Because I am a virtual child that can’t drink coffee, I’ve always felt like I also deserve a nice hot beverage every day, like the coffee people. Enter hot chocolates and chai lattes. An every day treat for me, where it not that Starbucks is really expensive and gross and at this point, convenient to my principles, nowhere near me.
Initially I’d buy those powdered mixes most coffee shops use, but they are also pretty expensive and generally not great. So I decided to go on my own chai latte making adventure.
Make your own chai latte
To be clear: I am trying to emulate a Starbucks-style chai latte, not Indian chai proper. Furthermore, making chai latte from scratch like this is not necessarily cheaper, as you need a lot of whole spices and the sweetener can especially fall on the more expensive side (more on this later). Still, it’s a very good treat that I think is worth it.
This recipe makes a 1 liter batch that will last you all week if you’re not sharing.
After a few false starts I landed on the recipe for easy homemade chai latte at Kitchn, which is an extremely solid recipe, so be sure to try that too. I still decided to tweak it further and add in some other flavours, just because I can. In came star anise, because you can’t go wrong with star anise. And Sichuan pepper, because VRAC tea in Bordeaux adds it in several of their blends and it really does add a nice little depth that I felt was lacking in the Kitchn recipe.
A word on sweeteners and milks
So the Kitchn recipes says you can use brown sugar, honey or maple syrup as sweetener. I’ve tested all of the above as well as plain and palm sugar and found you get the best Starbucks-like result with maple syrup. Maple syrup however is very expensive and my second favorite option was cassonade, a cane sugar which is widely available in France. Indonesian gula djawa (Javanese palm sugar) is also very nice, but a bit of a waste in my opinion.
Obviously if you don’t use cow milk you can use any kind of non-dairy milk as long as it has the ability to foam a little bit. I prefer unsweetened soy milk as the soy beans for this are grown and processed in France and it’s one of the least harmful faux milks planet wise. I don’t like oat milks because they don’t seem to foam very well, and I don’t like Oatly because Blackstone is one of their investors.
Everything is ‘to taste’
For all recipes but for this recipe in particular, everything is ‘to taste’. You may like less milk and less sweetener, you may like more of one spice and less of the other, etc.
I do recommend you use whole spices for this unless you have a cheese cloth to strain the tea through, as otherwise you’ll end up with a lot of ground spices in your tea. If you do go that route do look up the proper amounts as 1 tsp of whole black peppercorns does not necessarily translate to 1 tsp of ground black peppercorn ,for example.
On to the recipe.
Make your own chai latte
Equipment
- pestle & mortar or just something heavy to whack the spices with
- pan with lid that holds at least 1 liter
- Fine sieve
- pitcher or other container that holds at least 1 liter
Ingredients
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
- 1/2 tsp Sichuan peppercorns seeds and stems removed, alternatively use all black pepper instead
- 7 cloves
- 6 green cardamom pods
- 1 1/2 star anise
- 1 l water
- 5 cm piece of ginger thinly sliced
- 4 black tea bags I like M&S decaf
- 1/2 c sweetener I like maple syrup or cassonade
- milk I like unsweetened soy milk, amount in recipe
Instructions
- Smash the spices roughly with a pestle and mortar or under a cloth with something heavy (so it doesn't jump everywhere). You just want everything to be slightly, not finely, cracked.
- Toast the cracked spices in a pan over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes, shacking occasionally, until fragrant.
- Now add 1 liter of water and the thinly sliced ginger and bring to a simmer. If any water has evaporated from the pan due to the high heat from the toasting, be sure to top it off. Turn down the heat and allow to simmer gently for 5 minutes.
- Remove from the heat, chuck in your 4 tea bags, cover with a lid and allow to steep for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes remove the tea bags and stir in your sweetener until dissolved.
- Strain the tea through a fine-mesh strainer into a pitcher and discard the spices and teabags.
- You can keep the tea in the fridge until further notice or make yourself a cup: pour 3/4 c of warm tea in a mug. Froth 1/2 cup of milk and combine.
Notes
- Obviously for this recipe everything is to taste, but the sweetener and tea to milk ratio are especially to taste, so be sure to experiment to find what configuration you like best.
- For this recipe I do really recommend you use whole spices, see intro.
- The chai-base minus the milk keeps for 5-7 days in the fridge.
- Because the container I bought holds 2 liters I double this recipe, this works fine as well should you be so inclined.
