Spicing up my tea

I am a staunch believer in a cup of tea in the morning so I generally keep a few varieties of black and green tea at hand. A while ago, I discovered something new: Home made Chai concentrate! As I don't frequent coffeshop chains, I haven't really had Chai like this before but it sounded yummy so I gave it a go. It turned out to be amazing! My flatmates and I went through over a liter in a little over a week and tripled our milk consumption in the process. I just made a second batch and thought I'd share this little treat with you before I make myself my second cup for today.

If you can get hold of some pretty bottles, this would also make an awesome and unusual Christmas present for tea drinking friends ( if you are willing to share, of course ;) )

I used this recipe but altered it slightly to fit what I could easily get my hands on. I noted down the ingredients in two languages as specific spices are probably not in everybodies vocabulary so for a german version, see below.

Ingredients:
4.5 cups hot wate
2 cinnamon sticks
1/2 tsp ground ginger
7 cardamon pods
10 whole cloves
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
10 bags black or green tea
2/3 of a cup brown sugar
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp vanilla extract

It comes out quite sweet with this amount of sugar and honey so you might want to reduce it if you don't have as much of a sweet tooth as I do.

Bring the water to the boil, add the ingredients and remove from heat. Let it rest for 20 minutes, then strain out all the solid spice and put the chai in a bottle or a jar. I keep mine in the fridge but I am not sure this is neccessary.

Mix 1 part chai with 3 parts hot milk and enjoy the spicy goodness. Beware though, it has more caffeine in it than you'd suspect so don't make the mistake I made and drink too much in the evening.If you want to be able to enjoy it at all times, decaffinated tea might be an option.

Und nochmal auf Deutsch, damit ihr nicht wie ich die Hälfte der Zutaten erst nachschlagen müsst.

Zutaten:
1 Liter heisses Wasser
2 Zimtstrangen
1/2 tl gemahlener Ingwer (oder ein Stück geschälter, klein geschnittener frischer Ingwer)
7 ganze Kardamonkapseln
10 Nelken
1/2 tl frisch gemahlener schwarzer Pfeffer
1/2 tl frisch gemahlenes Muskat
10 Beutel schwarzer oder grüner Tee
200 g brauner Zucker
2 EL Honig
1 EL Vanille  (oder 2 Päckchen Vanillezucker)

Mit der angegebenen Menge Zucker wird es recht süss. Für ein weniger süsses Ergebnis, einfach die Zuckermenge halbieren.

Bring das Wasser zum kochen und füge alle Zutaten hinzu. Lass das ganze ca 20 Minuten ziehen und filter dann die Gewürze ab. Ich fülle mein Konzentrat danach in eine Flasche und hebe es im Kühlschrank auf, nur zur Sicherheit.

Mische einen Teil Konzentrat mit drei Teilen heisser Milch und fertig :).  Eine kleine Warnung: Das Konzentrat enthält mehr Kaffein als ich gedacht hätte. Ich habe am Anfang den Fehler gemacht zu  viel davon abends zu trinken und konnte dann nicht schlafen. Mit entkaffeiniertem Tee liesse sich das Problem allerdings vermeiden.