Excursion in Chai

Research

Reading around, i found there was a pretty good consensus on what the base ingredients for Indian chai are. However, not only was there little consensus on the brewing process, there were a lot of diametrically opposed opinions. And so the fun begins...

Base Ingredients

• cardamon
• cinnamon
• black pepper
• ginger
• sugar
• black tea

Brewing

Some opposed opinions:

• milk in the brew pot / milk in the cup (after the brewing)
• boil the tea leaves / never boil the tea leaves

Some consensus:

• green tea is too mild and becomes bitter too quick
• there are a lot more spices to be added (but we don't know how to translate the indian names)

Notable comments:

• use white peppercorns

References

• Chai! Recipes
• Culinary Teas: Masala Chai

Excursions

First Attempt

16 April 2005

This was done on a day of mindfulness.

materials & procedure

1. into bowl put:
   • 2 cinnamon stick (crush)
   • 32 black peppercorn (crush)
   • 4 white peppercorn (crush)
   • 24 cardamon pods
   • 16 clove
   • 2 chunks crystallized ginger (dice)
   • 2 cubes fresh ginger (dice)
   • (forgot sucanat, but should have thrown some in here, just a little)
2. heat to boil:
   • 2 cups water
   • 1/2 cup half-and-half
3. add bowl of spices to liquid
4. create a Glenna-reflux by inverting the glass lid and putting ice in it.
5. simmer 15 minutes (or whenever you can't keep adding ice)
6. remove lid, dump water, put back on, bring to boil and turn off heat.
7. add tea (and sucanat i forgot)
8. let sit 10 mins
9. pour through strainer into cup

rationale

Eessential oil absorption. The milk hopefully provides a fat which can absorb the essential oils, so it went in with the water. The Glenna-reflux was specifically designed for keeping in the chai essentials as well.

Gentle with the tea. Since I'm used to chinese teas and the care one takes in not using boiled water and most of the time using a water far below boiling, the idea of throwing the tea in at the beginning did not sit well with me. So, get the mix hot and throw it in at the end for a steeping.

results

Wow! The ginger had some serious spice kick! It wasn't so strong I couldn't handle it, but it was definitely spicey, unfortunately, not so gingery. Kinda like when making ginger juice. Hmm, or was it the cardmon. Is cardamon spicey? The cardmon was certainly going strong. The peppercorn amount seemed perfect. The cinnamon tasted great, but could probably be pulled back a little. Forgot to add the vanilla, I think it would go well.

1 1/2 cups of tea was produced.

I am currently simmering another small batch of water and milk in the same pot to see if I can pull another half or whole cup of goodness out of the spices.

next time

• add coriander
• half the cinnamon
• half the fresh ginger, but add powdered ginger
• include sugar in the beginning (and go for sweeter to help bring out flavors)
• simmer longer (30 - 40 mins)
• 3 cups water
• crystalized ginger should be thrown in the serving vessel at the end instead (gives something yummy to chew on)
• possibly do a final bring to boil at the end of the tea steep process and right before pouring.

Second Attempt

Strangely, this happened exactly one year later. The brewing was done at Sasha's while we were cooking awesome Japanese food. :)

16 April 2006

changes

1. into bowl
   • 1 cinnamon stick
   • 6 white peppercorn
   • 1/2 vanilla bean
   • 32 coriander
   • 14 clove
   • 4 chunks crystallized ginger
   • 1 cube fresh ginger
   • powdered ginger
   • some organic sugar
2. heat until foamy (never boil)
   • 3 cups water
   • 1 cup half and half
3. on low heat reflux for 45 minutes
4. never add tea (instead, pour into cup with brewed tea)

The tea wasn't added because it was too late for Sasha to drink caffeine. In the end, this worked out well. Just brew a really strong cup of black tea.

result

AMAZING! This stuff was officially, absolutely wonderful both by itself and with tea.