Experiments with Tea and Spice

My visits to Malaysia opened me to more complex flavors. I have become more interested with spices which are generally uncommon in the Filipino pantry.

When I tried following the recipe for their curry, I ended up with spices that I don’t use in a daily basis. Luckily, I’m an avid tea drinker.

A quick visit to Google lead me to a recipes to make homemade chai.

I lightly toasted black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and star anise. After a few seconds, I added water and allowed the mixture to boil. While boiling the water and spice, I prepared my teapot simply by placing two bags of black tea. They say darjeeling tea is the best for chai but I don’t have it in my pantry. I have to do with what I have. After five minutes I poured the contents to my teapot and let the tea steep for two minutes.

I heated some coconut milk and poured it with some of the spiced tea in my cup and enjoyed my homemade chai.

After that day, I tried using oolong tea or green tea. Some times I would vary the quantities of the spices. At times, I take it without any milk. One thing that I really pay attention to is the steeping time. It gets bitter when steeped too long. 😀

It’s not much work for a warm comforting cup of comfort.