Homemade Chai Update!

I woke up today, saw clouds in the sky and rain in the forecast, and despite it being summer my brain screamed "CHAI!!!!!!!!" and I knew today would be a homemade chai day. I shared a recipe a long time ago, and I still use that, but have made a few alterations to brewing to help things go a bit more smoothly.

As a recap, my ingredients have not changed but I do not measure them anymore. I use a bit of ginger powder (this dissolves quickly in the liquid) because I do not have fresh ginger in the house most of the time, four cinnamon sticks, a teaspoon of cloves, a tablespoon of black peppercorns, and maybe ten pods of green cardamom. Before, I bring about three and a half cups of water to a boil, then turn off the head and steep all of these whole spices for about 20 minutes. Then, I would bring the water back up to a boil and toss in about four tablespoons of loose darjeeling black tea and let it steep for 5 or 6 minutes like I would a strong cup of tea. Then, I would strain the mixture, return the strained liquid to the pot, stir in honey, add about a cup of dairy (anything from fat free milk to half and half, depending on how rich I wanted it to be), and heat it up on low.

A major change in procedure was containing my steeping ingredients in a strainer. I used to just steep them all freely in the pot, then I added the tea loose, and then had to strain my final product into another container and then return it to the original pot so I could reheat it and add the dairy and sweetener. It was messy, it dirtied up another pot, and I am not graceful enough to not pour the hot liquid all over me during the process. 

Since then, I have acquired several teapots that come with their own strainers. I love these not just because I love the pots, but because I often take out the strainers and use them for other things, such as this. This way, I can steep the spices and quickly remove them, refill the strainer with tea while the liquid heats back up, then steep that in the same strainer. Once everything is steeped, I can remove that quickly too. Then I can just put in sweetener, honey is my usual choice, let it dissolve, and add dairy without the extra steps.

However, using the strainer meant that my favorite ingredient, cinnamon, wouldn't be totally submerged. I knew I could probably stick those in the water outside the strainer and get them out with a fork, they are bigger and easier to fish out, but in a flash of g̶e̶n̶i̶u̶s̶  basic logic, I realized that putting all of them in a plastic baggie and pounding them down would not only make them all smaller, but would open the spices and intensify the flavors! I used the base of a bottle of strained tomatoes as my mallet, but any firm jar will do, you don't need to hit any of it hard.

If you have a spare strainer, and a plastic baggie, take that extra step. It is SO much easier to clean and contain! 

Additional pro tip that normal people wouldn't need to be told: don't try to just dump your mixture from your pot to a mug, because you will spill everywhere. I have literally two years of experience attempting this. Just use a ladle. Easy peasy, no mess. Yes, it took me two years to have that flash of g̶e̶n̶i̶u̶s̶ basic logic as well. 

Better late than never, right?

Review: Buddha Teas

Awhile back, Buddha Teas offered to send me some tea for consideration. I have now had many cups of each, nearly finishing the chai, and feel I can give my best reviews of each. I selected Chai, and Third Eye Chakra tea so I could try something very loved and familiar as well as something totally new to me.

The company has a beautiful, easy to use website. They seem to specialize in herbal blends of herbs I have never heard of. Each product page describes the health benefits, if that is something that interests you, and other information about the individual tea. Given how many blends there are and how many seem rather rare, this can come in handy. I can attest that the packaging of each tea is absolutely beautiful, and while still a cardboard box, it is surprisingly sturdy. The teabags are individually wrapped, which is convenient, but unfortunately they are fairly flimsy paper, so the packaging overall does not provide an airtight haven for the tea. This seriously affects shelf life, so I would recommend with any tea packaged like this that the bags be placed in another, airtight container.

Let's start with what is familiar: Chai. I love chai, and make it on the stove and brew up blends almost daily. I own about 5 different kinds most of the time, in various forms in order to consume it at any caffeine level.

This chai is well balanced, but weak. The spices are present, but don't overwhelm the tea. However, in order to make a cup as strong as any chai lover would prefer, two teabags are needed. To make a strong brew in order to stand up to a little milk and sweetener, to prepare in a more traditional way, three are required. Granted, I use a bigger mug, maybe 12 ounces, but I think the bag requires more leaf. This would be good for someone who wants to drink chai lite, so to speak.

What this company seems to specialize in is herbal and chakra teas. I don't really know much of anything about chakras, but that was half of the appeal of selecting this. After reading all of the descriptions of the chakra teas, I picked the Third Eye Chakra, described on the website:

"Known as the ajna, the center of insight and intuition, the third eye chakra is located in the middle of the forehead, above the brow. This chakra is the main point of intuition, focus, knowledge and being able to grasp the larger picture behind circumstances. An imbalance of this chakra may lead to poor decision-making, self-doubt and deceiving oneself. When meditating upon this chakra, the phrase focused upon is “I see”." 

Given my state of general life imbalance, making the right choices and being able to focus on the bigger goals of the upcoming year is absolutely critical. I am not sure how much drinking this tea helps, but I find it to be tasty. It includes Eyebright, Star Anise, Jasmine Flower, Passion Flower, and Spearmint leaf and the lot is apparently infused with sapphire essence. I wasn't sure what that meant (am I drinking rocks?) but thankfully, the website explained that the process meant the herbs basically spent some time hanging out nearby some sapphire. Cool. It tastes very herbal and pleasant, and I have much enjoyed drinking this before bed. 

