The Melting Pot 2.0/The Melting Pot 2.0.iso/food/beverag/chai04

Internet Message Format | 1995-09-27 | 11.2 KB

From: "Wayne W. Lui" <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes
Subject: COLLECTION: Indian Milk Tea (Long)
Organization: NTT Opto-electronics Labs., Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan.


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Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 12:00:30 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Milind Deshpande)

        Chai is Indian version of tea with cream and sugar. You can
        make it Indian style as follows:
        Boil a cup of water and milk mixture, and sugar to it.
        You can use less water and more milk to make it creamier.
        (All milk is okay too.)
        Dip in a regular Lipton tea bag for a minute.
        Longer you dip it, the stronger (and bitter) is the chai.

        If you want ginger tea, buy fresh ginger root, chop a very small
        piece (a gram or so) and put it in boiling mixture before dipping
        the tea bag.
        You can use cardamom (sp ?) powder instead of ginger too.

        Good luck.

Milind
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From: Michael Rettelbach <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 13:50:44 +0100

I joined some lessons in cooking indian food in germany. we produced
the chai in the following way:

bring water to boil. add tea lives (any low quality black tea as BOP)
and reduce heat (don't switch off). Add the spices: some cloves,
cardamom (squeeze the whole nut a little before adding), cinnamon (stick,
not necessary). cook slowly for one or two minutes. add some milk (not too
much, about 100ml/1l tea) and cook a little more. Then pass all through
a sieve. Sugar on your own taste.

I didn't see any chai with ginger yet, but i think you can also add
stripes of ginger with the spices. I sometimes add some peppercorns,
too. You can add the spices (not the tea leaves) to the cold water,
too.

Michael

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Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 10:14:18 -0400
From: Krishnan Seetharaman <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Lowell Computer Science

Ha, my favourite drink, and topic! How to make the perfect chai and
then sip (note sip, not drink!) it in peace.

The Perfect Chai:

- For each cup, of chai u need about 4/5 th cup of water, u are going to
  lose some water in evaporation etc.. and u are going to add milk for the
  rest. This measure can be changed to suit your proportion of tea+milk.

- Boil the water and then pour it into the tea pot. Now ad the tea leaves,
  I use about 1 teaspoon/cup.

- Now close the pot, and if u want to preserve the heat, close it with
  a sort of insulating cap u get for the pot.

- Now heat some milk separately.

- The cups can be pre-heated by rinsing with hot water.

- After the tea has brewed for 7-10 minutes, pour the tea into the cups
  through a strainer, add milk + sugar.

- Enjoy.

Modified Chai (doesn't need pot etc..)

- Boil the water in a regular vessel

- Turn off the gas, add chai and close the vessel with a plate so that
  the steam stays in

- Other steps are same

Ginger+Ilaichi chai :

- Cut some pieces of ginger, crush them with a spoon. Add it to the water
  when u boil it. U can also add Ilaichi (cardamom ) to add flavor.

U can try various types of tea. The best is got by mixing the so called
dust tea and leaf tea. Dust adds strength, while leaf gives a distinctive
flavor to it. Try Darjeeling tea, its great.

And remember tea should never be boiled, it should be brewed.

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Date: 28 September 1992 12:31:21 CDT
From: "Shyamala Parameswaran  " <[e-mail]>

I put a mug/cup of water to boil. Add a 3/4 inch piece of ginger,
crushed with a mallet to it and let the water boil a couple of
minutes (to get the ginger essence in), then pour over tea-leaves
(amt. depends on what tea leaves are used - I use Darjeeling and
throw in one and a half heaped tsp) and let steep two mins. or
until leaves are settled at the bottom of the pot. Pour into mug
add milk, sugar and enjoy!

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From: [e-mail]
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 17:11 EDT
Organization: NCR Corp

There are 2 methods you could make tea the Indian way.

1) Boil water - nothing is added till the water is boiling. Stop the
heat source. Add tea leaves and spices (I will give you a list of spices
at the end). The tea and spices are usually added to the boiling water
in a Bone China tea decanter. The decanter is then covered with a "tea cozy"
for around 3-5 minutes (to allow the tea to brew).
Filter into tea cups, add milk and sweetener to taste.
This is considered the sophisticated method and is used for the more exotic
tea leaves. Usually not many spices are added in this type of preparation.
By exotic I would say - Darjeeling varieties.

2) Boil a mixture of water, milk (as much as needed for the entire serving).
This mixture is then brought to a boil. Once that happens, add the tea leaves
and spices and continue to heat - please note that this is the important
difference in the two methods - the "hotch potch" is boiled for about 5 minutes
and you would have to keep stirring the mixture (other wise it would boil over)
Strain the tea directly into tea cups. This method is used for the not so
exotic variety of tea leaves - Basically, you depend on the spices to give you
the flavor.

