom pods, and cloves. Bring mixture to a boil. Cover, turn heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the milk and sugar and bring to a simmer again. Add tea leaves, cover the pan and turn off the heat. After two minutes, strain the tea into 2 cups and serve immediately.

Green Cardamom Chai

Serves 2

2 1/4 cups water
2 cardamom pod, whole, split
3/4 cup milk
6 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoon green tea

Bring water and milk to almost a boil. Add cardamom and steep 3 minutes, uncovered. Add tea. Stir lightly. Steep 2 minutes more, uncovered. Strain and enjoy.

:
Make chai from scratch

Why not try and make chai from scratch? You can vary the following according to taste. I love the stuff as an alternative. In India almost every street corner has a "chai" stall where its popularity makes even the most modest business a going concern :-) 1/3 water

1/3 water
2/3 milk
1 teaspoon of tea for each cup measure (plus a bit extra) freshly chopped ginger
cardamom pods
a little piece clove (optional)
enough sugar to make it sweet
Throw it all into a suacepan cold and bring slowly to a boil. When boiling turn up the heat and swirl it around until it reaches the desired strength and the spices provide a kick. Strain it into small glasses.

It is not everyone's cup of ... (sorry) but about 800 Indians get off on it.



My Oregon chai recipe

Out of all the Chai's I've tasted, the Oregon Chai is my favorite. It's a little more americanized than others, but it's unbelievably addicting. If you're going to attempt to brew it yourself, here is a recipe I developed thru trial and error. It took a few tries, but I actually compared it to the Oregon Chai served at my local gourmet coffee shop, and I couldn't taste a difference. Of course I did my research on the net, and picked the coffee shops brains for a few secrets! It's certainly far cheaper than $2.75/cup and all the ingredients can be found at a typical supermarket. Please send your comments, questions and suggestions to totaltraxx@aol.com. I'm looking forward to hearing from someone. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

(4) 1 1/2 in. slices fresh ginger (use vegetable peeler)
(1) 2 in. cinnamon stick
(4) whole cloves
(1) heaping demitasse spoon powdered cardamom
(1) 6 in. vanilla bean (cut up into 1 in. pieces)
(1) dash nutmeg
(1) heaping Tbsp. sugar
(1/4) cup honey
(3) Bigelow Darjeeling Blend tea bags
(2) cups H2O
(2) cups milk
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil and toss in teabags then all other ingredients in order above. Reduce heat and simmer about 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Add milk and bring to boil, then take off heat. Strain through strainer or coffee filters and serve hot or in a tall glass filled with ice.

Refrigerate unused portion. To reheat, you may either heat any conventional way, or froth with cappucino maker!


Best Traditional Indian Tea---FROM SCRATCH

I read the Indian Tea recipes on your Chai Recipes page. Quite interestingly, most of these recipes are for "busy" people. Even from the well known cook expert.

I do not want to boast, but try the following traditional recipe, which is used by hundreds of thousands of Indian housewives, who have lots of time to prepare tea. Remember, good food, especially indian food, is never cooked in hurry. Try it, and if you do not like it, do not post on the net.

First, all of these ingredient should be fresh (or as fresh as possible). You can get all these spices in Indian-american grocerry stores.

1. Brooke Bond Red label, Mamri, or Tajmahal Black tea [DO NOT USE GREEN OR LEAF TEA, IT WILL RUIN THE TASTE].
2. Cloves, cinamon stick (good quality), fresh ginger (powder or prepackaged cannot be substituted), whole black pepper, cardomon pods.

3. Optional items: White khas-khas (Indian name of a spice, which is round dried seeds); and soanph (green dried, not roasted)

4. Half-and-Half milk. No other milk can be substituted (if you really want the taste of real chai)

PREPARATION METHOD FOR 1-CUP CHAI:

In a clean deep dish container, put 3/4 cup water, 1/2 cup milk (Half-and-Half), 1 full teaspoon black tea and spices as follows.

