Campfire chai

For those of you who, like me, are perhaps too easily excited by 1) cooking things over a real fire, and 2) brewing and drinking chai, making chai over a campfire should be nearly irresistible.

As you know, building a campfire in the morning is a calming yet consuming ritual in itself; add to it making chai and the resulting post-camp morning experience is difficult to top.

The only departures I took from the basic chai recipe were to

• use a cheap, cast aluminum pot for the brewing vessel (obtained from Chinatown in Philly for <5$)>
• not worry about the chai spilling over when bringing the milk and water to a boil, since, hey, you’re outdoors
  

Below are pictures Shruti took when she, Jen, Kyle, and I went camping in Bass River State Park a few weekends ago. [update: Jen and Kyle may or may not have suggested that I link to their webpages...]

The beginning: boiling water (note the shiny new aluminum pot has not yet been covered in soot... it soon will be)

Adding the goodness: tea and masala
The critical step: adding milk

The penultimate step: straining

Chai Ice Cream

One of the most frustrating things about making iced chai is that I usually make it at night. Which is fine, except it takes extreme self-restraint not to consume the hot, aromatic chai and instead put it in the depths of the fridge to chill overnight.

So the other night after I made a pot of hot chai I splashed a few teaspoons on a couple scoops of Breyer's Natural Vanilla that I was having at the time. Several welcome results: hot chai melted the ice cream just a little in a fantastic blend of temperature and texture; creaminess of the ice cream enhanced the richness of the chai; and vanilla in the ice cream complemented the chai flavor extraordinarily. In another word: awesome.

I think there are several routes to go from here:

• Try a variety of ice cream flavors (chocolate, coffee, mint, ... suggestions?) with chai splashed on top
• Use vanilla in chai masala
• Find a way to make chai more 'syrup-y' for an ice cream syrup/glaze
• Try variations of chai ice cream ("chai float" suggestions for a better name?, chai on top of ice cream, incorporate chai flavor into homemade ice cream etc.)

No recipe here since the technique is simply to add a few teaspoons of basic masala chai to vanilla ice cream. Enjoy the flavors!

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...

Iced Chai 1

If you Google "iced chai", a surprising dearth of recipes turn up. But seeing as how it's been approximately 451 degrees (yes, Fahrenheit) in Philly this summer, iced chai at this time of year is especially desirable. Therefore, I'll be experimenting with iced chai over the next couple weeks and hope to converge, with your help, on a good recipe.

Imagining that ice cubes would dilute the iced chai and screw up the all-important water/milk ratio, I slightly modified my basic masala chai recipe to use less water. My first pass at making iced chai, described below, is thus super-easy.


Iced chai (one 12 oz serving)

Ingredients

• 3/8 cup water
• ~ 1/2 tsp Chai masala (equal parts of: coarsely ground black pepper, green cardamom seeds and cinnamon, and an equal part ginger powder)
• ~ 1 tsp Lipton Yellow Label loose tea
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3 tsp sugar
• 6 ice cubes
  

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 min
   
3. Add milk, raise heat, and return to a boil, stirring occasionally
   
4. Add sugar to a glass container
5. Strain tea into container (discard tea and masala), and stir to dissolve sugar
   
6. Chill chai in the fridge overnight

The day of drinking

1. Pour chai over a mug full of ice cubes
2. Enjoy!
   

This iced chai turns out quite well, but I'll make a couple modifications next time:

• Add more masala (step 2). This time, I put as much masala (~1/2 tsp) as I'd put for conventional hot chai. Something about the cold is covering up the spices I think.
• Chill the mug overnight and/or add less ice. Here, it was a little too creamy when I first started drinking though as the ice cubes melted it became a little too dilute. Mildly related: why do some drinks - many cocktails, for instance - escape the dilution-by-ice factor while others - milk, wine and beer, for instance - are never mixed with ice (except by some crazy Indian parents... did you ever have iced milk as a child?)

Over the next couple weeks I'll be trying out the above and other variations of iced chai. Help me out by sharing your own trials and sharing them with us (comment to this blogemail: chaientist@gmail.com). I'll post results of these variations over the next couple weeks and (hopefully) a consensus recipe afterward.

Essentials

Although basic masala chai may not at first appear amenable to daily making, if you have the right components on hand, it really is. While all of the topics below can be expounded greatly upon, I describe essentials to help you get started making a daily cup of chai.

