More than you care to know, but I was not sure what spices were used.
Also probably explains why my favorite grocery store tea is Constant Comment. (Basically a black tea with spices, orange, clove flavor.)
Sweetener
Plain white
sugar,
Demerara sugar, other
brown sugars,
palm or coconut sugars, or
honey is used.
Jaggery is also used as a sweetener, mostly in rural parts of India. A large quantity of sugar may be required to bring out the flavor of the spices; one recipe[
which?] uses three tablespoons of sugar in 3½ cups of chai.
Condensed milk can also be added as a dual-purpose sweetener and dairy addition.
Milk
Usually, whole milk is used for its richness. Generally, masala chai is made by mixing ¼ to ½ parts milk with water and heating the liquid to near-boiling (or even full boiling). As noted above, some people like to use condensed milk in their masala chai to double as the sweetener.
http://www.disboards.com/wiki/File:Contents_of_a_bag_of_chai_tea.jpg http://www.disboards.com/wiki/File:Contents_of_a_bag_of_chai_tea.jpg
Spices and cut tea leaves
Spices
The traditional masala chai is a bracing, strongly spiced beverage brewed with so-called "warm" spices. The basic chai wallah tea uses fresh
ginger and green
cardamom pods. Most masala chai found in restaurants or homes incorporates one or more of the following:
cardamom,
cinnamon,
ginger,
fennel seeds,
peppercorn, and
cloves.
Traditionally,
cardamom is a dominant note, supplemented by other spices such as cloves, ginger, or black pepper; the latter two add a pleasantly piquant flavour. In India, fresh ginger is often used.
However, in Western India, fennel and black pepper are expressly avoided.[
citation needed] The
Kashmiri version of chai is brewed with green tea instead of black tea and has a more subtle blend of flavorings: almonds, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and sometimes
saffron. In
Bhopal, typically, a pinch of salt is added.
Other possible ingredients include
nutmeg,
rose flavouring (where rose petals are boiled along with the loose-leaf tea), or
liquorice root.
Outside of India
As the popularity of masala chai has spread around the world, the nature of the beverage has changed in various ways beyond the redundant terminology noted above. Its original form remains available in restaurants that serve South Asian cuisine, but outside those venues, many Westerners are just as likely to consume their "chai" as a slushy iced beverage resembling a
milkshake as to drink it as hot spiced tea
Tea-based mixes/concentrates
Liquid "chai concentrates" have become very popular for their convenience, as these spiced, sweetened tea-based syrups merely require dilution with milk, water, or both to create a flavorful hot or cold beverage. Most coffeehouse chains use commercial liquid concentrates instead of brewing their own chai from scratch. Dry powdered or granular mixes similar to
instant coffee are also commercially available.
Both dry instant mixes and liquid concentrates can be replicated at home. A liquid concentrate can be made by brewing an unusually concentrated pot of highly spiced tea, so that the dilution of a small amount into a cup of hot water or a glass of cold milk results in roughly the same concentration of tea as in a normally-proportioned brew; e.g., to make a syrup from which one ounce suffices to make one eight-ounce cup of normal chai when diluted, brew tea (and the proportional quantity of spices) at eight times normal concentration.
Similarly, unsweetened iced-tea powder can be tailored to individual taste with powdered spices, sugar, and (if desired for convenience and texture) dry nonfat milk and dry
non-dairy creamer; the result can be mixed with hot water to produce a form of instant chai masala. This form of dry mix has certain disadvantages, however: the powdered spices may leave an unpleasant grainy residue at the bottom of the cup, and it may dissolve poorly in cold water, especially in the presence of dry milk/creamer powders.
Other chai shortcuts
Many Western supermarkets now sell pre-packaged single-serving
teabags of "chai". The packaged directions generally call for steeping the small bag of ground spices and tea leaves/dust in a cup of hot water for several minutes longer than plain teabags, resulting in a beverage which is slightly stronger than the average teabag brew but still not as intense as traditional preparations.
Some American supermarkets also carry bottles of "chai spice" alongside their dried
herbs and other
spices. Unlike Indian spice mixtures, the American ones are generally made from powdered spices (cinnamon tends to be the dominant flavor) and sometimes sugar; this mixture can be added at the last minute to an already-brewed cup of tea as there is no need (or way) to strain off the solids.
Cold "chai"
As an alternative to the hot tea format, several types of cold "chai" beverages have become popular in the United States. These range in complexity from a simple spiced
iced tea without milk to a
slush of spiced tea, ice, and milk (or
non-dairy creamer) mixed in a
blender and topped with
whipped cream. This latter combination is known as a
chai frappuccino blended crème at
Starbucks or a
blended chai latte at
It's a Grind Coffee House or other coffee houses.
Components
Many Western commercial preparations such as
Oregon Chai use non-traditional ingredients such as
vanilla or
chocolate, relegating the traditional masala spices to a relatively minor role. A company in the UK called ChaiChai produces versions of chai made with loose leaf tea, using flavours such as chocolate and vanilla while keeping the traditional spices otherwise intact.
During the Christmas season, a quick chai fix can be made by combining plain tea with eggnog as a convenient pre-spiced, pre-sweetened dairy product.
Non-tea-based variants may be prepared with herbal
tisanes such as
rooibos, or with the South American beverage
yerba mate.
Some coffeehouses in the United States offer a version of masala chai augmented with espresso, but this beverage does not have any one universally recognized name. Depending on the establishment, it may be called "java chai", "red eye chai", "chai charger", "tough guy chai", "dirty chai", or many other different names. However, despite the common tendency in many countries to use the term "latte" to mean "cafe latte", the term "chai latte" does not generally imply the presence of coffee in the beverage; see the
Spiced tea terminology above.
