Hot and spicy
The latest trend in tea is called chai. This warm milk drink suddenly turns many people into avid tea drinkers.
Nowadays you can’t enter any coffee chain without chai or chai latte on the menu. Until a few years ago, chai was only drunk in Asia and eastern Africa. Yet it is not surprising that this spicy folk drink is becoming so popular here. This drink, which originally consists of black tea, (whipped) hot milk, a spice mixture and a sweetener (eg honey), is really heartwarming.
With milk
In some countries chai just means tea, but when we talk about chai in the Netherlands we mean the Indian drink made from spicy black tea with milk. Chai is therefore always with milk, which is why we often use the addition latte. Originally, this drink is always drunk warm, but it is also delicious cold.
masala
The spice mixture – also called masala – differs per region and even per family. Usually it is a fragrant combination of ginger, cardamom, cloves, pepper and cinnamon. You can make such a mix yourself, but there are also ready-made tea mixes for sale. Based on both black and green tea. You make a strong tea of this that you mix with warm – possibly whipped – milk. This can of course also be soy milk, almond milk or rice milk. Today, ready-to-use chai powders are also available. Super easy of course, but these powders are often heavily sweetened and contain many other additives.
Healthy?
Chai is really no healthier than a cappuccino or a regular cup of tea. Like regular tea, it contains a fraction of the caffeine of a cup of coffee. But it is of course a nice way to comply with the guideline recently set by the Health Council: drink three to five cups of tea a day.
Fancy a cup of chai? Then make it yourself with this recipe.