Milk
Use anything from fat-free to whole milk.

Masala
This may be the most intimidating part of chai. Indeed, obtaining spices can be a barrier to making masala chai, but 1) non-masala (non-spiced) chai is delicious, and 2) if you make one trip to an international store you can pick up excellent spices that can last you over a year. Because most spices release their intense flavors when ground, it is best to purchase spices whole and grind them relatively fresh. Here are some tips for making your own masala:

• Buy green cardmom pods, black peppercorns and cinnamon sticks in whole form from an international store. Purchase enough whole spices to last you a year. Buy ginger powder also from the international store if you can, though many grocery stores carry it. Note to those in Philly: there is a great international/Indian store at 42nd Street & Walnut.
  
• Mix the spices in a roughly equal proportion by volume (use a little less cardamom since it is so potent). Mix enough spices to last you one month, keeping in mind you will use 1/2 tsp per cup of chai.
• Grind the spices in a dedicated spice grinder. A simple $15 coffee grinder works perfectly for this, but be sure to dedicate the grinder for spices unless you want chai masala-flavored coffee or vice-versa. Grind your masala as coarsely as possible, as this will help prevent flavorful oils from the seeds from leaching out until steeped with the tea.
• Keep ground spices in a jar in a cupboard since light, heat, and air are all detrimental to spice flavor.

Tea
While I haven't come across a 'bad' black tea for use in chai (including simple Lipton tea bags), I do recommend Lipton Yellow Label loose tea. You can find Yellow Label at international stores and perhaps even your local grocery store.











Strainer
A mug strainer is essential if you are using coarsely-ground masala and/or loose tea. You can purchase a mug strainer for ~$5 at any kitchen store. Be sure coarsely ground masala and curled tea leaves will not go through the strainer!











I hope these basic notes will help you share your own chai variations with all of us!

A special thanks to Shruti Mathur for helping with photography in this post.

Staple Chai Basic Masala Chai

Welcome to Chaientist! If you're reading this, you probably know Ravi, are wondering "what-ist???", or perhaps both. In any case, you'll find in this blog Ravi's experimentations with and variations on a centuries-old (at least... that's a debate for another time) drink: chai. And, when the experimenting goes well, you'll find recipes posted here for your own modifications.

Being a miserly grad student, I find pleasure in things that cost little but have a large payoff. Being a human being, I generally ingest things that appeal to my palate. Inexpensive but delicious homemade chai is thus a great start to any day. Being a scientist and engineer, I like to ask why things work, how they could be made better, and test my ideas experimentally. Chai-brewing techniques are relatively well-controlled, and are thus quite amenable to experimentation. Once my girlfriend introduced me to the ease of making chai, I was hooked, as it appealed to my palate (i.e., hunger) and inner (i.e., outer) scientist.

The goal of this blog is to trigger curiosity about and experimentation with chai so that you'll share your own thoughts, experiences and recipes via comments or conversations. I know that many people (including roughly 99.999% of Indian mothers) have their own special chai recipes; please email recipes to (chaientist at gmail.com), so that they can be shared with this blog community. Senders of recipes beware: your recipes may well be experimented on by others!

I'll begin with a basic recipe that I use when I don't really feel like doing an experiment. In future posts, look for variations on this theme!


Basic Masala Chai (one 12 oz serving)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup water
• ~ 1/2 tsp Chai masala (equal parts of: coarsely ground black pepper, green cardamom seeds and cinnamon, and an equal part ginger powder) [update: to clarify my sloppily-written instructions, this masala is composed of equal parts black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon and ginger powder!]
• ~ 1 tsp Lipton Yellow Label loose tea
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3 tsp sugar

Technique

1. In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil Careful not to let too much water evaporate and distort the all-important water:milk ratio
2. Add masala and tea to boiling water, reduce heat to a simmer, and steep 2-3 minutes
3. Add milk, raise heat, and return to a boil, stirring occasionally Keep an eye on the pot, as milk-based mixtures will boil over rapidly
4. Add sugar to a 12 oz mug
5. Strain tea into mug (discard used tea and masala), and stir to dissolve sugar Be sure to use a strainer that won't let the tea leaves through
6. Let the chai cool for ~5 min and enjoy!

Update: I changed the title from Staple Chai to Basic Masala Chai, because despite Kyle's comment (below), there are no staples in this recipe!