Iced Chai 2

Last time, I gave a recipe for making iced chai that is very similar to the basic chai recipe. Two ideas emerged from this initial trial.

The first was to add more masala since spiceiness seemed to be masked by the cool temperature of the drink. I suspect spice-masking at chilled temperatures may occur for two reasons: 1) Any spice grounds that eek their way through the mug strainer settle during overnight chilling, as evidenced by the residue of spices leftover at the bottom of a finished mug of chai, and therefore aren't dissolved well in the chai, and 2) Flavorful oils from spices are not as soluble in water/milk at chilled temperatures as at hot temperatures, which similarly detracts from the masala flavor.

The second proposed modification was to chill the mug and add less ice to prevent dilution by water. As Aman B attested to, watered-down milk is less than ideal... chai also suffers from excess dilution by water.

I thus do a couple things differently in the recipe below. I add more masala, make ice cubes out of tea/masala/water, pre-chill the mug, use fewer ice cubes, and finally am careful to stir the chilled chai well before serving. Let's see how the below recipe turns out!

Iced Chai (one 12 oz serving)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup water
• ~1 tsp chai masala
• ~1 tsp Lipton Yellow Label loose tea
  
• empty ice cube tray
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3 tsp sugar
  

Technique

The day before drinking

1. Bring water to a boil
2. Add masala and tea to boiling water, reduce heat to a simmer, and steep 2-3 minutes
   
3. Strain tea/masala/water into 3 cubes of an ice cube tray. Freeze tea/masala/water cubes overnight. There should be ~1/2 cup of tea/masala/water remaining in the pot.
   
4. Add milk to remaining tea/water/masala, raise heat, and return to a boil, stirring occasionally
   
5. Add sugar to a glass container
6. Strain tea into container, and stir to dissolve sugar
   
7. Chill chai in the fridge overnight
8. Chill (empty) mug in the freezer overnight

The day of drinking

1. Put tea ice cubes into chilled mug
2. Mix chilled chai well
3. Pour chilled chai over ice cubes and enjoy!

While I think adding more masala, embedding masala in the ice cubes, and stirring helped unmask spices, we are still encountering the dilution problem. Despite chilling the mug and using fewer ice cubes, the chai starts out too creamy and finishes too dilute. Shruti suggested a potential remedy may be to make the ice cubes out of chai itself. Assuming the water/milk ice cubes freeze, this may ameliorate the dilution problem. I'd love to hear your suggestions. Hopefully the next post will have a solution...