Help! Tea Making Question

tstan

I am a great chai enthusiast and I have enjoyed the comments so far.

A milk pot - 4 cup - with tapered sides (tapering in towards the top) and preferably a lip to facilitate pouring is a good start. It helps if it is teflon coated - cleaning, hygiene - but it should not be made of aluminium.

To make 2 cups of chai, first boil 2 cups of water. As the water is heating up, add brown sugar (or jaggery if you can get some), freshly chopped ginger (streets ahead of the dry ginger powder), fresh cardomom seeds crushed (you can grind the seeds, but as with ginger, fresh is better), garam masala,and half a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. Then add ground nutmeg.

Allow to boil for a while so that the flavours leach out into the water. Then add 1 cup of milk.

When this boils, turn the gas down and add loose tea. After taking all this trouble, use as good an Assam tea as your funds allow. Gently stir with a wooden spoon making sure that there is no residual curry flavours or garlic on it. Even have a special chai spoon but if there are such malevolent people as children in the house, always sniff the spoon first Stir the brew for two or three minutes and then remove from the heat. It is wise never to take your eyes off the brew.

Pour through a tea strainer and enjoy. There is enough left in the pot to top up your cup. You and your friend will certainly want to do that!

sadhuji

i think very few of you have tasted the 'tea-bag' variety of tea prepared and served in moving trains - a hot concoction of water+milk+sugar is carried all around the compartments (especially in vestibuled coaches) in thermos flasks - when a traveller asks to be served, the vendor holds the thermos in between his knees and pours out a measured quantity of the above concoction into a paper cup and finishes off by dropping in it a tea bag.

this also goes by the name of tea!

once upon a time, this variety of tea used to be advertised by a world renowned tabla maestro.

India Edge

Train tea! We came to love the tea served on the expresses - a little flask of hot water with a couple tea bags and packets of powdered milk.
We had to search around but finally found Tetley Assam in teabags and a powdered whole milk product made by Nestle in Mexico called Nido (non fat milk powder is more commonly available here). Now we can have Indian train tea anytime!

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lonelyaztec

Ginger tea

1. Take a small piece of ginger, smash it, and add it to the boiling water, that you use to make your tea.
2. Then follow the regular tea making procedure, add tea powder, milk sugar etc.

Your tea will have a ginger flavour, with is nice and soothing for the throat.

It helps cure cold and coughs.

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sadhuji

if you make a paste of it, you can preserve it in the fridge and use on as required basis!

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bamboo

I bought some chai powder from India (the same I used to drink there) and I should know how to make it but it doesn't taste the same here! It's so sad! I want to drink real chai and let my thoughts wander back to India but this far I haven't succeeded.

I guess it's the drinking environment that affects...

Mays

U need to boil the leaves / powder...

Let it steam in a teapot....pour the liqour onto cups with a strainer..and then add sugar / milk to taste

Cheers

seventies'hippy

Put the masala chai, milk & sugar all together into a pan with water, take off the heat when it starts to boil & pour it through a tea strainer straight into a glass

you need to experiment with the amount of water/milk, try 50/50 to start with & adjust to your liking. Likewise with the chai powder & sugar, start with a pinch or two until you find your liking,

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sadhuji

you've hit the nail on the head - environment does matter. not just chai but any foodstuff (especially the fried ones you buy from roadside vendors or on railway platforms) taste heavenly. you cannot duplicate the taste in your kitchen or in anyone else's kitchen.

Nick-H

Mays; unless I misunderstand, this is the recipe for English tea. And anyone wanting English-style tea in India must specify cold milk, or they will get black tea with a jug of hot milk ---horrible!

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freenote

A differant cup of tea .Medicine in fact.
take one slice of fresh ginger,one fresh cardomen(split),cinnamen stick to taste.A pinch of Nilgiri tea per cup.Sugar to taste.Bring to boil with a little element. No milk!!!! It sets you up for the day ,Medicine in fact.

Hamanda

At the risk of getting shot down in flames, can anyone tell me if you can get tea (like in U.k) in India?.

I know this sounds like a really awful question, but I am totally unadventurious with me tea and have hated all the 'speciality tea's' that I have ever tried. I am definately a Tetley or Brooke Bond girl - and I don't think anything is ever going to change that. Sorry - in advance!

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ericd

You can get regular teabags with the name "Taj Mahal". I've seen them in trainstations, but I didn't like the flavour of it .... Masala Chai is the way to go

jaaduu12

Hi...
I make the breakfast chai in the house every morning for the two of us. I put approx. 1 1/2 cups of water in a pot and add two cracked green cardamom pods and three thick slices of fresh ginger, sliced and pounded and add to the water and bring to a boil. I reduce the heat when it boils hard, and as the water rolls a little slower, I add two spoonfuls of tea (I think it is Red Label, I keep the tea in airtight containers, I have thrown the box out). I put 2/3 cup milk in the microwave and set it for one minute. As the milk warms, the tea simmers. When the minute is up, I add the milk to the tea and bring to a second boil. - watch it though, as mentioned earlier, it can bubble up and over in a split second. Color is important. A nice caramel color will tell you it is right. Strain the tea into 2 cups, and add sugar, as I do, or not, as my mate does...(sometimes, as an extra treat we take a tea bag of Masala Chai from Trader Joe's and tear the bag and add 1/2 or so of the loose contents in addition to our Red Label...)

Nick-H

Yes, Hamanda, you can get "English" tea in India. Remember that is where it is grown

You can get a variety of teas in leaf or bag form from the shops.

If you want a cup of English tea in a cafe, then just ask for black tea with COLD milk.