lots of chai

When I go to Washington, I always vist the food co-ops.  I like them.  I have always liked them.  When I was doing shopping pre-Thanksgiving I found a chai tea I wished to try.  I forgot how much I like chai.  I like the taste.  I like how it warms me.  I like that because it is so full of flavor it can take the place of a sweet.

I have always been picky about chai.  Even before many of the chain coffee shops carried it, I drank it.  One of the ingredients I find I like in chai is astragulas.  For some reasons, chai with that spice/herb in it I seem to always like.  I really like Zen Dog Studio's Dragon Breath Chai and Morning Glory Chai.  It gets costly buying these though.  Especially if I am feeling the need for comfort.

I went down to Phoenica and bought spices.  I ordered a few on-line.  I got all the spices and herbs from the labels and went for similar quantities, not weights.  The list is:

Honeybush

Cinnamon

Cardamom pods

Ginger

Star Anise

Astragulus

Clove

Fennel

Orange peel.

I went a bit heavy on the orange peel and the ginger.  The tea I added was a pu-erh I did not particularly care for.  I have to add more black tea to every cup just because there really was not enough.  It is a good cup of chai.  I also have enough to probably six months to a year.  Which nice because I got tired of going to the store.  And airport security really does not know what to do with tea tins.

well, it sounded good

It is not a surprise that I am a tea lover to anyone who reads anything I write.  That usually means a nice cup of black tea.  I have some I like with milk, some with milk and sugar, and some black.  But I do like a nice cup of chai.  Which is probably one of the reasons I like a gingerbread latte so much better then a pumpkin spice latte.  The thing is, I do love pumpkin pie.

I receive a few tea newsletters.  There was one that talked about their pumpkin chai.  That sounded very good to me.  All those flavors that I would expect in a cup of chai and I could see how pumpkin could work with that.

I looked up their chai.  The thing is, the smalles quantity I could buy was a pound.  But if I did not like it?  From the list of ingredients, I put a pumpkin chai together.

The ingredient list called for pumpkin.  I decided to take some of the pumpkin I had roasted and dehydrated it.  I took spoonfuls of the roasted pumpkin, smeared it on parchment paper, and dehydrated it for twelve hours.  Blue really likes it just to snack on!

I then put a pinch of pumpkin, a pinch of black pepper corns, two star anise, about a tablespoon of dried dandelion root, three or four cinnamon sticks, and a hunk of sliced ginger (about the size of my thumb) in my pot.  I filled the pot with water and brought it up to a boil.  Then, I turned the heat down and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes.  I turned off the heat and steeped black tea in it for about five minutes.  I strained it into cups and added milk and raw sugar.

So, what did I think?  I should have remembered I do not like pumpkin spice lattes.

The pumpkin in the chai threw my taste buds.  Not bad but odd.  The star anise should have just been left out.  I am glad that I tried it at home before buying a pound.  I think the pound of chai would have become kombucha.  That is what happens to all the teas that are left over.  We just cleaned out the tea cupboard at my Mom's.  No more green tea for her.

I think I will stick with my regular chai recipe.  I missed the orange.  I can add more ginger and cinnamon to make it more like ginger bread if I want.  I can add dandelion or astragalus if I wish.  Just another way to get warming flavors this time of year.  And a bit of comfort.