Homemade Chai Concentrate

Do you want to make your house smell like Christmas? Or save money by making your own hot or iced chai drinks at home? This post is for you! If you've been around here for a while, you know I love chai. I've been wanting to try making a concentrate for a while, and when one of my favorite YouTubers shared his recipe, I really wanted to try it! Here's a link to the specific video, and the channel itself is called Joshua Weismann. He makes really beautiful, informative videos and I highly recommend his channel! You can watch his video for the original ingredients and directions and to see the beautiful cinematography, and I'll sum up what I did here!

You will need:

• 1 quart of water

• 15 green cardamon pods or 6 black pods (I couldn't find black so I just did a total of 21 green)

• 4 cinnamon sticks

• 1 tbsp black peppercorns

• 12 cloves

• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

• 1/3 cup fresh ginger rough chopped (I grated mine)

• 1/2 cup high quality loose-leaf black tea (I used darjeeling from Sprouts)

• 1 star anise (this isn't an original ingredient, but I had them so I added one)

Directions

Before you start, toast your cinnamon, cardamom, peppercorns, cloves, and star anise in the oven at 350F for 6-8 minutes, or until your house smells amazing. They'll brown a bit but it's nothing to worry about. Prep your other ingredients in the meantime, chop your ginger or measure out the sugar, tea, and ground spices.

Pour your quart of water into a saucepan and add the toasted spices and fresh ginger. Stir in the 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 tsp of nutmeg and bring to a boil.

Once it's boiling, reduce to a simmer on low heat and let it go for ten minutes. After ten minutes, take it off the heat and cool for about 30 seconds before stirring in the black tea. Let that sit for about five minutes, then strain the liquid into a mason jar and you're set!

To make a hot latte, use a 1:1 ratio of concentrate to milk. I like almond milk! Heat both liquids and mix together and top with frothed milk or just a dash of cinnamon!

For an iced latte, fill a glass with ice and add the amount of concentrate you want. If you like a creamier taste, I like to add a bit of half and half instead of milk. Pour it in slowly to watch it make a pretty marbling effect in the concentrate! Stir and enjoy both the taste of the drink and the feeling of saving money!

Thanks for reading! Be sure to let @joshuaweissman (Instagram) know if you try out this recipe, it was really easy!

xx, Hannah