• Chai Tea Latte Recipe

    Chai Tea Latte Recipe

    There are various different types of Chai Tea Latte Recipe, not just one. This is partly because Chai Tea itself has a lot of variations. But it gets even more complicated with Chai Tea Latte because many people don’t really know what a proper café latte is supposed to be like. The end result is that many different people end [...]

  • Does Chai Tea Have Caffeine?

    Does Chai Tea Have Caffeine?

    Does Chai Tea Have Caffeine? Chai Tea, known in India as simply "Chai" (which means "tea") or "Masala Chai" (which roughly translates as "spiced tea"), has started to become very popular in the West. There are many health benefits of chai tea, but one question that is asked very often is "Does Chai Tea Have [...]

  • Teapot Sets

    Teapot Sets

    Teapot Sets for Your Chai   In India, teapot sets are not popularly used to serve Chai Tea. Instead, chai tea is usually served in 4 oz glasses, like in the video below. Small clay cups are used in some places as well, which makes for a unique drinking experience, since there is often some [...]

  • Tulsi Chai

    Tulsi Chai

    Tulsi Chai combines the Tulsi plant with Masala Chai for a wonderfully unusual, but authentic Indian experience. Tulsi (also known as Holy Basil, very revered in India) makes a delicious and refreshing tea that possesses wonderful health benefits that support the body's natural immune system while relieving the body's negative reaction to stress. In the [...]

  • Chai Tea K Cups

    Chai Tea K Cups

    Chai Tea is also availble for the Keurig Brewing System for home or office.  Click here for a fuller list of Top-Selling Chai Tea K Cups, or click below for the Best Sellers:            You can explore the full range of Keurig brewers (click here) or click on theTop Sellers below: Mr. Coffee Keurig Single Serve Coffee [...]

  • Chai Tea Concentrate

    Chai Tea Concentrate

    Chai Tea Concentrate has become a popular form of traditional Chai Tea because it is extremely convenient. They are already "brewed" or steeped and sweetened, and so they only require mixing with milk, water, or both to create traditional chai (hot) or iced chai tea.  Most coffeehouse chains use commercial liquid concentrates. Quite famously, it is [...]

  • Iced Chai Tea

    Iced Chai Tea

    Iced Chai Tea is simple to make. You can either make Chai Tea from scratch (using my Chai Tea Recipe, for example), or use chai tea bags, chai tea concentrate, or chai tea latte powder, for instance. If you are using Chai Tea Bags, you can follow these directions to make Iced Chai Tea by [...]

  • Bombay Chai

    Bombay Chai

    Bombay Chai is another name for Masala Chai (literally, "spiced tea") or traditional Indian Chai Tea. It is a delicious black tea steeped together with aromatic and healthful Indian spices of cardamom, clove, cinnamon, ginger, and others, traditionally boiled with milk and generously sweetened. You can buy these great Bombay Chai teas by clicking below, as [...]

  • Chai Tea Latte

    Chai Tea Latte

    Chai Tea Latte is basically the coffee house version of chai, which has become popular in America and elsewhere through Starbucks, Panera’s, and other similar places. For the majority of people outside of India, this is how they have come to know Chai Tea. Chai Latte has become very popular, and people are known to [...]

  • Tea Pods - Chai Tea

    Tea Pods – Chai Tea

    Tea Pods are used in Coffee and Hot Beverage machines at workplaces and homes. They are a convenient way to enjoy chai tea throughout the day, and add variety to workplace beverage choices.   Tassimo T-Discs: Twinings Chai Latte T-Disc Pods (Case of 5 packages; 80 T-Discs Total) Tassimo T-Discs: Twinings Chai Latte T-Disc Pods [...]

  • Tchai - Nepali Tradition

    Tchai – Nepali Tradition

    "Tchai" is another spelling of "chai", which means "tea". Indian Masala Chai is what is known in America as Chai Tea, which is Indian-spiced tea. The old Hindu Kingdom of Nepal has its own Masala Chai tradition, which is intriguing seeing that the country is a midway point between China and India.   This Nepali [...]

