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