Chai Latte-esque
heh
Lately, I’ve been drinking some chai latte drinks. (For those who need a translation, “chai†is just the latest faddish way to say “teaâ€â€”yeh, I know all the linguistic gobbledegook. It’s still just a faddish way to say “teaâ€). And “latte†is the la-di-da way to say “milkâ€.
But the chai lattee drinks I’ve been introduced to by Lovely Daughter are a tad more complex than the old milk-in-tea (or cream-in-tea) I used to drink. Kind of a “la-di-da†version of my mom’s old spiced tea recipe with a few twists.
But the mixes and pre-mixed liquids all seemed just a little too “not me,†if you will . So, I’m sipping my first effort at approximating a chai latte drink from scratch.
Ingredients
- 6 individual serving bags of green tea
- 12 cloves of, well, cloves
- 6 cardamom pods
- 1 stick of cinnamon, ground finely (about a tablespoon or a little less)
- milk
- honey
- water (12 “coffee cups†or 12X 6-oz~ Just 2 quarts and an 8-oz measuring cup)
Doing the deed
- Opened the bags and dumped the tea into the filter basket of our drip coffee maker. Added the ground cinnamon on top.
- Crushed the cardamom pods to release the seeds; crushed the cloves.
- Tied (well, stapled) the cloves and cardamom in some of the emptied paper tea bags and dropped them into my coffee carafe.
- Brewed as for coffee.
- When the brewing was done, I let the cardamom/clove bags steep a bit (5 minutes?) and removed them.
- Nuked about 4-oz of milk in a mug for 30 seconds
- Added a tablespoonful of coffee creamer (I like the texture of CoffeeMate, and its no-fat version is as smooth as the regular, so… )
- Topped off with spiced tea from the carafe, sweetened to tste with honey.
Not bad. Needs something citrus, though. Maybe dried lemon peel or dried orange peel. Maybe a tad more or less on the spices. It’ll be fun experimenting.
As it is, though, good enough for a warmer-upper on a fall day/evening. It’s not coffee, but it’s… nice.
Update: Second cup tried no milk, just creamer. Hmmm, a tad better. Maybe I should try it with cream sometime. Still needs some dried lemon or orange peel, I think.
Update #2: Oops. Forgot. Added just a pinch of nutmeg to the top of the tea leaves before brewing. Nutmeg just seems to enhance the high notes the cardamom adds.
