Homemade Chai Latte

Lately I’ve been really into herbs and spices. I have nowhere near enough tupperware to house all the strange types I’ve bought, so they’re just stashed in my cupboard!  My obsession has moved from traditional Middle Eastern cuisine, into Indian, and now into drinks. This weekend I experimented with two new drinks- homemade iced tea (no sugar added), and homemade chai tea (also no sugar).

The no sugar thing is because we’ve been reading/listening about the effects sugar has on our body, but I’ll talk more about that another time.

Homemade chai tea (and then chai latte) is a lot easier then you’d think. And on a sweltering hot day like today, an iced chai latte was the perfect relief!

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Ingredients:

* 5 cups water

* 2 teaspoon fresh ginger (chopped into 1cm pieces- approx 3)
* 1 whole star anise
* Sliced orange peel (approx 1/4 of a SMALL orange)
* 4 pieces cinnamon bark; 1 1/2 inch
* 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds
* 10 whole cloves
* 5 whole peppercorns

* 1/4 cup black tea leaves
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1/4 cup honey
* 3 cups milk

Process:

Put your water in a small saucepan. Add the ginger, star anise, orange, cinnamon, cardamon, cloves and peppercorns to the water and bring to a simmer.

Once it’s simmering, add the tea leaves. Simmer again for 15 minutes. Take off the heat and add the vanilla and honey. Use your personal judgement with the amount of honey. I actually found 1/4 cup too much honey, so add part then keep adding it.

This is basically your chai tea. You can add this concentrate to water to have a herbal tea, or keep following the recipe for the chai latte.

For a hot chai latte, bring your milk to a simmer, and add the concentrate. Serve.

I recommend making the concentrate, and storing it in the fridge. Then on a hot day, use it in a similar manner to a cordial- add a bit to your cup (a bit less then cordial), fill with milk, add ice. Also, if you wanted it as a hot drink at night, make it the same way, and instead of putting ice in it, stick it in the microwave for a few minutes!

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