Chi Tea

[Pedal Wench]

You betcha'ya!!... Now where have I heard that phrase.

Actually, being in California, I need to be working out of a commercial kitchen. I had one several years ago... but not right now... You also need ServSafe certification from NSF but my certification expired last year I think. It's good for 5 years everywhere except in California where its only good for three years... I also had insurance with huge umbrella coverage but thats no more either...

I still have my labels, pkging... hmm.. have a website but nothing there anymore...

Maybe I need to re-open my cookie biz and completely get out of my engineering work. I love the design work but hated the male engineers who always had to be right and everyone else was wrong. Some of it rubbed off on me.

Ha - let's do it together - east coast/west coast divisions. I've been working with engineers my whole career. Well, I'm one too, but I'm the good kind.

[MartianDestiny]

You betcha'ya!!... Now where have I heard that phrase.

Put me down for some. I think I trust you not to kill me health department certified or no

[yellow]

Brewed chai is super easy to make. And it's amazingly yummy. Many of the ingredients (spices) can be purchased pretty cheaply at Indian or Mexican markets.

Ingredients:
2 c water
4 tea bags (I usually use green)
1/4 c honey
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cinnamon stick
5 whole cloves
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground ginger (or a couple small shavings of fresh)
1 pinch ground nutmeg
2 cups milk (I use soy, but you can use any type)

Directions:
Bring water to a boil. Add tea bags, honey, vanilla, and spices. Simmer for 5 minutes. Pour in milk and bring to a boil. Remove heat, strain through fine sieve, and enjoy.

You can use a little less honey during the brew if you want to reduce the sugar and add sweetener later if you prefer it sweeter. I usually use a little less than the 1/4 cup and don't add sweetener.

[footloose]

I recently found a shop that sells packaged loose tea and has a dozen or more different flavours of Chai Teas. So far, the Vanilla Chai is my favourite though I really expected that Night of the Iguana Chocolate Chai would be!

The ingredients for Vanilla Chai are listed as black tea, calendula petals, chopped and powdered ginger, cardamom, coriander, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper and sunflower petals.

The chocolate chai actually has miniscule white chocolate chips in it!

[Owlie]

My favorite commercial chai: Revolution Tea's Bombay Chai, or the Stash stuff. Rishi chai if I feel like doing the work. Teavana...the tea is good, the spice mix is good, but why is there vanilla in it?!

My own recipe (adapted from Madhur Jaffery's) is better...at least I think so.
Makes one cup, or two small ones. I double it, most of the time.
1.5 cups water
8 cloves
8 green cardamom pods
1 stick of cinnamon
1 slice of ginger, ~1/4 in. thick*
2/3 cup milk (I use 1% or 2% if I'm sharing with DBF)
Sugar to taste
~1 tbsp unscented black tea (I use some nice loose Assam, in a tea ball)

Bring water and spices to a boil. Reduce heat, add the milk. Allow it to simmer for 10 minutes or so. Add the sugar. Remove from heat, add the tea and allow to steep for 5 minutes.
*my family has always sliced and frozen ginger, so that's the form I use it in. I have no idea what that actually corresponds to as a measurement.

[Tuckervill]

The Rishi chai has something in it that gives me really bad heartburn. I only have it when I go to this particular coffee shop, and it has happened every time. (I go there every week for a music jam that my son attends.) I don't get chai there anymore.

Karen

[Cataboo]

I tend o avoid any chai whose spice mix includes black pepper - they can sort of cheat and get a spicy tea without putting more of the other spices in...