Morning Chai (pg. 31)

The idea of making chai was so foreign to me - it is something that you buy from a store or from a coffee shop.  So it was with eager anticipation that I boiled the water with 5 tea bags, 12 peppercorns, 8 cardamom pods, and a cinnamon stick (which was in the container bought for the first recipe of ithis blog experience).  Once it was boiled, we added 1 1/2 cups of vanilla soy milk.  The mixture gets poured into 4 cups through a sieve and served.  I used a coffee filter for the first cup, but the filter was too fine, and the liquid would not flow through it.  Luckily, I had a tea infuser to use - I usually use it for brewing tonsil tamer tea. 

The final product was not all that different from regular tea.  I think that was because of my inexperience with cardamom.  I just learned that the pods, which look like small garlic cloves, contain several seeds.  The recipe calls for crushing the pods, and I only did it with a spoon.  I just looked on the internet, and I found that the best way to process cardamom is with a mortar and pestle.  Got to get me one of those. 

This was also a very expensive drink to make.  Cardamom is one of the most expensive spices by weight.  $12 a bottle at Wegmans.  It will last me a while though, unless I get an Indian cooking cookbook and do a challenge with it.  Hmmm.  Nope, can't see that happening.

The recipe also suggests that the drink would be tasty over ice.  Maybe next time...

1 serving = 1 cup = 1 point
PointsPlus:  still 1 point