Friday, December 04, 2009

Instant masala chai


This morning I was texting one of my friends before she went to work. She has an Indian step-mother and is a big chai lover like me. I told her that I'd have a travel cup of chai ready for her if she was inclined to do a drive-by at Mik's Cafe. She was so inclined! This got me thinking...I had made up a batch of my chai masala for her but she's usually too tired to go through the whole process of boiling the water, tea, milk & spices at the end of the day to make it. What if I whipped up a batch of instant chai mix for her? She could even take it to work and make herself a cuppa whenever she wanted one?

Here's what I came up with:

Mik's Instant Masala Chai

1/2 cup dry milk powder
1 1/2 cups non-dairy creamer (try vanilla flavored creamer if you don't have vanilla sugar)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup vanilla sugar (vanilla beans left in a container of sugar)
1/4 cup honey powder (found at a local Korean market - may substitute with sugar)
3/4 cup unsweetened instant tea
1 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/2 tsp cardamom
dash ground nutmeg
dash black pepper

Use 3 rounded kitchen teaspoonsful (not measuring spoons) per 8 oz boiling water. I'm not sure how many servings this batch will make.

Please let me know if you try this and what changes you make to suit your taste.

Enjoy!

2 comments:

Heather said...

Glad to come visiting. I have written down your recipe and when I can find the instant tea will give it a try. Thanks for sharing.

MikKnits said...

I hope you like it, Heather! I found my unsweetened instant tea in the tea/coffee aisle at my local supermarket. I bought the store brand but there was one by Lipton there as well.