CHAI

Chai What?

The Hindi word ‘CHAI’ comes from the Chinese word ‘cha’ and means tea.

If we’re talking about Chai Masala it is the masala which gives its famous flavour to the tea. But what is this masala? Masala is a spice blend. It contains, traditionally speaking, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, bay leaves and black peppercorns. The recipes for masala vary across continents, cultures, towns, families and countries (ex. Nepal) and spices can be added or left out. It became so popular that the word masala is often left out. Hence when we talk about Chai, we’re talking about its well known form Chai Masala. 

In our range we have 3 different ones: Chai Masala (golden classic), Koko Chai (delicious coconut) and the BIY Chai (Blend It Yourself). 

How to make this glorious tea?

Milk or no milk? Sweetened or not? That’s the question. Like all beautiful things in life it’s up to you to choose. Just a few rules to keep in mind: 90°C for water/milk/almond/soy milk and steep for 5 minutes. You can steep our tea slightly longer but when it turns bitter you’ve over-steeped. 

Sweetener? Too much is too much but just stay away from aspartame. 

My recipe for my all time favourite? 

I prefer a strong brewed Chai, so I take slightly more tea in my cup (actually, I never make just one cup, I make a huge pot). 

The general rule is 1 teaspoon/cup (about 3gr). 

I make my tea 50/50: 50% full fat milk, 50% water. But like I said before, you can play with it to your liking. 

I use cane sugar to sweeten: 1 teaspoon/cup. I don’t use honey in this case because for me it gives too much of its typical ‘honey flavour’ to it, but again, up to you! 

The brilliant thing with steeping loose leaf tea is that you can reuse it. So 1 teaspoon of Chai gives me the whole day of pleasure re-steeping the same tea.

Heat up your milk water, preferably just below boiling point (a lot of steam), fill your teapot / cup, add tea filter, wait the longest 5 minutes ever. 

Take out your filter and leave it to rest for your next steeping. 

Add your sweetener or not, stir, take a deep breath, put a smile on your face and burn your mouth because you were too eager. 

So set aside and wait again 2 loooong minutes. 

And now, sit back, relax and enjoy this magical potion you’ve brewed yourself!

yeh… guess what I’m gonna do next?