Chai Tea
(2023-11-17)
Spice Mixture
- 1/2 cup green cardamom
- 1 cup black peppercorn
- 3 tablespoons clove (~250 cloves)
- 1/2 cup star anise
- 1 cup ground cinnamon
Peel cardamom, then roast all spices for 8 minutes at 350° F. Grind and mix. Makes about 3 cups.
Concentrate
- 2 kg water
- 35 g spice mixture
- 17 g crushed ginger
- 175 g sugar
- 75 g black tea
Mix spices, ginger, and sugar into water. Simmer 12 minutes. Add tea, steep 4 minutes, then strain. Makes about a liter and a half.
To serve, mix equal parts concentrate and milk, and heat.
Pictures
Spices before toasting. This is a large batch, lasting about 3 months of morning tea. The mortar and pestle helps to break up the cardamom pods, making them easier to peel.
Spices after toasting and grinding. Not everything passes through a sieve by the time its fully ground, mostly with a few bits of star anise sticking around.
The spice mixture lasts quite a while. I usually store the extra in the freezer, but haven’t experimented with storing it at room temperature to see if that’s required. If using minced ginger instead of crushed, double the amount used. Crushing the ginger is easier to process in bulk, and can be stored in covered ice cube trays.
Oh, and it always seems like too much sugar when making a large batch.
There’s some risk of boiling over if the spices are floating on top of the pot. Stirring them in, so you avoid having any pockets of dry spices, prevents this from occurring.
After simmering, turn off the heat, add the tea, and let it steep, then strain.
I really should get around to measuring the weight of the strained grounds, to determine how much of the 700 gram difference is due to wet tea leaves, and how much is due to evaporation while simmering.