  • Black Chai Tea

    Black Chai Tea

    Black Chai Tea   Black Chai Tea is the traditional Masala Chai. The term "black chai tea" is used simply to make clear that the tea being used in not herbal, rooibos, green tea, or any of the new combinations and blends that have recently emerged in the innovative world of chai tea blends. Chai [...]

  • Loose Chai Tea

    Loose Chai Tea

    Loose Chai Tea   Loose Chai Tea allows you to boil the tea and spices together in milk, in the traditional Indian way, which chai tea bags don't. Loose Chai Tea blends are already conveniently and carefully mixed, and you can boil the Chai Tea according to my Chai Tea Recipe (click here). There are [...]

  • Mate Chai

    Mate Chai

    Mate Chai is another new, non-traditional Chai Tea blend, using the dried leaves of South American yerba mate, and mixing it with traditional Indian Masala Chai spices or cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and cloves.  Mate (also known as chimarrão or cimarrón) is a traditional infused drink, particularly in Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, southern states of Brazil, south of Chile, [...]

  • Decaffeinated Chai

    Decaffeinated Chai

    Decaffeinated Chai is yet another modern Chai Tea innovation, for those wishing to get the rich flavour of black chai tea, but cutting down on the caffeine. Unlike herbal or green chai teas, decaffeinated chai uses the traditionally fermented tea leaves of the Camellia Senensis tea plant, to make a traditional tasting Masala Chai. The [...]

  • Chai Tea Bags

    Chai Tea Bags

    Chai Tea Bags are extremely convenient. You steep them in already boiled water, just like ordinary teabags, except you should let them steep for a little longer than you would an ordinary black tea. Five minutes at least. Then you add milk and sugar, and you have a quick, convenient Chai Tea. Chai Tea Bags [...]

  • Organic Chai Tea

    Organic Chai Tea

    Organic Chai Tea by definition is the Chai Tea of choice for those who want their food to be grown without artificial chemicals, for the health of their own bodies, their families', and of the planet. This adds positive karma to the strictly personal Chai Tea Benefits outlined here. In addition to the Organic Chai Tea [...]

  • Rooibos Chai

    Rooibos Chai

    Roobois Chai is another Chai Tea innovation mixing traditional Masala Chai with Rooibois tea. Rooibos (literally meaning "red bush" in Afrikaans) is a a traditional South African herbal tea (locally called bush tea, redbush tea in the UK, or South African red tea) Rooibos Chai is a Herbal Chai Tea, is caffeine-free, has a high level of antioxidants, and [...]

  • Chocolate Chai

    Chocolate Chai

    Chocolate Chai is a Chai Tea Innovation which adds a perennial favorite to traditional Masala Chai. Who doesn't love Chocolate? And when it is mixed with Cinnamon, Cardamom, and even licorice and anise seed, the taste is divine. Click on the items below to get more information. Featured Item: Organic Herbal Tea, Chocolate Chai, 6 [...]

  • Coconut Chai Tea

    Coconut Chai Tea

    Try Coconut Chai Tea   Coconut Chai Tea is a Chai Tea Innovation which adds a subtle tropical twist to traditional Masala Chai. The Coconut mixed with Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Ginger has a wonderful flavour. Our featured item also incorporates fair trade, organic chai tea spices, which ensures that the developing country farmers earn more [...]

  • Chai Green Tea

    Chai Green Tea

    Chai Green Tea is not traditional (Black Chai Tea is), but it is another innovation as Chai Tea spreads around the world. Green Tea is not fermented like black tea is. Both Green and Black Teas come from the tea plant Camellia Senensis, but Green Tea is seen as healthier because of the higher level [...]

  • Vanilla Chai

    Vanilla Chai

    Vanilla Chai is a delicious innovation on Chai Tea, adding luscious Vanilla to traditional Masala Chai spices. The combination of Vanilla with Cardamom, Anise, and Nutmeg is heavenly. Vanilla is also added to modern Chai Tea variations as well, such a Rooibos Chai or Decaffeinated Chai, as in the examples below. It makes a delicious [...]

