Is spicy masala chai difficult to make at home?

If you ever tried a proper chai, you may have noticed how different it is from regular tea with milk. In fact, proper chai is made differently than a cup of tea with milk. It’s simmered rather than brewed, usually contains lots of sugar and has more than just a splash of milk. Making this delicious tea is more than just brewing a cup of pre-made chai tea blend and adding milk. However, making spicy masala chai at home doesn’t need to be difficult at all.

A few simple tips to keep in mind:

• Always crush your spices using pestle and mortar
• Dry roast spices in a pan before adding water
• Add water first, bring it to a boil and then add tea leaves
• After a few minutes, add milk and sugar and stir
• Don’t forget the pulling process – pour it from one saucepan to the other a couple of time

You can use a pre-made chai blend too, but don’t skip the simmering step.

Ingredients for making spicy masala chai

Chai with chilli is a masala chai with chilli. A typical masala chai will usually contain ginger, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon, but there are dozens of other ingredients you can use. These include mace blades, black peppercorns, fennel seeds, vanilla and even chilli. Chilli is rarely used for blending tea, but when it is, you’ll usually find it in chai and red rooibos blends.

Spices

You can make chai with any spice you want. However, the most common ones are ginger, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon. Mace blades are less common, but incredibly aromatic. Although they sound and look quite exotic, they are actually an outer layer of nutmeg. This recipe uses mace blades, cloves, cardamom and ½ of a small chilli pod. Dried small red chillis are another ingredient you’ll need for making this chai with chilli. You’ll also need green cardamom, cloves and cinnamon.

Milk

When making a rich homemade chai, always use full fat (whole) milk. Although semi-skimmed milk may work too, it will undoubtedly offer less creaminess. If you are using a milk alternative, choose barista milks with creamier textures.

Sugar

Use either regular white granulated sugar or light brown sugar. Chai will always need a sweetener, as the simmering process will increase the bitterness. Start by adding one teaspoon and add more if needed.

Tea leaves

The best tea leaves for making a homemade spicy masala chai are usually broken Assam leaves. You can use tea bags too, but they may not always offer a rich deep flavour. Avoid stale or weak tasting teas. All ingredients, especially tea, will influence the flavour of chai. Chai tea leaves don’t need to be of a super high quality, but they do need to be aromatic and fresh.

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Spicy Masala Chai with Chilli

Homemade masala chai tea from a scratch

Course Drinks

Keyword Black Tea, Chai, Chilli

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Equipment

• 2 small saucepan
• Pestle and mortar

Ingredients

• 1 cardamom
• 2 cloves
• 1/5 piece of small mace blade
• 1 cm cinnamon stick
• 1-2 teaspoons sugar
• 150 ml milk
• 150 ml water
• ½ to 1/4 small chilli pod mini chili, depending on how hot it is

Instructions

• Gather all spices and crush them using a pestle and mortar.
• Add spices to a small clean saucepan and dry roast them over medium-high heat.
• Add water and bring it to a boil over medium-high heat.
• Reduce the heat to medium-low, add tea and chilli and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
• Add sugar and milk and bring it to a boil again, then reduce the heat and simmer for a few minutes.
• Strain the tea into a clean saucepan. Remove the spices and tea leaves from the other saucepan. Using these two small saucepans, pour the tea from a slight height from one into the other a few times. You can follow this process using two jugs or two bigger mugs, but small saucepans will be easier to use.
• When the tea is bubbly, pour itinto a serving cup.

More chai recipes

The post Spicy Masala Chai Recipe appeared first on All That Tea.

Why did we try steeping vegetables with tea?

While at first it may not seem appealing to have a cup of vegetable flavoured tea, let’s look at it from another perspective. Many types of tea, especially green tea, will have a naturally fresh vegetal flavour. Japanese sencha may have light spinach notes, gyokuro is famous for its seaweed umami flavour and Chinese Mao Jian is vegetal and grassy. All these flavours have a potential to pair well with vegetables. Plus, earthy beetroots and sweet carrots may go well with fruit and black teas.

