Scott Dorsey wrote:
> In article >, AK > wrote:
>> How about latin-american or arabic grocery spices - we don't have indian
>> ones here.. ? I got green cardamom from an arabic grocery but the thing
>> about it is that sometimes grains in pods are black and sometimes (less
>> often) they're light brown. I suspect that's not a good sign of quality
>> of cardamom. I'm not even sure which ones I should use - I guess the
>> black ones & discard brownish? Latin-american groceries here don't have
>> cardamom at all... It's annoying that there are no health food stores
>> here because I'd prefer to buy organic spices.
>
> There are two species of cardamom. One has small red pods, the other had
> big black pods. They taste different, and the Urdu words for them are
> different.
>
> The big black kind is much more smoky in flavour, and it's not very commonly
> used in a tea masala although I have had it in tea before and it's good.
>
>> I did try a cardamom-only chai recently. Pretty good, I need to use more
>> cardamom next time.
>
> I tend to add a little cardamom and a little clove to cheap assam tea.
> It's good.
> --scott
>

Hmm, by pods you mean the outer shells that contain small black seeds,
right? I have cardamom with green pods, small black seeds (usually) but
sometimes seeds are brown.

Do you use half and half or milk? How long do you boil the tea? -ak (rainy)