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?!