Spices
------

There are a lot of varieties which are used.
Combinations are made usually depending on the taste the individual likes.

Ginger (as you had mentioned)
Cardamom
Cloves
Whole white pepper (this might not be available freely - check Asian-Indian
grocery stores)

I can give you certain other names - but I know only the Indian names. Don't
know the English equivalent. If you are interested you could email me for an
extended list. Most of these would be available at Indian (Asian Indian) stores
I am not giving the list right now - by the time you get back to me I'll try
and find the English name equivalents.

All these are part of mix-n-match variety. All of them need to be ground before
added to the tea preparation. A coarse grind should be enough. You need not add
all, then again you could - depends whether you like what you get as end product
Trial would help you out.

My favorite though is a mixture of ginger and Cardamom added to tea.

For this I add about piece of ginger (size of a grape) cut in small pieces
and 2-3 pods of Cardamom (grind it coarsely - or just powder it with something
heavy). This is added for a 2 cup serving.

Enjoy yourself

mahesh
[e-mail]
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Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 01:17:16 PDT
From: Nihon DEC Tokyo

  Assuming you are making 1 cup of Chai - measure out three quarters of a cup
of water into a container. Add one tea spoon (depending on how strong Chai you
would like to have) of chai powder/leaves and sugar (to your taste). Start
boiling the water. Add your chai spices when the water starts to boil. Allow it
to boil for a couple of minutes. Then using a filter, drain the water/decoction
into a cup. Add a little milk and your chai is ready.

   Some people add sugar as the last step, instead of putting it at the start.
You could try out some combinations - Have fun - It won't kill you :-)

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From: [e-mail]
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 11:32:17 PDT

        This is how I prepare chai.

        milk, water (1:3 proportion), sugar according to taste are boiled.
        when it reaches boiling point add the tea leaves. remove from the flame
        cover it for 5 minutes.
        stir the mixture , sieve it out and drink and enjoy.

        grate ginger and add it to the mixture along with the tea leaves
        if you want ginger chai.

        the amount of tea leaves you use are as follows

        1 cup - 2 spoons
        2 cups - 3 spoons
        3 cups - 4 spoons ... get the picture. increase or decrease according
                        to taste and type of tea leaves.

        Try it out this way. If you like it great otherwise try other methods.

        Subrat.

        P.S. let me know your reaction.
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From: Yogesh Maheshwari <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 15:51:58 MDT

Hi
Well read your message soc.culture.indian
Well these are the steps to make chai
for making a cup of chai
1. take half cup of water in an utensil
2. put spoonful of tea leaves, crushed ginger and sugar as needed
and optionally crushed cardamom into the water
3. boil the mixture for about 3-4 minute based upon how strong chai
 u need
4. pour half cup of milk into it
5. again boil for a few minutes
6. filter it into a cup or glass
    well u can now enjoy ur cup of ginger chai

 happy tea makings

bye

Yogesh
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Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 13:05:53 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Rajiv Ramaswami)

I was in Japan recently and did try out chai at a Tokyo Cafe.
To make 1 cup, boil approx 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup milk
(you can vary the ratio to suit your taste-more water perhaps).
When it is warm, add 1 heaped spoon of tea leaves or tea dust.
Let it boil for a few minutes but make sure the milk doesn't
spill over.  Add sugar to taste.  Filter out the tea leaves
using a tea filter (which I'm sure you can find in the
department stores there like Matsuya and Meiji-Ya).

Rajiv
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From: Manish Chhatralia <[e-mail]>

        Here is the method of how to make chai as you requested:

        1. Add water in pan.
        2. Add sugar, tea leaves and spices.
        3. Bring to boil and simmer for a minute or so.
        4. Add milk.
        5. Bring to boil and simmer for 3-5 minutes.
        6. Strain tea in teapot.

        To make chai for one person, one needs:

        1 cup of water, see 1. above.
        1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of tea leaves and 1/4 teaspoon of
        spices, see 2. above. (depending on how sweet, strong and spicy)
        1/4 cup of milk, see 4. above. (depending on how milky)

        NOTE: this tea is made with water but equally can be made with milk.

        Spices can generally be proportioned as follows:

        A. 1 one 1.5 inch cinnamon stick.
        B. 3-4 cardamoms (with shell).
        C. 2-3 peppercorns.
        D. 2-3 cloves
        E. 1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder.

        Grind into a powder the items A-D and add E.

        In winter fresh ginger chai is very good, add 1cm2 chopped ginger with
        the spices.  Can also add pepper at the same time to give a warm
        feeling.

        The spice list I mentioned is not complete.  We usually add about 10
        to 12 different types of spices for chai ground together.  I am sorry
        I do not know the names of them in English.

        I hope this helps you,

        Manish Chhatralia.