US versus Germany III

Germany is a remarkably efficient and direct country. See for instance how easy it is to blaze along the Autobahn at ridiculous speeds in ridiculous cars.

It's a little surprising then that our kitchen drain is pretty much anything but efficient. Apart from the occasional drainage problems (apparently soap clogs our drain!?!) we don't have a garbage disposal. So my usual practice (bad habit?) of putting waste like vegetable ends and tea leaves down the sink inevitably leads to disaster.

Herein lies the largest difference between making chai in the US versus Germany. In our apartments in the US we had garbage disposals in the sink drain so I had no concerns about putting spent tea leaves down the drain with the water running and the garbage disposal on. Very different story in Germany though. When I put spent tea leaves down our drain here, we quickly get murky-colored and cabbage-smelling standing water in our sink, I get gently reminded by my wife that putting tea leaves down our drain is not such a great idea and a German plumber scorns us in rapid German for something I can only imagine has to do with our stupid and naive American habits.

A while back, I messed around with DIY tea bags as a way to make decent chai in the office. I thought the DIY tea bags might also help quell standing water, irritated wives and disgruntled plumbers.

Luckily the DIY tea bags work wonderfully. I add 2 heaping teaspoons loose tea per cup (+ 1 extra teaspoon for the pot :) ) to a tea bag, add this bag to the water while it's simmering, leave it in throughout the process and finally remove it at the end.

The only trick is that you have to calibrate how much tea you add in order to deal with the extra barrier to steeping that the bag presents. Just add 50-100% more leaves to the bag than you would to a normal cup, and you're good to go! If you like your tea weaker or stronger, just adjust accordingly. (Remember that adding excess sugar can help compensate for strong tea, but it's very hard to rescue weak tea ;) )

Summary

• Pot: identical
• Heat source: identical
• Water: similar
• Milk: similar
• Tea: similar
• Masala: similar
• Technique: slight adjustment to use DIY tea bags

This slight adjustment to the technique is the most significant change to chai-making habits I got used to in the US. And as you can see, it's not that bad! One might even say the changes are more efficient...

US versus Germany II

I celebrated July 4th in England by writing a bit more about how tea compares in the US versus Germany; how do you like that, colonial masters?!

As previously noted, there are a few differences in brewing chai in the US versus Germany. But the pot, heat source and water are pretty similar between the two countries. So what are the differences? Read on…

Milk
Since the milk:water ratio has to me a big impact on the taste of chai, I suspect one and/or both of these ingredients individually contributes substantially to the taste. Luckily, the water in Dresden is terrific and doesn't change the chai taste that I'm used to. Perhaps predictably, Germans love milk (even if it's mostly for the kidlets) so 1.5% milk is not at all rare here. (Curiously, skim milk is kinda hard to find)

Tea
Germany is certainly not a heavy tea-drinking country. But, it is international and has access to stuff that the US does not. So I use PG Tips loose black tea here, which I think is imported from the UK. PG Tips is a CTC tea, so is similar to Brooke Bond Red Label or Lipton Yellow Label in the US. In fact, Brooke Bond may be the same thing as PG Tips, and both PG Tips and Lipton Yellow Label are manufactured by Univlever! (Aside: the tea in Germany is so-so, but the coffee is insanely spectacular!! I'm pretty sure I'm being spoiled by the coffee, and perhaps am turning into a coffee drinker. Shhh... But I'd argue that my homemade chai is still pretty delicious!)

Masala
In Dresden, we're very close to a couple good Indian grocery stores. So cinnamon (Zimt in German), cardamom (Kardamom), ginger (Ingwer) and black pepper (schwarzer Pfeffer) are easy to find. The spices are also in the German grocery stores, but one just has to hunt a little to recognize the German names.

Summary

• Pot: identical
• Heat source: identical
• Water: similar
• Milk: similar
• Tea: similar
• Masala: similar

So there aren't any substantial differences. Not bad, eh? Next time I'll tell you about a (minor) tweak to the brewing technique. Maybe it's surprising that it's so easy to make chai here. Maybe not. Either way, I'm happy with the results. That's what counts, right?!