and now for my very first post....

does anyone have any good chai recipes? yes, for those who know me i've worked in a number of coffeehouses so far, and thus i should know some good ones... and so i do (i think). but i want more, much more. i have a box of chai in my cupboard just waiting, taunting me, and i want to do something new to it. come on, give me something to do to it.

also, i'd like to know some good brands of chai, i've been hesitant to branch out.

I like it with vanilla soy milk the best. I don't make it often, but when I do that's what I use. I get that as a treat at *$s sometimes, too.

hey bill the cat!

man, i havent seen your face in ages, good to see you! you've hardly aged.
ummmmm i'd like to have some your chai ideas!

(please and thank you!)
d.

Darn it, I can't remember the brand I use when I make it at home. you have to buy the tea and the spices separtly, and it is wonderful
But if you want to go the cheater route, there is always either Tazo Chai or ORegon Chai (both products of Portland, yay!!!!)

here's a recipe I make a lot. it's from the cookbook "Plenty: A Collection of Sarah Mclachlan's Favourite Recipes." Never made any of the other recipes, as they have weird/expensive ingredients. But the pictures sure are purty.

Ash and Sarah's Chai Tea

4 cups water
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1 tsp. fennel seeds
2-3 whole cloves
1/8 tsp. powdered ginger
1/8 tsp. amchoor (mango powder, optional) (I have never used this)
4 regular tea bags
2-3 cups whole milk
Sugar to taste

Mix the water and spices together and bring to boil. Reduce to a simmer and add the tea bags. Allow to steep until desired strength is achieved. Add milk and bring to a simmer. Add sugar to taste.

I usually use black tea, and I like it strong so only 2 cups of milk instead of 3.
When you pour yourself a cup, watch out for the nasty spice sludge at the bottom. . .

ps- welcome, bill the cat

let's see if i can remember...ok, I don't know the measurements, but here are the ingrediments: Warm milk, ginger (ground works fine), allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon. Warm the milk, add the rest of the ingredients to taste. Enjoy. (i hope i remembered that right!)

An easy (and good) version...

Get Celestial Seasoning's "Mountain Chai" teabags... (Lipton's chai bags svck a$s). I've also tried making chai from scratch (black tea, milk, cardamum, cinnamon, more spices), but it was way-hard and not as good.

Fill a pint glass half way with water, add teabag.
Stick in microwave for 1:30 (on high).
The tea is steeping while it's cooking.
Take out, stir, add sugar (if desired). I use 2 tsp of sugar. Remove bag.
Add warm milk up until 1/4 inch from the top of pint glass.
Add frothed milk to the very top 1/4 inch.

Enjoy!

For frothed milk, I use the easy-peasy hand-pump (chambord) milk frother from Sears. It was only $9.99, you don't need to fire up (or buy) the espresso machine frother. The brand I snagged is... Bodum. It's really easy to use.

Here's a version on their website:
LINK

I got mine for cheaper at Sears, though...

~fafs

yes, i know about cheater chai. due to my vast job experience at corporate coffeehouses it is, tragically, just about all i do know. so hear i sit, in the next room (the kitchen), taunting me, is a box of oregon chai instant mix, heat and pour, that kind of thing... shudder.

i'm a bachelor in my 20's, which means that, generally, i'm a coward when it comes to making my own food. the other night, for instance, i made my first awkward attempt at fettucini alfredo with fried portebellos. i will call it a learning experience and leave it at that.

anyway, basically, i guess i'm worried that i'll screw up a box of chai and a bunch of expensive spices. and that would suck.

oh yeah, and i'm trying to make a pitcher of the stuff, so i can just pour, pour, pour.

cheater chai sucks

The Celestial Seasoning's one isn't as much of a cheater as, say, the pour and go ones... those kinda suck... as do the powdered ones...

I had chai for the first time this afternoon with brunch at this great vegan restaurant on the Main. I like! I like! Must learn more....

Okay, I have to tell you about our chai experience this afternoon, and this seems like a good place to do it. Daniel and I went to Publix today and thought, Hmm, let's make some chai tea! So we gathered as many ingredients as we could find cheaply:

-ginger root
-cloves
-star anise
-black pepper
-pure vanilla extract (we were too poor to buy real vanilla beans)
-cinnamon sticks

But here's the really interesting part: I wanted to buy black tea to brew all the spices with, but Daniel decided that CHAI tea would make a better base tea for our chai tea (don't ask me, I still don't understand it). So we put everything together and brewed it (using way too much black pepper and ginger, I might add) to make SUPER CHAI--five times stronger than normal chai tea!

Daniel only had one cup, but I had at least three and so did our friend John. John and I were feeling kind of... well, kind of high. I think we got a high off of something. The stuff burned the back of my throat--I mean, that's gotta do something. And don't people smoke cloves? Well, anyway, I felt kind of light-headed and everything seemed a whole lot funnier than it actually was. I'm probably just making this up so I can pretend I lead an adventurous life, but I was feeling pretty funny.

Not quite the same thing, dear. "Cloves" in the smoking sense are essentially cigarettes laced with clove oil, or with clove oil in the filter depending on brand. They'll screw up your lungs worse than normal cigarettes, but they don't do much aside from that (except taste good).

The burning was definitely the pepper and the ginger. As for the high ... well, are you sure that's everything you put in?

How do you get ginger root into a useful form?

grate it.

Or, if you're lazy, just slice in very thinly. I'm lazy.

A man after my own heart, B. Shall slice.

Chai is life blood for me too.

How is slicing it being lazy? Seems like more work (and need for accuracy) than grating. Unless you have a deli slicer...

If you don't have a grater, it's a lot less work.

How can you live life without a grater? I'll mail you one, for crying out loud!

Ah, but the true lazyman's way is to buy it powdered. Just measure and dump it in, then spend the time you saved over grating/slicing by snoozing on the couch . . .

Yeah, I do that with my coffee. But since I still have some ginger root left over, I'll slice or grate some more and make plain old ginger tea.

Ooh. Thread. Happy.