Chai Tea - Yummmmmm

When I lived in Saskatoon I used to take the odd cooking class at Wild Serendipity.  One of them was a night of East Indian cooking, and what is a meal of East Indian without a cup of authentic homemade Chai Tea!!  This is so easy to make, and so wonderful to have the aroma of the spices in the kitchen.  When I made some Chai for Nathan's parent's last night, Joanne (Nathan's Mom) asked for the recipe.  Well, I don't have a real specific recipe, but I do have some guidelines, so here they are!

Chai Tea

Cinnamon sticks
green cardamom pods
whole cloves
pepper corns
star anise
Fresh ginger

water
Red Rose tea bags
Homo Milk
sugar


General Instructions:
Boil some water in a pot and add all the spices.  Let simmer for 20 minutes or longer.  It doesn't matter if the water level boils down, quantity is not important here.
Add the tea bags and let steep.  (5 minutes according to my British Gramma for a good cup of tea!)
Add the milk, and bring to a boil, stirring constantly so as not to burn the milk.  Letting it simmer for a few more minutes will give a nice consistency to the milk. 
Then add sugar to taste.  I find the sugar enhances the flavor of the spices, and I've heard the Indo-Canadians like it quite sweet!!  (Just checked my notes and the cooking teacher said about 1/3 cup sugar to 8 cups of milk).

Pour through a strainer to remove the spices, then into mugs and add a sprinkle of nutmeg or cinnamon or any desired sprinkle!

Serve and enjoy!!

But what about quantities you say?  Well this is where you go by trial and error.  For a guideline, I'll give you the rough quantities I used the other night...

Water: just enough to simmer the spices.  (I like more milk than water in my chai).

Spices:
2 1/2 cinnamon sticks  (the extra half because my cinnamon is old and not as fragrant as it used to be)
15 peppercorns
10 cloves
10 green cardamom pods. (Squish and crack before throwing them in)
2 star anise
an inch of ginger, chopped
(When I'm making this for just myself, I'll use half the amount of spices and let it simmer longer to get the most out of them).

Milk: Enough to serve as many people as I want to serve.  (I eyeballed it to make enough for 3 people in large mugs).
Tea bags: Initially I put 3 tea bags (one per person) but then when I thought I'd added too much sugar, I added another tea bag to add a fuller flavour.
Sugar: I put in a quarter cup, and initially it seemed to sweet to me but once I added another tea bag and let the spices simmer a bit more, the flavour turned out perfect!!!

More Christmas Presents!!

Making Chai Tea

Grandma and Grandpa watching Brenna