Tea & Recipes

Best Traditional Indian Tea

Ingredients
1. 4 cups water
2. 3 to 4 tsp black tea leaves
3. 2 inch ginger for a strong taste or 1 inch ginger for a milder taste, peeled & either crushed or grated.
4. 3-4 cardamom, crushed or powdered in a mortar-pestle(optional)
5. ½ to ¾ cup regular milk or cashew milk or soy milk - add more if you want a milky tea
6. Add sugar according to your taste

Instructions
In a clean deep dish container, put 3/4 cup water, 1/2 cup milk (Half-and-Half), 1 full teaspoon black tea and spices as follows. 1 pod cardamom, 2 pea size fresh ginger (mulched), 1-2 big size whole black pepper and 1/8 to 1/6 cinnamon stick on a hard piece of paper, crush all of them together. Immediately put this mix in dish with water and milk. Keep them on heater plate or gas range for about 15 minutes, keep stirring continuously. Add sugar to your taste. Drain on strainer and serve in a cup.
The idea is to burn water from the tea while mixing the spices into the leftover tea. You may have to experiment with the quantity of water and milk to the final quantity of tea. In my experience, 2:1 ratio works better, i.e. I use 2 cups of (milk + water) for making one cup of chai. 1 cup of water is burned in the process. This provides smooth taste of chai.
Please note: Chai making can be fun, but you cannot cut time.

NON-FAT MASALA CHAI (makes 3 cups)

Ingredients
1. 3 cups of Water
2. 2 to 3 teaspoons loose Tea Leaves
3. 1/4 cup (or more) Evaporated Skimmed Milk (more information given below)
4. Sugar (or Equal or Nutrasweet) to taste

Instructions Place the water and chai masala in a saucepan and put to boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium low, cover the saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the tea leaves (or tea bags). Please note that the amount can be varied depending on personal preference. Continue to boil for about 1 more minute. Add the evaporated skimmed milk (directly from the can). Boil once more. Strain and pour into individual cups or tea kettle. Serve with sugar (or Equal/Nutrasweet) on the side.

DRY CHAI MASALA (makes 3 tablespoons; for Masala Chai)

First, all of these ingredient should be fresh (or as fresh as possible). You can get all these spices in Indian-american grocerry stores.

Ingredients
1 black cardamom pod
Seeds from 25 green cardamom pods
4 cloves
1/2 tea spoon fennel seeds (variyali)
1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon carom seeds (ajwain)
- Optional 1 tea spoon dried, ground ginger powder -
1 tea spoon ground cinnamon powder

Instructions
Grind all the ingredients in a spice grinder until fine. Remove into a glass bottle & store in cool, dark place. This blend stays fresh for about 6 months. Evaporated Skimmed Milk is available in cans in most supermarkets in the dried milk, coffee, sugar section.