August 16th, 2012
Summer Favourite: Chilly Chai from Scratch
When I was growing up my mom started taking trips to explore India. Whenever she would come home her bags would be packed to the brim with rugs, hats, colourful notebooks with tissue thin paper, and everything was steeped in the smell of incredible spices. We adopted lots of traditions when she came home, and aside from the food (oh the food!) my favourite was definitely homemade chai.
It’s suddenly started to get cool in my city, making it comfortable to wear jeans again or to wear a sweater at night but until now it has been hot! This recipe can be made hot or cold, but since it’s probably hotter where you are I’m showing you how to make a batch of the cool stuff.
We’re all a little pampered with our chai tea bags and chai lattes, but with a few basic spices and some black tea you can have dirt cheap, delicious chai until it’s cool enough to skip the steps where you cool it off!
Chilly Chai from Scratch
Best made in the evening so you can enjoy it all the next day :)
Grab:
- 6 Cups of water
- 3 Tbsp. black loose leaf tea (any tea will work, including tea bags- but purists prefer Darjeeling)
- 5 Cinnamon sticks (reduce to 3 if you’re not a cinnamon fiend)
- 1 Tbsp black peppercorns
- 2 tsp nutmeg
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 10 whole cloves
- 1 tsp ground cardamom (or 6 pods if you can find them)
- 1 Cup of Milk or Silk’s Vanilla Coffee Creamer
- 1/2 Cup brown sugar (or stevia to taste)
Okay!
1. In a medium sauce pan, add all spices to water and simmer on medium for 10 mins. Strain out the spices and discard.
2. Add tea leaves, milk and sweetener and bring to a boil, whisking to ensure sweetener fully dissolves. Steep to desired strength or 5 – 6 minutes. Strain out the tea leaves and discard.
3. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature, then pour into a pitcher and cool overnight. Enjoy over ice until the leaves start to fall!
This looks so delicious and refreshing. I love cold chai! Thanks for sharing!
ooo how fantastic!! love! x
I love chai but I’ve never attempted to make it. Thanks for the motivation!
this is so exciting! i’ve never made chai at home, i can’t wait to make this.
thank you!
Oh wow talk about yummy looking! I’m going to have to give this a try for sure.
A friend of mine recently got me addicted to chai tea! It’s literally all I want to drink. To me it tastes like pumpkin pie, so it has me craving Autumn and cooler weather…even when I drink it cold!
I just made this, and it turned out fantastic! Thanks for the recipe.
It’s actually winnter where I am (Chile), and since it’s my fav season for hot tea, I would love to hear what changes do yo make when making the hot version of this. Love yor blog, and it’s nice to read stuff about your life and family growing up!
Iced chai is actually one of my most favorite things! After working as a barista where we had a pretty tasty but way too sweet chai syrup, I realized I can make it at home just like making iced lemon black tea.
I love the idea of making a whole pitcher at once, too. Definitely going to try that.
i am making this as we speak! so stoked! thanks for the recipe! exclamation points!
I love the taste of chai and I love that you can have it chilled – will be trying this out, thanks for the recipe! xxxx
After three years of living in India, I never DID develop a taste for chai! I think it’s the sweet-sweet-sweet! I’ll try to make some myself and skip all of the sweetener and see what I think!
:)
YUM! I love chai. I’m going to try this. Thanks for sharing!
YUM! I love chai. I’m going to try this. Thanks for sharing!
This sounds AMAZING! Excited to try!
I will definitely be making lots of this once fall comes around. Thanks for sharing!