However, the flavour of many pure green teas can easily get lost in a heavily flavoured blend. Although gunpowder tea and some types of senchas aare great for blending and flavouring, many of them aren’t. The tea we chose is rarely used in flavoured blends – Chinese Dragon Well or Long Jing tea. Long Jing has unique flat leaves and is lighter than other green teas. It’s nutty, sweet and vegetal, and many stronger ingredients would ruin its delicate flavour. And that’s exactly why it seemed like a good idea to steep it together with some fresh vegetables.

How to steep vegetables with green tea

1. When making a cup of green tea with vegetables, choose vegetables that are edible raw, such as:

• • • Baby spinach
    • Kale
    • Celeriac root
    • Celery
    • Carrots
    • Beetroot
    • Cucumbers
    • Peppers
    • Sugar pea

Avoid vegetables that shouldn’t be eaten raw, such as potatoes or beans, or those that may give a VERY strong flavour – such as onions and garlic (although, garlic tea exists too, and potatoes make a great milk alternative!)

2. Wash it thoroughly, thinly slice it and steep together with 1 teaspoon of tea leaves.
3. Don’t use boiling water for brewing green tea and don’t over-steep it. Water temperature should be around 70-80 degrees Celsius (158-176°F), depending on the tea type.
4. Steep it for 2-3 minutes and strain. You can re-steep the same leaves once or twice.

5 different vegetables with green tea test

To give you a good idea how it tastes, we tried steeping pure green tea with a carrot, beetroot, celeriac root, chilli pepper and cucumber. Here’s how it tastes.

1. Carrot green tea

Carrots are popular for their sweetness and distinctive flavour that can pair well  with many other ingredients, and with green tea too. A real proof carrots are great in desserts is the classic carrot cake.  Steeped with green tea leaves, they add a light orange tone and a light top and bottom carrot note, with leaving the green tea flavour intact. Should you try it? Yes, if you like the flavour of carrots, try it iced and with optional ingredients such as mango or pineapple.

2. Chilli pepper green tea

 

Chilli is actually a popular ingredient in tea blends, especially rooibos and chai blends. It adds a very strong and vegetal scent to tea and doesn’t influence the colour. Chilli peppers give a hot, but surprisingly very drinkable tea. It’s strong, spicy, but the flavour of green tea is still there. Not convinced you should try it? Think of it as a stronger substitute for ginger and a good ingredient for making a comforting and warming green tea on cool winter mornings.

3. Celeriac green tea

 

Celeriac root has a very similar flavour to celery, with an additional earthy note. It’s often used for making creamy soups or to add flavour to vegetable and chicken clear soups. So, can you steep it with green tea too? In fact, you can. It gives a very delicate touch without ruining the green tea flavour. It doesn’t change the colour either. Is it worth trying? Yes, especially for making an iced tea, steeped together with herbs and fruits such as rosemary and raspberries.

4. Beetroot green tea

 

Beetroot is one of the most versatile root vegetable in the world. It tastes great sweet, sour and salty, and has a beautiful intense colour that will instantly change the colour of green tea. Nutty and toasty notes of green tea pair really well with earthy beetroot, but the flavour is distinctive. Meaning, if you like beetroots, you will enjoy it because it will alter the flavour more than many other vegetables. The best way to drink it? It would make for an amazing proper sweet, iced tea – just use a stronger green tea such as gunpowder.

5. Cucumber green tea

 

Is cucumber tea tasty? Cucumbers are a must try for steeping with green tea! They add a super flavour note to green tea, unlike any other vegetable. They can make green tea taste sweeter and cooler, and just perfect for daily summer sipping. You don’t need to worry about adding too much either – cucumbers are light enough not to ruin the tea. You can try it iced and with a slice of lemon too.

Is it worth trying to steep tea with vegetables?

Definitely! You can experiment with your favourite vegetables or create even more intrinsic flavours by adding more ingredients. Steep them together with green tea that has a vegetal and fresh flavour. Keep the steeping time up to 3 minutes and drink hot or iced.

Need more ideas on how to flavour tea?

• Read which fresh fruits are great for steeping with black tea

The post Is cucumber tea tasty? 5 different vegetables steeped with tea appeared first on All That Tea.