  • Chai Tea Benefits

    The number of Chai Tea Benefits is quite high because of the unique medicinal properties of each of its ingredients. Indeed, Indians used to grow tea for millenia not for recreational drinking purposes but for medicinal use. It was the British that promoted tea in India as an everyday beverage.  Although the ingredients of Chai [...]

  • Chai Latte Recipe

    Chai Latte Recipe

    There are a few different types of Chai Latte Recipe that you can try at home. The reason for the variations is that Chai Latte is not really strictly defined. People call a lot of different things Chai Latte, and so there are different types of chai latte recipe. Maybe the most most correct Chai [...]

  • How To Make Chai Tea

    If you want to learn how to make chai tea, it is not very difficult at all. My Chai Tea Recipe (click here) explains it in words. But below is a video which is very helpful in understanding how to make traditional Indian Masala Chai Tea. You will notice that their recipe uses less ingredients [...]

  • Masala Chai

    Masala Chai

    Masala Chai ("spiced tea") is the common Indian term for what has come to be known elsewhere as Chai Tea. The reason why it is called Masala Chai, is that "Masala" (in Hindi and other Indian languages) refers to any mixture of spices used in Indian cuisine. It is this added mixture of spices which sets [...]

Chai Tea Site

 

What is Chai Tea?

Chai Tea is a delicious Indian spiced tea, widespread in Nepal and Tibet as well, that many in the West are now discovering.

Thanks to coffee shops and the spread of Indian culture in the West, Chai Tea now takes its place along Lattes and Espressos as a beverage of choice when you want to relax during your stressful life.

Chai Tea can also be enjoyed at home. In fact, what you can drink at home can easily surpass what you can get from your local coffee shop.

What is popularly known as “Chai Tea” is an altered version of the original Indian Masala Chai, (sometimes marketed as Bombay Chai as well). “Chai” itself means “tea”, so “chai tea” is in fact a “pleonasm”, or a redundancy (like “reverse back” or “free gift”). “Spiced Chai Tea” is a triple pleonasm, and “Spiced Chai Tea with Milk” is quadrupled, but who are we to nitpick?


Chai Tea Benefits

Indians grew tea leaves for medicinal purposes for centuries, but not for recreational consumption (like their Chinese neighbors). (The Assam region of India is one of only two areas in the world where the tea plant is native.) 

Indeed this is one of the great Chai Tea Benefits, in that masala chai is not only a great tasting drink, but its ingredients are actually medicinal, so the health benefits are substantial. Indeed, many chai tea recipes are derived from ancient Indian Ayurvedic medical texts.


How to Make Chai Tea

When the Indians finally adopted black tea as a recreational drink (after encouragement by the British) they made it into something their own.

Instead of just steeping the tea leaves in boiling water like the Chinese, or adding a little milk and sugar like the British, the Indians added much more milk (in fact, it can be sometimes all milk), more sugar, and a variety of Indian spices (that is the “Masala” part of it) – cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, and others from different regions (very typically Indian!). 

Instead of steeping the tea leaves and spices in already-boiled water, with chai tea you bring everything to a boil together, simmer and let the whole thing sit. 

Though it may sound a little difficult, it is easy to learn how to make chai tea. The basic structure is the same, but everybody’s Chai Tea Recipe is unique (I think that is really an Indian philosophy!).

The result is a totally different drink from the original black tea beverage. Tasty, rich, with a wide variety of combinations and permutations.


The Spread of Chai Tea outside of India

Masala Chai also spread to Tibet, Nepal, and Kashmir, where it is spelled “Tchai”, and they developed their own tradition.

Now that Chai Tea has moved West, new variations are only to be expected. Popular, delicious innovations include:

Forms of Chai Tea

In addition to the traditional Loose Chai Tea, there are also now available 

There have been interesting new Masala Chai Tea blends which have added ingredients for health concerns as well. Examples include

All of this means that you can enjoy a wide variety of Chai Tea in the comfort of your home at any time, for less money, more health benefits, and with a higher quality.

Explore the links, try the recipes, and try some new flavors. Let us know what you think. 

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