Chai tea is a spiced, sweet milky tea drink that is commonly made with cardamon and other spices, which is usually stewed and brewed black tea. Chai is an Indian tradition that has been shared and loved by the rest of the world.
Spiced chai should be the color and richness of hot chocolate and can be served either hot or cold. Depending on what type of tea you would like to have it with. Most people make the tea at first and then add the chai when they are ready to serve the spiced mixture.
Chai spice can be made at home, out of lots of different spices mixed together. Such as blackpepper, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, cardamon, vanilla bean, ginger, coriander seed, mace, nutmeg, fennel, bay leaf, and star anise. As you can see, spice chai is a combination of many, many things. The flavor is very distinct and powerful.
There is now an ‘American way’ of making spice chai, usually found at coffee shops and the ever popular Starbucks. However this is not the true version of chai. The American way is highly-sweetened and barely has the spice that true spice chai has. This is only a mini-taste of the tradition Eastern drink. We recommend making your own.
Spiced Chai Tea - An Authentic Indian Favorite and tradition
With that being said, if you are wanting the true taste of spice chai, then you can look at your local grocery and try to see if there are chai spices or spice mixes so that you can try to make your own spice chai. You can look for recipes in cookbooks or on the internet to find the true milky mixture. If your grocer does not have chai, then you can try specialty store, cooking stores, or health food stores where you may find certain spices that you regularly cannot find in the local grocery store.
There are also internet-based stores so that you can have access to all the spices you may want or need. You can try and find an online shop where you can find chai and other spices you need to make the Eastern spiced milk.
Once you have made the milky spice chai then you can start to vary the spices according to you and your family and friend’s taste. If you want a little bit less of something or more of another, then you can do what you want. If you do not want to use sugar, you might want to try honey or brown sugar. If you want the spice chai to be stronger, then try simmering the mixture with your tea as it is brewing.
Spice chai is the milky tea that has made it’s way around the world.