In sum, I think if I were to order from this company, I would stick to the more unique herbals. There are other companies that do bagged traditional tea at the grocery store that is just as good for a lower price. 

Recipe: Homemade Chai

Everyone who knows me knows I love tea...but that I LOVE chai tea. I have about 4 or 5 blends of chai tea in the apartment at any given time, and I will never ever have less than 3. Well this week, I decided making real chai by boiling spices over the stove. I looked up several recipes, and decided on this one from Whole Foods website because while the timing of things is not the simplest, the ingredients all were.

When it comes to these ingredients, particularly Indian spices, I always check out the ethnic section of Wegman's. They have big bags of cardamom, peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, and anything else you might want for truly 1/3 of the price of the regular spice section, and you get 4-10 times more in a bag weight wise.

First, you chuck in the cinnamon (recipe calls for 1 stick. I put in 4. Because cinnamon), 6 cloves, 6 pods of "lightly crushed" cardamom (I found this very tough to do as I have no good crushing implements but I don't feel like it affected anything to have them not crushed), 1 tsp of whole peppercorns, and ginger (I had no fresh ginger so I sprinkled in a tiny bit of powdered, as I don't like ginger much anyway. The recipe calls for an inch nub.).

Bring it all to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer (covered) for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat (or remove from heat if it is an electric stove) for 10 minutes.

Then, add in black tea. Recipe calls for ONE tablespoon of black tea...for 4 cups. I put in 4-5 teaspoons. Because I like my tea to taste like tea. Bring everything to a boil again and then remove from heat and let it steep 3-5 minutes.

After, strain out all the "bits" and return the liquid to the pot, adding as much sweetener as you like. I add two tablespoons of agave. The recipe then calls for a cup of whole milk, but I used a cup of fat free and didn't feel like the recipe suffered at ALL. Then heat it slowly on low so the milk warms, and it is then ready to serve.

Crazy delicious, not hard at all, and not that time consuming if you love chai like I do. I made it alongside my lunch and it didn't take much effort at all to keep busy during the "waiting" periods. I suspect I will plow through the big bag of cinnamon in no time at all...

Tea No-Buy...FAIL.

So much for avoiding purchasing new tea. I was at Marshall's (for an entirely different purpose, new shoes I did not get) and saw a fairly varied selection of tea from Les Palais des Thes. The packaging for this French company is SO gorgeous and their tea isn't cheap to order online, so I was SO excited to see this in store. I found myself very quickly with about $100 worth of tea in my hands, and then I saw three options from Den's Tea as well. Den's Tea specializes in Japanese tea, and is also a brand I have meant to order from for a long time.

Don't worry, I did make cuts. I realized that with the sampler, and having some at home already, I should cut what was in my arms in half. My deal with myself is that I can go back on Tuesday or Wednesday to get more/get the bigger canisters of some flavors IF I taste the samplers first and really feel I cannot live without. The full size canisters at Marshall's are $13 and originally $18 or $19...twice as expensive as any other tea they tend to carry.

Here is what I came home with.

By far the most exciting purchase was the gift set from Les Palais des Thes. Originally $60, I paid $40. It came with 12 little vials of their tea blends, each reporting to contain enough for a 6-8 cup teapot, and a 125 page book/catalog hybrid that I found to be very interesting. It will be a lot of fun tasting all of the blends.

I already flipped through the book, which contains information about tea history, countries of origin, all to showcase the types of teas this brand offers in a comprehensive way. A tea newbie would find this really helpful in general, and I found it to be interesting even though I already knew a lot. A seriously cool way to provide a catalog of the options of a company, one I plan to keep on my coffee table.

Also from the same brand they had an iced tea set on clearance...$9, less than half the original price. It was shrink wrapped so I know it wasn't tampered with. It contains four teas, with five iced teabags individually wrapped, meant for 16oz room temp brews. Normally I am all about loose leaf, and prefer the lack of packaging of it. Even for tea bags. But one thing I hate is that unless I brew up a few bottles of iced tea before going to school to teach, I don't have much opportunity for tea all day. These are meant to be steeped at room temp for an hour or so, making them perfect for throwing in a purse or bag and steeping them after I finish my morning hot tea I take with me.

Next, I found a couple things from Den's Tea. I stuck with the Houjicha, which was a couple dollars cheaper ($4) than the Genmaicha ($6). The Houjicha is also individually wrapped teabags, which I like having around for when I am dog sitting for extended periods of time. I will be visiting family from Dec 10-18, and dog sitting from Dec 20-Jan 6...so I will most definitely be using these. I often bring loose leaf tea home as I know they have an infuser, but I keep things simple when I dog sit.

As a bonus, only vaguely tea related item, I got a skincare set from Origins including the Frothy Face Wash, White Tea Skin Guardian Serum, and the White Tea moisturizer for $10 because it had no tag, there were no others, and the girl at the register had no clue about the price point of the brand. Given how sure I am that the set was likely meant to be two or three times that price at minimum, I am a happy girl.

I love Marshall's.