Sunday, March 15, 2009

Quick Chai Tea Latte

I've been into tea lately. More specifically chai tea. It happened when I bought some cardamom when I didn't really know what it was and thought I might want it for this dish. But upon smelling it, I knew it was all wrong for mussels and all right for tea.
My first experience with chai tea was in India. It was brought to us in a small teacup and was immediately pungeant. Nothing like the watered down version served at Starbucks or even my own Crane Coffee. They were all missing the cardamom (and probably heavy cream). My mom and sister use boxes of Oregon Chai to make hot tea nearly every afternoon in the winter. But it's me, and I wanted to do things the hard way.
So I boil some water on the stove, heat half a cup of milk in the the microwave and steap my earl grey decaf tea. For the chai part, I toss in cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom and a bit of sugar. It's pretty good, but one of those spices doesn't dissolve and it's really just not quite right (I suspect the ginger). Anyone have any suggestions for a quick, one-cup chai tea recipe?
P.S. I like how this photos are so pretty and artful, but then the tea is called bigelow. Like Deuce Bigelow Male Jigalo (that one movie--I never saw it). Classy. Recommendations for a better tea are welcome as well.

2 comments:

Jess said...

I also love chai tea and am constantly on the hunt for it.
Most of the authentic looking recipes call for using whole spices and making a little packet with them inside cheesecloth or something. You can pick and choose which spices you like best.
There seem to be a million "authentic" chai recipes, and a million variations on what spices to include. I bought a box of Oregon Chai but I just don't like it very much. To me it tastes even more watered down than Tazo Chai, the boxed stuff that Starbucks uses.

Oh, for a good kind of tea check out a natural store (or the naturals section @ Hyvee) for a brand called The Republic of Tea. They have loose leaf and bagged tea. Twinings is pretty good, too.

Unknown said...

duly noted. i'll have to try the republic of tea kind. thanks