spicy sweet

As it turns out, drinking coffee all day is just not acceptable to my body.  My solution?  I start drinking Chai when I reach my coffee quota.  It's spicy, sweet, and keeps me going.  I have two recipes that I use for making Chai.

The Real Deal:
So far, my favorite Chai "recipe" is to take a bunch of spices (cardamom, black pepper, ginger, cloves, cinnamon), bring to a boil, and then simmer for a while (1 -2 hours), add honey and a bit of black tea, let the whole thing steep for about 10 minutes, cool, bottle and refrigerate.  I make 2-3 quarts at a time.  The longer you boil it, the more concentrated it becomes.  When I am ready for a glass, I add a good amount of soy milk to the Chai and microwave it.  I wish I had a way to steam it but the microwave works fine.  Creamy goodness!

This stuff is pretty spicy and, for those of you familiar with the place, it's very similar to Morning Glory Chai.  Yum!

Chai Concentrate:
I made this for the first time last week after discovering the recipe on the internet.  Basically, you take a bunch of ground spices and mix them with sweetened condensed milk and refrigerate.  You then brew a cup of black tea and add a teaspoon or two of the concentrate to the tea.  It's pretty good but not spicy enough for me.  I did add some black pepper and grated ginger and that seemed to help...but it is still a bit on the sweet side for my taste buds.  One thing I really like about this Chai is that you can easily make a decaf version which makes my little girl very happy.