Silverknife - Food: Basics of Chai

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I discovered chai, the sweet, spicy tea popular throughout much of Asia, on my last night at Burning Man in 2007, and I've been a confirmed addict ever since. It's uniquely comforting with its blend of black tea, warm spices, milk and sweetness. What we in the West call "chai" is really Masala chai (chai meaning simply tea in several South Asian languages).

Many coffee shops now sell a chai latte, in which steamed milk is mixed with a pre-made powdered or liquid chai mixture - the best I've had was at Dreamers cafe, where they use Oregon Chai concentrate. And there are some very good chai teabags available now - Stash make a particularly good one, which is really just tea leaves and spices in a teabag. But there's nothing like chai made by hand to your own recipe and it's really very simple to prepare.

The spices you use are entirely up to you - there is no definite "correct" chai recipe, and flavours vary enormously around the world. Experiment with flavour combinations until (if ever) you find your perfect blend.

Here's my basic preparation method:

Ingredients (per cup)
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of milk (I use half water and half milk to keep the calories down a little, but it's even more luxurious if you use all milk)
1 teaspoon of black tea leaves (or a tea bag).
Sweetener - I love honey in my chai, but you can use white or brown sugar or (if you must) artificial sweetener.

Spices
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon of cinammon
1 clove, crushed with the blade of a knife
1/2 inch of fresh ginger root, in thin slices

Preparation
Put the water, milk and spices in a small saucepan, and simmer on a low heat for about ten minutes. Turn off the heat, add the tea leaves or teabag and allow to stand for 5-6 minutes, stirring a couple of times.

This may be longer than you would brew your tea - chai is traditionally brewed stronger than regular tea, in fact in some places the tea leaves are boiled in the mixture. For me, that brings too much bitterness out of the tea, so I just give it a slightly longer steep.

Strain through a tea strainer or a coffee filter, sweeten to taste and drink with relish.

That's the very minimum set of spices - I'm making it that way this week because that's what's in my cupboard at the moment. A good cup of chai can include almost any combination of cinammon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, vanilla, cardamom, star anise, black peppercorns, mint leaves, almonds, saffron, liquorice or almost any spice you can think of. Cram as much flavour in there as you can!