Masala chai
Black tea simmered with milk, sugar and whole spices. A household drink across South Asia with enormous regional and family variation, and no single authoritative recipe.
Also called spiced tea, chai.
What it tastes like
Sweet, milky and warming, with the spices carried by fat rather than water — which is why the same spices taste different here than in a water-only infusion.
What it is built on
Brewing method: Boiling and decoction — Leaf, and usually other ingredients, simmered in water or milk rather than steeped — the basis of masala chai, butter tea and noon chai.
No specific tea is recorded for this drink. It is made with whatever strong black tea is to hand in the household making it, which is part of what the recipe is.
Ingredients
- 2 tsp Strong black tea, preferably CTC — CTC is the usual choice because it survives simmering with milk. A delicate whole-leaf tea disappears entirely.
- 150 ml Water
- 150 ml Whole milk
- 4 Green cardamom pods, crushed
- 2 cm Fresh ginger, sliced
- 2 tsp Sugar — To taste; traditionally generous.
Preparation
- Step 1. Bring the water to a simmer with the crushed cardamom and ginger. (3 minutes)
- Step 2. Add the tea and simmer. (2 minutes)
- Step 3. Add the milk and sugar, and bring back to a simmer without letting it catch. (3 minutes)
- Step 4. Strain into cups.
Serves 2. About 10 minutes from start to finish, including anything that has to simmer or cool.
There is no single correct version
There is no standard recipe, and treating any single version as authentic misrepresents the drink. Spice mixes vary by region, by season and by household; some include black pepper, cloves, cinnamon or fennel, some use only cardamom and ginger. Proportions of milk to water, and of sugar to everything else, vary just as widely.
The steps above are one workable account of how this is made, not the authoritative recipe. Households and regions differ on proportions, on order and sometimes on what counts as the drink at all.
Common mistakes
- Using a delicate whole-leaf tea, which cannot survive the method
- Adding milk at the start, which slows extraction and can scorch
- Using ground spices, which cloud the drink and go bitter — whole spices, crushed, behave better
Sources
This page is TeaHQ synthesis. The proportions and the sequence are written from common practice as TeaHQ understands it, with no external source behind them, which is one more reason to read the note on regional variation as the more reliable part of the page.
This page describes how the drink is made and where it is made that way. It says nothing about what drinking it does to a person, and the quantities of milk, sugar or spice are recorded because they are part of the recipe rather than as any kind of recommendation.
Written comparisons
Where TeaHQ has set this drink against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.
- Masala chai vs chai latte — One is a decoction made from whole spices and tea; the other is a syrup topped with milk. They are related by name and by very little else.
- Teh tarik vs masala chai — Two South and South-East Asian milk teas that a Western drinker meets in similar cafés and that are built on different operations. Teh tarik is brewed, sweetened with condensed milk and then pulled; masala chai is simmered with milk and whole spices from the start.