Spiced Chai

Sue, WONDERFUL!! Made it this evening and loved it beyond words. I did not have nutmeg and star anise at home, so, I didnt use those. Also, I substituted the tea bags with fresh tea leaves. I scaled the recipe down to 1 serving and just love it! It has a GREAT burst of flavour. Next time I'll have it cold, but, hot, it is just MARVELLOUS!

This is really outstanding Sue! We have just finished making a batch and can hardly wait to start on the next one. The honey and vanilla are the crowning glory on this drink. So sweet, so comforting and so very very good!

Excellent! We have a visitor from India and he says this is the best chai he has ever tasted. Even children love it. Don't forget to use good quality tea (St.Michael's Extra Strong tea is great) for best results.

I took my time to review this because I have made so many variations. This is a wonderful chai. What I have finally decided is my favorite thing to do is brew it by replacing the milk with water. I add all the spices,vanilla and 1/3 cup granulated sugar. I pop it in the fridge, and when I want a hot chai I just pop one cup in the microwave and add some milk. Simple, beautiful, and most of all YUMMIE!!!

Taking others reviews into consideration and knowing the low flavour of my cardamom pods I used more than called for. Also from previous experience with boiling rice milk (we are dairy free) and it causing separation I initially just boiled the water with the spices and then removed it from the heat and covered it for 15 minutes and think with regular milk this would help the flavour become stronger as another reviewer suggested. I did not use nutmeg because of its intoxicant properties but added a little ground allspice. I used more chunks of crystallized organic baby ginger one time and fresh gingerroot than called for another time. I also exchanged the honey for brown sugar as I think it goes better with the spices as another reviewer also mentioned. I used alcohol free vanilla the first time and I brought the water to a boil a second time and then added the tea bags as I don't suspect I like a 15 minute tea flavour, I imagine it would be too strong for us. Based on all these changes, I agree with the other review that didnt like the vanilla in this. I thought I would and that is actually why I chose to make this recipe but I just found it did not complement the spices. Another time I tried this without the vanilla and the previous changes reported but I still like Recipe #190932 much better.