Making masala chai from a packaged spice blend

An Indian friend visited awhile back, Suzana Syiem, and passed on some interesting tea, and some Indian snacks, and masala chai spice mix, which is what I'm writing about here.

I usually make masala chai once the weather gets a little cool; it seems to help me pretend that it's winter, even if it's still hotter than a US fall out (or summer, in most places).  There was just a touch of chill in the air a couple weeks ago but it didn't amount to much; it wasn't down below 25 C / 77 F even in the very early mornings.  It warmed back up and I'd missed my chance.  Now that it's past Thanksgiving, and Loy Krathong, I'm making masala chai anyway, even though it's not cool at all. 

Later edit:  it was down to 24.5 C this morning, around 75 F, positively chilly for Bangkok, finally!

Looking at the blend ingredients it's not like the versions of masala chai I make every year, from-scratch versions.  Those include cardamom, cinnamon, clove, and ginger.  Per my understanding star anise and black pepper are also relatively standard spice additions but I typically leave them out.

That package label shows the ingredients in this:  fennel seeds are listed first, with clove at the end.  Cassia is related to cinnamon, per my understanding (and Wikipedia's take) more often sold as cinnamon.  This blend version won't be like what I've been preparing.  It's a powdered spice blend, which is completely fine, only an issue related to storage conditions and storage time after you open it.  Recipes and some individuals recommend grinding or crushing fresh spices with a mortar and pestle right before use, which of course would be a little better, but powdered spices work too, especially when they're fresh.

I'll keep this explanation of brewing process and tea description short.  I simmered the spice mix along with a Thai version of CTC black tea I bought for blending (around a year ago; I don't get to that much), and threw a couple of Lipton tea bags in to shift the black tea character.  My wife picks those up in hotels when they're in the room and such, and they tend to just sit around.  That Thai black tea isn't astringent at all but it is a bit woody for flavor aspect, not typical of CTC teas in general.  Malt doesn't really stand out either, or mineral undertone, mostly just the mild wood tones.

kind of an odd look while it simmers, before adding milk

not ideal as black tea goes but it works well enough

I added some cloves to bump up that spice flavor range, really the only adjustment.  I also added a small dash of salt since I like the way that evens the balance.  It wouldn't take much of that to be way too much.  Instead of carefully measuring it all so that I could duplicate and adjust amounts later I sort of just dumped it in; one and a half very small spoons of the spice, a spoon half the size of a teaspoon, and unmeasured black tea.  It's possible to adjust the intensity a lot by adding more milk at the end, a factor that doesn't come up in almost any other teas I prepare, maybe just the orange Thai spiced (artificially flavored) black teas I've been drinking more of recently.

It would be possible to simmer the milk with the tea or to not, to just boil it with water.  I added the milk at the end to get some of that effect since boiling it does seem to change the taste a bit.  I'm not sure it matters much how long you simmer tea made like this since it's ground tea with powdered spice.  It boiled around 10 to 15 minutes and I think adding another 10 minutes probably wouldn't have changed much.  For more-whole spices it would make sense to give it a longer infusion, maybe by simmering a little, leaving it sit, re-boiling, then leaving it sit.  Or simmering for awhile; it probably wouldn't matter which.

after a bit of simmering

palm sugar; the shapes it comes in vary

Sweetener is the only other factor.  Using white sugar would seem normal.  Oddly we don't keep white sugar at the house all the time; funny how that works out.  I used up all we had that was nicked from hotel room tea and coffee set-ups with that Thai tea I had been making. 



Often we will have palm sugar around; that's a good alternative, not so different than brown sugar, just not exactly like that.  That seems to be the same thing referred to as jaggery I've seen in discussions about making masala chai online.  Since we're out of both I went with honey.  I love honey on toast but I'd as soon just use white sugar in a tea like this, but it sort of doesn't matter.


Skipping to how it turned out:  it was nice.  It was much different than what I was used to, the quite-different spice blend version, but it was good.  I didn't like it as well for it being less familiar, but it was hard to split out the impact of the blend balance not being optimized from that factor, just dumping it all in at no set ratio.  The other masala chai versions I'm used to have a lot of kick from the ginger and clove standing out and this was a lot milder.  Fennel seed was hard to identify as a separate flavor since it all integrated.

I'm guessing that using two thirds as much spice and half as much tea for the same amount of water would've turned out better.  It's hard to judge how much tea went into it since both the tea leaves and spices expand a lot simmering but it looked like way too much for two large mugs of tea produced at the end.  After drinking both my nerves were a bit jolted too.  I think beyond that factor, ingesting too much tea at one time, the flavors would balance better not made really strong.  All the same it worked well enough.

my son made breakfast again (bacon needed another sear, otherwise very nice)

when people ask about how to get dosed on caffeine this will come to mind

I usually make a Christmas blend around this time, and a version last year was based on a modification of masala chai (adding white chocolate and a touch of bitter orange marmalade).  I'm not sure if I'll get around to that or not.  Throwing some peppermint and a touch of chocolate into a black tea could count as one, maybe along with some orange peel for balance. 

