The only correct recipe for making chai

All my friends have their own personal recipes for making chai. I love my friends, so it hurts me to say that they’re wrong. My friends are, unfortunately, wrong about chai. I’m still coming to terms with this upsetting fact, but I’ll live.

What follows is the only correct recipe for making chai.

The ingredients

The only correct choice of tea leaves is Tata Tea Gold. Keep it in an airtight jar. Shake it up a bit so there’s an even mix of smaller grains and whole tea leaves. The smaller grains make for a stronger chai and they tend to settle at the bottom, so take that into account when measuring.

You need full-cream milk for this recipe. Amul Gold is a good choice. I buy the tetrapacks because they survive in the fridge for longer, but the plastic bags work as well. According to the pack, Amul Gold has 6% fat. If you can’t find Amul Gold, try to find an equivalent milk.

For a basic chai, you only need tea leaves, water, sugar, and milk. But we don’t want to make a basic chai, do we? No. So we’re going to add some elaichi (green cardamom) and saunf (fennel).

Try to find fresh spices, if you can. I don’t have recommendations for specific brands here because most of them are fine.

I learned the hard way that you get two kinds of saunf in the supermarket: green and brown. Green saunf tastes sweet and fresh, almost like a dessert. The brown saunf has a stronger flavor but is also bitter. We want the green saunf.

Sometimes you find old elaichi at the store that’s gone a bit brown. Don’t buy that. Your elaichi should be green in color, just like the saunf.

The recipe

This recipe makes three cups of chai. Why three? Because that’s how much chai I drink every day. You can adjust this recipe to make more or fewer cups, as long as you keep all the ratios the same.

Dig out your mortar and pestle from the drawer it has been languishing in. Add six pods of elaichi—two for each cup. Add half a tablespoon of saunf. You can use a bit more of both these spices if you want a more flavorful chai. Grind the spices into a semi-powdery mix. You don’t have to turn it into a fine powder, just grind them enough so that the flavors come through.

Put two cups of water in a saucepan and add the spice mix. Put it on a high flame until boiling. When the water is boiling, reduce the flame to medium.

Add three dessert spoons full of tea leaves to the boiling water. A dessert spoon is slightly smaller than a tablespoon. If all you have is a tablespoon, try about 3/4 tablespoons of tea leaves for each cup. Then add the same amount of sugar. You can adjust the amount of sugar based on how sweet you want your chai, but if you don’t add enough sugar the flavors won’t come through.

Allow the mixture to boil on the stove for about 3-4 minutes. Then add a cup of milk. At this stage you should add a tiny bit of extra milk to account for the water evaporating, otherwise you won’t have three full cups of chai. About 1/5 of a cup should be enough, but I’ve been known to add a bit more to make the chai richer.

Stir the mixture a bit to ensure everything is properly mixed together, then allow it to sit on the stove until the milk boils over.

This next step is crucial. It will make or break your chai. I swear it’s not superstition.

When the milk boils over, turn the stove to simmer. Allow it to settle back down into the pan. Then turn it up to medium heat again until it boils over once more. Repeat one more time. The milk should boil over and settle down three times total.

Your chai is ready! Use a strainer to strain it into cups and enjoy.

Should you eat a Parle-G with your chai? Maybe a Rusk? I have strong opinions on this matter but I’m running out of time, so I’ll leave that decision up to you.