Handcrafted Chai

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Tea was a medicine before it was a beverage.

The tea-plant is a native of southern China and was highly regarded in Chinese classics for its powers in "relieving fatigue, delighting the soul, strengthening the will, and repairing the eyesight." Thus, tea was not initially offered as an oral dose, but often applied externally as pastes to alleviate rheumatic pains.

From a medicine, tea grew into a beverage by 4th and 5th century. It was regarded by poets as "the elixir of immortality" and "froth of the liquid jade." The Buddhists used tea to keep vigilance during strenuous hours of meditation. The Japanese elevated tea into a religion of purity and aestheticism, and at the turn of the 9th century, tea, aside from salt, was the main source of Cantonese exports to the West.

The period of the Great Discoveries brought the extreme Orient closer to Europe, and as many of you remember, records told that ships of the Dutch East India Company brought the first tea into Europe, to France, Russia and then England in the late 17th century. To the West, tea was that "physicians approved China drink, called by the Chineans Tcha, and by other nations Tay, alias Tee." There was born the "tea" of modern day.

I have to admit that I much prefer the early history of tea, which incorporates its crafts and poeticism, to its politics at the later half of modern history (hint: December 16, 1773). Honestly, I could go on all day, but I would defer the discussion on tea to another space at another time.

Long before I started learning about crafted tea, I had imagined tea would be made of one ingredient: the tea leaves. If you push it to an advanced level, sure, it can be made of other parts of the tea tree. This concept remains mostly true in many parts of the world. The buds, the stems and of course the leaves are harvested, dehydrated, then processed into ground matcha, infused with flowers, or roasted to make roasted tea (i.e. houjicha). (Herbal teas, which doesn’t have actual tea in it, are deservingly excluded here.)

Tea and coffee are very much alike - their quality and flavors depend on their varieties, origins, God, soil and altitude. But unlike coffee, which essentially focuses on the technical aspects of the brewing process (drip, Chemex, press..), tea gets its vast diversity of flavors from the preparation process. In that sense, tea seems to be a relatively quasi-simple: the taste comes straight from distillation (which is a fancy way of saying you submerge in hot water). Japanese tea ceremony, however, is an exception, but let’s remind ourselves that the ceremonial part is a relatively modern concept, having originated in the 15th century. The origin and evolution of ceremonial tea deserves its own separate discussion, but regardless of the origin and execution, tea has been widely accepted as a form of relaxation in the East.

Teaism is founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. [...] It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.

(The Book of Tea, Kakuzo Okakura)

All in all, tea is still simple, only if you get the right temperature. As I previously wrote in my review on kettles, the shape of tea is molded through a fixed temperature.

So now you know, tea can become complex and distinctive in its flavor. Drinking a good cup of tea is a very rewarding, calming experience, and in contrast, doing good tea a disfavor is almost sacrilegious. And that is exactly my problem(s) with chai. Chai, born to a reigning King as a healing Ayurvedic beverage, was supposed to be an extraordinary drink.

The chai latte as we order from any Manhattan coffeeshop these days, has become an over-hyped yet under-appreciated drink. It is diabetic-ally sweet (yes it's not a word). It tastes too artificial. It has too much milk. Why would you you ever, ever pre-make chai? (Yes, why, Tazo?)

So I thought to go back to its origin and re-craft chai from scratch, as its originators have instructed, with the exception of adding black peppercorn*. In this recipes, I included a variety of whole spices, crushed them by hand, then mixed them with a blend of Assam and Ceylon tea. There is a historical reason for my choice of this blend, but you can replace it with Darjeeling, or even Turkish tea which are all equally delicious.

(*: black peppercorn is a common ingredient in many of Eastern European tea. I once was gifted a box of assorted Latvian teas, all of which contained peppercorns. Peppers and I are not the best of pals because my plebeian palate could not dissociate it as a cooking ingredient, so its exclusion is optional.)

Ingredients

For whole spices, 15 grams (~2tbsp) of each:

- Fennel Seeds

- Cardamom pods

- Whole cloves

- Whole allspice

- Whole cinnamon sticks

Optional: Black pepper

For black tea:

Use an equal amount of whole tea leaves to spices.

(You can weigh each ingredients, but you can also just eye-ball it).

Equipment:

One of the following:

- Spice grinder

- Mortar and pestle, which I prefer.

- Food processor

Optionals:

- Biodegradable tea bags made from recycled paper

- A tin/jar, preferably air-tight

Instructions

Step 1: Weigh each of the spice mix.

Step 2: Coarse-grind the whole spices. Grind it tightly against the walls of the mortar instead of using pounding force.

You can start with the small whole spices, then grind the cinnamon stalks separately. I prefer using a mortar and pestle to make chunky pieces since I like to brew it in a tea pot. The tea is also crazy flavorful so you wouldn't need a fine texture to extract flavor. You also want a smooth latte, not a powdery drink. 

Step 3: Mix spices together in a jar.

Step 4: Weigh and add black tea into the spice mix.

Step 5: Store handcrafted tea in an air-tight jar. That's it!

Optional: For convenience, transfer tea to individual tea bags.

Makes 20 bags of 1tbsp/bag.

Notes: When brew, add a slice of fresh ginger to the tea. A tablespoon is sufficient to make a pot of tea, or equivalent to 4 cups. Boiling water (or 208-212 F) works fine with black tea. Warning: the tea is strong (in flavors, not caffeine), so please dilute with more water to your liking. 

So if you have disliked chai as I used to, I guarantee you that chai might be the only thing that worths a second chance.

I hope you enjoy this post, and please comment below for suggestions of other recipes.

Some of the equipments used in this post:

Mortar & pestles: UMA https://bit.ly/2WjFQEs

Biodegradable tea bags: https://amzn.to/3bWFJoV

Bamboo tea scoops & strainer: Kohchosai Kosuga (I bought them in Kyoto but here is a store that sells their products https://bit.ly/2KS2Chk )

Thank you for stopping by,

Eve