Chai Latte

Chai Latte; a black tea drink with desi spices and steamed milk.

Last week I had a request (it doesn’t happen often) for a copycat Starbucks Chai Tea Latte recipe from a busy mom that loves her caffeine and having never had a Starbucks I was flummoxed. Chai Lattes I’ve only ever experienced from a powdered mix, so I took to google for a copycat recipe. Whilst searching I found that Starbucks use a concentrate and mix it with equal quantities of steamed milk, I passed the information on and apparently the results were even better than a Starbucks!

For those of us that don’t live near a Starbucks or venture into the world of cafédom I also found a homemade chai latte recipe that assumes you don’t have the concentrate and while I can’t compare it with a Starbucks it’s still extremely enjoyable.

I made a few changes to this copycat recipe; using tea bags instead of loose leaf, replacing nutmeg with allspice, the black peppercorn with ground black pepper and threw in a couple of bruised green cardamom pods because I’ve never heard of chai without cardamom.

A word for the wise, if you don’t already have a tea strainer buy one before making this, don’t do as I and haphazardly strain your chai into a kilner mug using a large fine mesh sieve!

On a cold and rainy day why go outside when you can make and enjoy this warm, aromatic and soothing chai latte in the comfort of home.

Ingredients

• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoon water, boiled
• 2 black tea bags (for me Yorkshire tea)
• 2 teaspoon raw honey
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 thumb size piece of ginger, peeled
• 2 green cardamom pods, bruised
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole milk, steamed (using steamed wand on coffee machine)
• to sweeten:
• to taste honey / sweetener of choice

Instructions

1. In a small saucepan put tea bags, honey, spices and boiled water, stir and leave to brew/simmer over low heat for 5-10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile towards the end of brewing time, In a heatproof cup warm milk in a 800w microwave for 1 minute 10 seconds then steam using wand on coffee machine until frothy.
3. Strain the chai (use a tea strainer) and divide into 2 separate mugs. Add the steamed milk into each mug, sweeten to taste.

Notes

Summary

Article Name

Chai Latte