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?!

US versus Germany I

Chai is delicious. It is also universal. So the challenge is: how can I approximate the chai I know and love from the US, using ingredients, tools and techniques in Germany? Luckily, it's not that hard. It just requires a little flexibility.

Here, I'll compare and contrast a few ingredients (pot, heat and water) for making chai in the US versus Germany. In the subsequent post, I'll touch on the other ingredients (milk, tea and masala). Lastly, I'll compare and contrast how the techniques differ.

Pot
As many folks who put up with me on a daily basis could tell you, I'm pretty particular about the pot I use to make chai. My favorite 'chai pot' for the past couple years has been a 3L, hard-anodized, non-stick stock pot with spouts and a filtered lid.

These features make it easy to handle large volumes, distribute the heat nicely, a cinch to clean, amenable to pouring and easy to filter out large objects like bags of tea, respectively. So I'm kind of in love with this pot. I insisted reasoned to Shruti's chagrin delight that we not only ship the pot from the US to Germany, but that we don't use oils or aromatics in it other than those in chai. Luckily, she agreed.

Heat source
Glass top ranges are far inferior to gas ranges. You can't control heat with glass top stoves, they stay hot for too long and crap easily burns on them (these things are all linked). But, a glass top range is what I used in our kitchen in Philadelphia and in Germany. So I play by its rules - more on that in a later post.

Water
I start with tap water both in the US and in Germany. I reason (which means I'm probably wrong) that you boil the water and change its taste so much by brewing chai that the starting water probably doesn't much matter. That said, there are questions about the tap water quality in Philadelphia thanks to 'fracking' around the area (eep!). In contrast, Dresden's tap water is awesome. Someone knowledgable in water quality would probably argue  that this has to do with the water's origin in nearby, elevated Sächsische Schweiz and the high quality of Dresden's water mains. This make sense to me, but I lack the knowledge to elaborate so talk to your local water quality expert for details.


Summary

• pot: is identical in US versus Germany
• heat source: identical in US versus Germany.
• water: tap water is OK in both US and Germany, for chai. I much prefer Germany's tap water for routine drinking straight from the tap, though.

So, no huge differences between the US and Germany… yet. Stay tuned!

Update: check out this recent piece on water quality in beer making over at NPR for some surprises! I especially like that they highlight the term "craft beer" and as opposed to "art beer".  h/t Julian