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Chai

By America's Test Kitchen

Published on August 22, 2007

Yield

Serves 4

Chai

Ingredients

1 ⅓ cups milk 1 cinnamon stick, broken in half½ teaspoon vanilla extract ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom ¼ teaspoon whole black peppercorns ¼ teaspoon whole cloves 2 tablespoons sugar 4 tea bags 3 cups boiling water

Before You Begin

This recipe is printed from our cookbook, The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Depending on how sweet you like your chai, you will need to add between 1 and 2 tablespoons of sugar to the milk mixture in step 1. Any type of generic supermarket black tea will work here.

Instructions

  1. Simmer the milk, cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, peppercorns, and cloves in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Off the heat, stir in 1 tablespoon of the sugar until dissolved, adding the remaining sugar to taste, and strain.
  2. Meanwhile, steep each tea bag in a large mug with 3/4 cup boiling water for about 5 minutes. Remove the tea bag and pour 1/3 cup of the spiced warm milk into each mug.
Chai

Chai

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By America's Test Kitchen
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Yield

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 ⅓ cups milk
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
¼ teaspoon whole cloves
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tea bags
3 cups boiling water

Ingredients

1 ⅓ cups milk
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
¼ teaspoon whole cloves
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tea bags
3 cups boiling water

Ingredients

1 ⅓ cups milk
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
¼ teaspoon whole cloves
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tea bags
3 cups boiling water

Why This Recipe Works

For our chai recipe, we started with a base of strong black tea of almost any variety—for each serving, we steeped one tea bag in boiling water for 5 minutes. We then infused milk with a blend of spices—cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, cloves, and vanilla. When the milk was fragrant, after about 5 minutes, we sweetened it lightly with sugar, strained out the spices, and poured the spiced milk into the brewed tea for a soothing, perfectly balanced chai redolent of warm spices.

Before You Begin

This recipe is printed from our cookbook, The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Depending on how sweet you like your chai, you will need to add between 1 and 2 tablespoons of sugar to the milk mixture in step 1. Any type of generic supermarket black tea will work here.

Instructions

  1. Simmer the milk, cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, peppercorns, and cloves in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat for 5 minutes. Off the heat, stir in 1 tablespoon of the sugar until dissolved, adding the remaining sugar to taste, and strain.
  2. Meanwhile, steep each tea bag in a large mug with 3/4 cup boiling water for about 5 minutes. Remove the tea bag and pour 1/3 cup of the spiced warm milk into each mug.

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