It would be nice to be back in the States since pine needle would be a great input for one, and I could walk outside in lots of places and collect that.  Per past experiments I suspect dried pine needle might work best (versus just brewing it fresh then), but that would easy to arrange, laying it out for a bit, or speeding that up by putting the needles in a very low temperature oven for half an hour.

making a chocolate covered cherry themed Christmas blend

I bought some Christmas decorations today (when writing the draft); maybe finding our tiny artificial tree in storage and putting up some lights and the rest will make it seem more natural to get back to that theme.  Cooler weather wouldn't hurt but there's nothing to be done about that.  It's typically cool for about a week at the end of December but it's also not consistent.  Even though it never really seems like we re-create a US version of the holiday, missing the weather, not doing decorations justice, or hearing much of the songs, my kids appreciate how much we do manage to observe, so we'll make what we can of it.

awhile back; like a plastic version of that Charlie Brown Christmas tree

in Murmansk last year; odd to go to Russia to experience more of that holiday

Making your own masala chai

A few months ago a friend brought some spices back for me from a trip to Indonesia and since I already had them I started making my own masala chai.  It's not that hard.

One way to start is to Google something like "how to make masala chai."  You would find articles on just that, like this one,  or this one (it's paleo!),   or this one.  Of course chai actually means tea, so normal for them to point out saying "chai tea" is redundant, but you still can if you want.

They all vary from a basic original recipe, with lots of claims that one version is authentic, or easier to make, or that they've been adjusting it for years and prefer it a certain way for the best reasons.  What I'll write is only my own take, and I'm not Indian, or a tea expert (really!), so take it for what it's worth.

Basics:

-black tea

-cinnamon

-nutmeg (optional per some recipes, but I'd add it)

-cardamom (basic to all ingredients, but really could skip it since flavor profile is close to nutmeg)

-ginger  (kind of critical)

-black pepper (or not; it's your tea)

-milk and sugar  (could be honey or brown sugar)


Other basic:  you see clove a lot, and pretty much all recipes will add black pepper, and a lot reference star anise.  I tried star anise and could take or leave it since it's a strange flavor; clove would be good but I've not got around to adding it.


Other not so basic:  bay leaves or basil show up in some recipes, or anything else.  I've tried it with tamarind (prepared for use as a spice) and lemongrass added but those are quite non-standard.

Preparation:

The easiest recipes call for either a five minute boil for the ingredients (or maybe 10) or just for steeping.  

Prior to that step if some of the ingredients aren't already ground then preparation would be required: cardamom comes in seed pods, ginger is a root (obviously), cinnamon might be in the stick form yet, etc.  Some recipes call for use of a spice holder muslin bag, although straining could cover that, with the worst case being some spice dust in the final tea.

To keep it simple you could just use powder versions of all the ingredients, mix it, and steep.  From tea brewing habits I would steep it multiple times for about 3 minutes each but one five minute steep would get you to drinking tea.  One might drink it without milk or sugar, if they like, but I can't imagine why.

Amounts:  this isn't really a recipe yet, right, no proportions.  Those other links all say what they think is the right relative proportion, and yet another says they've nailed the best possible mix, but I tend to just make it one way, then another, and keep shifting it, never really measuring at all.  Crazy, right?  I can see why a lot of people would want more consistent tea, so go that route if you like, be normal and measure.

don't be afraid!

make your own masala chai!

Tips / tricks:

Loose tea:  Seems natural to me that everyone would have lots of loose tea at their house but if not using a standard black tea bag would do.  But really, why not pick up some passable loose black tea.  The normal standard would be to use a tea from Sri Lanka (Ceylon, the old name for there), and those tend to have a good bit of astringency, but that doesn't matter if milk and sugar are part of the equation; they cut that bite back to nothing.  

Blended teas might also combine teas from different places, or there is a lot of tea coming out of Kenya now.  Living where I do (Bangkok) I've bought ordinary grade black tea from Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia, and tried lots of types of teas from lots of places.  There's no reason why a different tea couldn't work, or a mix, and paging through references eventually someone will mention using green instead, but black tea just makes lots of sense.

Ginger seems the next most critical ingredient.  It would be possible to use ginger powder or ginger tea bags but fresh ginger would be a nice touch, with a different flavor.  It would be easy to grate some right from the root into the mix or I've just cut chips off one instead (we always keep ginger root around; I live in Thailand).  It wouldn't hurt to add two different types of ginger if it's handy, both powder and fresh.

Pepper, nutmeg, clove, star anise:  like everything depends on preference, right.  For me part of the experience is making different types, as one would with cooking.  I love using cloves to cook so it's odd I've not been adding them, but I'll get to it.  Star anise takes over a bit, even in strong flavored blends, and it has a strange sweetness, so someone might either like or hate it.  Pepper might be crucial to some, the key ingredient, and better off left out to others.


Boil versus steep:  trial and error might root out a preference but I'll say a little about this.  In general no one would ever boil loose tea to prepare it (in general, but people do crazy things), because the essential oils of the tea--where flavors are--would tend to evaporate.

If someone was using fresher spice ingredients in a rougher ground form then a boil might be required to pull out a lot of the flavor, but then I'm talking about making an easy DIY version, not the optimum some Indian cafe is aiming for.  So steeping alone really should work.


Freshness:  goes without saying but adding any ingredient that has spent a couple years in an opened spice bottle will more or less ruin the whole tea.  Black teas are as durable as any kind (except pu'er and some oolongs--special cases) so if it's been hanging around for a couple months it should be ok but the right packaging is still critical.

Ideally all the ingredients should be relatively fresh and converted from the whole spice form just before making the tea, but you work with what you've got.  Someone could go the extra mile without buying a spice grinder by experimenting with a food processor or blender (for example), but bottled ground spices would work.