Chai Iced Tea with Milk

Helga Glaesel de BlandingOctober 23, 2019

This post is also available in / Esta entrada también está disponible en ESPAÑOL (SPANISH)

Chai tea is a drink that has gained a lot of popularity in coffee shops in recent years. It has a spicy flavor and is an alternative to coffee that can be taken hot, or cold. With or without milk.

At home I make pitchers of chai to keep in the refrigerator, especially when the end of the year is approaching, and we crave the flavors of cinnamon, ginger and cloves.

A basic mixture of chai has ginger, cloves, black peppercorn, cinnamon, cardamom and its base is black tea. I have read that it can also be prepared with green tea, but I have not tried this variation yet.

In the recipe below we share the recipe that I like, with the amounts that I use, but it can vary according to your preference. You can add more of everything, or more of some of the ingredients and less of others.

Each of the components for making chai tea offers health benefits; I heard somewhere that if we drank chai tea every day, the changes in our health would be remarkable. It improves digestion, this is attributed to ginger, it has anti-inflammatory properties that we can attribute to clove, it improves the immune system when we add cardamom and cinnamon offers properties that help lower cholesterol levels and maintain healthy blood pressure. In short, it is not only a fashionable drink, but it will be very beneficial if made with quality ingredients and if we sweeten it with honey instead of sugar, which has its own benefits.

Helga

Chai Iced Tea with Milk

Recipe from The Foodies’ Kitchen
Yields approx 6 cups (without milk)

Ingredients:

2 quarts of water
20 black peppercorns
20 cardamom pods
20 whole cloves
8 slices of fresh ginger
2-3 sticks of cinnamon
2 star anise
1 black tea bag
1/4 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
honey, for sweetening
milk (whole, skim, almond, soy)

Procedure:

Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil. As soon as it starts boiling, drop the spices into the water: peppercorn, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, star anise. Follow by the slices of ginger. Let it boil gently for about 6 minutes.
Add the tea bag, cover the pot and lower the heat to let it simmer for 30-40 minutes.
Remove from the heat, add the vanilla and let it come to room temperature.
Refrigerate to let it become cold.
Serve a glass with ice, 3/4 of the glass full of iced chai tea and top with 1/4 milk of your choice. If you like, sweeten with honey.

Note: It can be taken hot, with milk and honey.

Have you made this recipe? Please let me know how it turned out for you! Leave a comment below and share a picture with the hashtag #thefoodieskitchen!

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