Old Fashioned Himalayan Style Chai Recipe

Chai—One Pot Method (makes two cups)

My favorite one-pot method recipe:

  • Ingredients
    • 1 cup of cow milk
    • 1 cup of water
    • ½ inch fresh ginger root
      • More or less to taste
      • More concerned with juice then mass, that is where the flavor is)
    • 1 pinch powdered saffron
      • More or less to taste
    • 6 whole pods of cardamom
      • Green
      • More or less to taste
    • 2 tablespoons sugar
      • More or less to taste
    • 1 tablespoon black tea
      • Black tea as the benefit of caffeine to which you don’t develop a tolerance. It works the same every time.
      • I like Wagh Bakri
    • 3 grinder turns of black pepper
      • Usually only during winter
      • More or less to taste
  • Tools
    • Pot big enough to hold the ingredients
    • Vessel big enough to hold the the number of cups of water and milk that you are using
    • Ginger Grater: extracts the ginger juice quickly and extracts every drop of juice
    • Mortar & Pestle: for the cardamom
      • only hold the cup over the pot instead of the grinder when you dump in the seeds otherwise the steam will get inside the grinder and make it unhappy
    • Tea Spoon: to peel the ginger
      • Or paring knife if you are a ninja
  • Steps
    • Place pot on counter-top. Add pepper, black tea, saffron, and cardamom.
    • Add water to vessel. Peel and grate ginger. Grab ginger fiber and place in pot. Use water to rinse grater into pot. Add all of remaining water to pot.
    • Bring pot to a boil. Fill vessel with milk.
    • When water reaches a boil, pour in milk.
    • Allow chai to come to a boil, then quickly remove from the heat. Stare at pot the entire time otherwise it will boil over. Maitain focus without distraction here. Do this two more times.
    • Strain through a fine strainer so as to filter out tea and herbs.
    • Either add sugar to individual servings so everyone can sweeten to their taste or add it to pot.
    • Serve. The chai party begins.

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