Proper chai

Chai shouldn’t taste like warm Cinnamon Toast Crunch milk. Proper chai is fiery, strong, and actually tastes like tea. For two mugs of chai:

• 2 mugs water
• 0.5–1 mug whole milk
• Sugar to taste
• 2 tbsp loose-leaf black tea
• 2 inches fresh ginger root, roughly sliced into chunks
• 3-5 whole cloves
• 3-5 pods green cardamom, lightly crushed
• A pinch of ground black pepper
• 1-2 whole allspice berries (optional)
• A tiny fragment of star anise (optional)
• A small piece of cinnamon (optional)

1. Bring the water, ginger, and spices to a boil. Simmer while cooking something else, or just walk away until the smell brings you back.
2. If more than half the water has evaporated, add water back until the total volume reaches about a mug.
3. Add the tea and bring to a boil. Don’t steep. Don’t simmer. Don’t be a wimp. Boil.
4. Once the tea and spices are dark enough to hide the bottom of the pot, add the milk and bring it all to a boil again. Watch carefully to avoid spills and burned milk.
5. Sweeten to taste, strain, and serve.

Notes

• The final product should be a medium or dark brown. If it’s beige or off-white, you’ve added too much milk, skimped on the tea, or haven’t boiled the chai properly.
• Chai should taste like tea, ginger, cloves, and cardamom — not cinnamon. Especially with the hints of black pepper, it should have some fire. It’s not a pumpkin spice tea latte.
• I like Brooke Bond Red Label tea, but any straightforward, strong tea will work. It’s not worth using premium full-leaf teas, because the milk and spices overwhelm any delicate flavors. If you use bagged tea, use at least 4 bags of tea (2 per mug).
• I love cardamom, so I add a bit more ground cardamom to each mug of chai. I make this recipe often enough that I keep a pepper grinder full of cardamom seeds in my spice cabinet.