With the help of this chai concentrate, a well-liked tea, you can easily make chai lattes at home for a reasonable price. Try looking in the bulk department of a health food shop if the cardamom is too expensive for you. It will produce multiple batches, so don’t worry if you have to buy a jar of it.
| Prep Time: | 5 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 1 quart |
Ingredients
- 4 cups water
- 15 whole cloves
- 3 cinnamon sticks
- 8 (1/4 inch thick) slices unpeeled fresh ginger
- 15 cardamom pods, split
- 15 whole black peppercorns
- 10 black tea bags
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Bring water to a boil in a saucepan; add cloves and boil for 1 minute. Add cinnamon sticks, ginger, cardamom pods, peppercorns, and tea. Allow tea to steep for 6 minutes; strain into a container. Stir brown sugar and vanilla extract into tea and refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour.
- To serve: Mix about 2 parts concentrate with 1 part milk (almond milk works really well). Drink hot or over ice. Concentrate will stay good in the refrigerator for about 1 week.
Reviews
This is amazing! It’s easy to modify the recipe depending on how sweet or how peppery or how gingery (is that a word) you want it. I make this about every 2 weeks now and barely get a cup because of my family members loving it. Thank you for the share!
This recipe is so easy and flavorful. I substituted ground cardamom and ginger. I strained it very well and it’s amazing.
Amazing!! I couldn’t find cardamom pods in the store and didn’t want to wait for an order so I added ground cardamom. About 1/4 teaspoon. Turned out delicious. I used turbinado sugar in place of the brown sugar.
I love making this chai tea! It’s super easy to follow the recipe and super yummy!
sooo good.. Better taste than the coffee chain stuff and much better price too.
Super easy
We’ve made this twice and love it! I like to omit the brown sugar and add honey to each cup to customize the sweetness for each person. I typically use 1/3rd concentrate to 2/3rd milk then use the capuchino maker to steam heat and froth. Delicious.
Made it in the heat of summer. Good iced but I think it will be better hot.
I love the combination of spices here! I prefer mine MUCH more spicy, so I probably doubled or tripled the recipe here for the same amount of servings. Also used less vanilla and sugar. Perfection!
Yummy! Great recipe, I followed a reviewers advice and added turmeric (I only have powder on hand) since my back is killing me right now. I also added some vanilla bean to the mixture instead of extract. And used one table spoon of sugar in the raw instead of brown sugar. I also used vanilla creamer.
I know that I like my chai strong and spicy so I did simmer the spices for a few extra minutes and then added the tea leaves. I used loose leaf tea so wasn’t sure how much to add (I added too much. Lol). It’s got a nice flavor to it but not as spicy as I’d like it. I will try simmering the spices a lot longer next time. But this is a pretty good base recipe.
Did not make any changes to this other than doubling up just not enough LOL . Has come out perfectly time after time…
I added turmeric root, 15 slices to help with inflammation
Perfect combination of spices. Great flavor without the bite of other chai. I don’t like too spicy chai. This was just right. It is good made exactly as written though it may be a little too much on the sweet side for some. That would be the only thing I may reduce though adding some milk makes it perfect.
Very good, convenient chai. I made this pretty much as the recipe stated, only I didn’t have fresh ginger, only a frozen root that I microplane for cooking. It was too hard to cut into slices, so I added a little dried ginger powder instead. I should have grated the frozen ginger into the tea, but hindsight is 2020. I like my chai sweet, so I added a splash of honey with the sugar. I also added 1 or 2 more cardamom pods because that’s usually my favorite part of the traditional chai spices. I also added a small piece of star anise — it wasn’t even a whole piece, more like a segment — other recipes have star anise listed and I had it in my spice cupboard. I used twinings english breakfast tea bags, which are pretty robust. I made it the night before, strained it in a heat-proof glass dish to chill overnight, and then the next day I reheated in a big glass measuring cup before pouring into a thermos. I used 1 1/2 cups of the concentrate and about a 1/2 cup of Silk almondmilk. Flavorwise, I was really pleased with the outcome. It definitely isn’t weak, especially with the 10 strong teabags. I was very afraid it was going to be too clove-y or peppery, but I was pleasantly surprised at how it was just enough to clear the nose in a good way. I wouldn’t mind a little more cinnamon, so perhaps I’ll add an extra stick next time. I wish I knew the caffeine content because I am definitely feeling a jolt. 10 tea bags, remember? Thank you for the recipe. It was so convenient
This tasted great and comparable to the store bought concentrates and was fun to make. I had to go to a natural food store to buy ginger and whole cardamom pods, and cloves. I would make this again! I served this cold and also sometimes with espresso ice cubes.
This is a very nice mix of flavours. It’s nice hot or cold or as instructed, reheated. I prefer things less sweet so next time I’ll cut down on the sugar a bit, but this is definitely a keeper recipe. Thank you ave’s4cooking for this recipe.