1 pod cardomon
2 pea size fresh ginger (mulched)
1-2 big size whole black pepper
1/8 to 1/6 cinnemon stick
On a hard piece of paper, crush all of them together. Immediately put this mix in dish with water and milk. Keep them on heater plate or gas range for about 15 minutes, keep stirring continuously. Add sugar to your taste. Drain on strainer and serve in a cup.

The idea is to burn water from the tea while mixing the spices into the leftover tea. You may have to experiment with the quantity of water and milk to the final quantity of tea. In my experience, 2:1 ratio works better, i.e. I use 2 cups of (milk + water) for making one cup of chai. 1 cup of water is burned in the process. This provides smooth taste of chai.

Please note: Chai making can be fun, but you cannot cut time. I have always made the best chais and never thought of time. Belive me it is time well spent.




Perfect chai to sip in peace


Ha, my favourite drink, and topic! How to make the perfect chai and then sip (note sip, not drink!) it in peace.

The Perfect Chai:

- For each cup, of chai u need about 4/5 th cup of water, u are going to lose some water in evaporation etc.. and u are going to add milk for the rest. This measure can be changed to suit your proportion of tea+milk.

- Boil the water and then pour it into the tea pot. Now ad the tea leaves, I use about 1 teaspoon/cup. - Now close the pot, and if u want to preserve the heat, close it with a sort of insulating cap u get for the pot.

- Now heat some milk separately.

- The cups can be pre-heated by rinsing with hot water.

- After the tea has brewed for 7-10 minutes, pour the tea into the cups through a strainer, add milk + sugar.

- Enjoy.


Modified Chai (doesn't need pot etc..)

- Boil the water in a regular vessel

- Turn off the gas, add chai and close the vessel with a plate so that the steam stays in

- Other steps are same

Ginger+Ilaichi chai :

- Cut some pieces of ginger, crush them with a spoon. Add it to the water when u boil it. U can also add Ilaichi (cardamom ) to add flavor.

U can try various types of tea. The best is got by mixing the so called dust tea and leaf tea. Dust adds strength, while leaf gives a distinctive flavor to it. Try Darjeeling tea, its great.

And remember tea should never be boiled, it should be brewed.


My Favorite Chai Recipe

Try this:

Boil 5 minutes, then steep 10 minutes:

1 Tbsp fennel or anise seed
6 green cardamom pods
12 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1/4" ginger root, sliced thin
1/4 tsp black pepper corns
2 bay leaves
7 Cups water
Add, bring to a boil, and simmer 5 minutes:

2 Tbsp Darjeeling tea
Add:

6 Tbsp honey or brown sugar
1 Cup milk
Yum!



Chandra Chai Moon Tea


This recipe is the culmination of much experimentation in my kitchen. I have omitted black tea, as I am not fond of caffeine. The resulting tea follows in the tradition sprung up on the west coast, particularly the SF bay area, where a fondness for strong spices and lots o' ginger seems to be most favored, savored and brewed.

**Chandra Chai**

12 (+) silver dollar-sized pieces fresh ginger (to your taste) 4-5 sticks cinnamon, broken into little pieces 1 Tblspn (T.) plus 1 tspn (t.) plus 1/2 t. green cardamom pods 2 t. plus 1/4 t. black peppercorns

1 t. whole cloves
1/2 t. fennel seeds
1/2 t. licorice root
1/2 t. allspice berries
1 vanilla bean (optional)
5 cups water
3 T. honey
soy milk or cow milk
Combine all ingredients, excepting the honey and milk, with cold water in a pot. Cover snugly! Simmer over a medium-low flame for 50 minutes. Remove from heat, but let sit, covered, for another 40-50 minutes. Filter the dreamy concoction into a suitable container. Stir in the honey and add enough milk to taste.

It is always more pleasant to savor this delectable brew in some luscious, ambient place. Light a bit o' nag champa, let its smoky tendrils curl about, and wander into waking dreamland....