"Robert Choate" wrote in message
...
Since my wife loves chai lattes from Starbucks, we decided to try our hand
at making our own chai mix. Found a good recipe in a coffee-table book we
have. The mix seems pretty good, but I'm skeptical about the brewing
method
the book says to use.

It says to mix equal parts water and milk in a saucepan and bring to a
boil,
then steep the tea mixture in the milk/water. Doesn't heating the milk in
this way scorch it? And isn't there some chemical process that happens
with
the milk and tea (something about polyphenols and milk solids) that might
interfere with the infusion?

The way I do it, I learned from Indian folks:

Having your chai masala (spice) mix, add one teaspoon for every 2 cups cold
water. Bring to boil, add 4 tsp. loose black tea or 4 teabags (per 2c
water) Keep on heat and boil for 15 seconds or so. Remve from heat, steep
1 minute, strain leaves from tea. Add sugar or honey to taste. Mix with
milk which was heated in a separate saucepan, 1:1 ratio is good though I
tend to add a little less milk.

I like this way best because I can adjust the amount of milk for individual
tastes. The 1 minute steep sounds low but I think the 15 sec boil gets
things going pretty fast, I've tried this with English Breakfast, Assam and
Ceylon and had good results with each kind.

-ben