Tea/Chai (with fresh ginger and cardamom) Masala Chai /How to make Indian Tea

hello everyone the sun is almost down it's uh barely five o'clock though it's getting a little dark these days because of it's winter and i was just gonna ask you guys have you understood chai tea latte at starbucks as much as i love starbucks coffee i think they should just stick to coffee because they just messed up our humble tea chai and tea are pretty much the same words i don't know why they would call a cup of tea as chai tea and then add the word latte because it has milk in it and there is so much of spice tons of spice it almost feels like a desert so today i'm going to break the mystery of making a simple indian tea using home ingredients that i have at home and you will appreciate it much better than the sweet concoction that you get at the store so let's get started with a simple tea okay if you think this is a lot it just goes to show there is so much way so many different ways to make a nice tea it could be complicated or it could be simple but all you do is start with simple water plain drinking water nothing fancy whatever you drink is what you need and i have two cups of water i'm going to turn on the stove and i have everything set up to serve so this is where i'll be pouring it's christmas time so i've got all my fancy cups and sauces and my tray so to begin with we have our queen of the whole chai the tea it could be loose these are two different brands that i regularly use this is from india this is from india you get it all in the indian store and then you have the tea bags as well so you can either use the loose tea and filter it out using a strainer or you can just minimize that by adding tea bags so when you add the tea bags you can just do one cup at a time and you know it seeps through on the other hand i have my little powder jar where i usually keep my tea loose tea and i have these green cardamom skins usually i remove the pods for any dessert and i dump the skins into my tea so it stays flavored for a special treat of a cardamom tea and then i have sugar this is organic sugar that you could use for each cup of tea i generally use one teaspoon of sugar and nowadays if you're health conscious you use your monk fruit sugar this is a little slightly lower in the sweetness compared to regular sugar so i would use one and a quarter or even one and a half and those of whom you are sugar conscious you can go with your sweetness so one per cup okay not more it gets over sweet and this is a mortar and pestle that i use in general to crush my cardamom or my ginger it's very simple and handy and one tip that i definitely want you to know is whenever you use mortar and pestle on a counter okay like this never use it directly use a towel a paper towel or something so you don't mess up your counters okay i've seen multiple times where my friends are using it right there or they chop something on it i'm like no ladies please use your cutting towel it's simple so you don't ruin what you have and regret later and i've especially seen people count cut even lemons on their counters if it's a marble counter no that will leach into your marble and your granite also if it is not sealed you're in for trouble so be very careful and care when i say careful nothing you want to regret later okay and this is my ginger i will use probably this small piece here and then this is a cardamom powder that i made from scratch usually i grind my green cardamoms along with the pods and everything in it and make a powder so in an emergency if i need to make a tea or add it for my deserts indian deserts especially then it's ready to go and keep it it should be airtight seal so this is like airtight bottle okay so you don't want to lose the flavors so in general for each cup of tea we would add one teaspoon of the powder or one packet of the what to say the tea bags okay so our water has been boiled i mean not boiled still boiling it takes about five minutes in the meanwhile i'll tell you a little story so growing up i had this auntie who used to make this most beautiful elegant tea so tea is basically like a ceremony for the asians it's not just the chinese and japanese have a tea ceremony at most of their festivities if i'm not mistaken in india again it's an experience and you moms please take some time to relax with a cup of tea i know you've been running around and doing so much especially during the pandemic when i think women carried the most load at home i would appreciate if you women take some time for yourself even a cup of tea just by yourself and call it me time would be great and yeah i just digressed from what i was supposed to say so this auntie used to make this elaborate issue about a simple cup of tea she used to have her tea pot with the nice fancy cover that she embroidered and then she'll have the sugar separately the cream separately and everything is so meticulously done and the servant boy in india we have you know maids and servants and they would bring it the house help actually they will bring it in such an elegant manner and leave it in the center table and this auntie would go so how do you like your tea cream and sugar and you know you have to be specific about what you tell because once it's done there's no turning back and i realized that once you post the tea and i take a sip of it it tastes like hot water i couldn't tell that because the process was so elegantly done it's like you'll be a sinner for even complaining okay so then i realized i wish that auntie had tasted her tea from a third man's perspective and seen that it was similar to hot water there was no flavor nothing but real tea people has tons of flavor and after a nice meal especially an indian biryani you want a cup of tea and sometimes people add cinnamon to all kinds of spices and it helps digestion as well so my milk oh not my milk my water is boiled so now i'm going to add my ginger pieces and my cardamom sometimes you can just add ginger or just add cardamom nobody's going to shoot you so here's my ginger chopped and i have less than a quarter teaspoon of cardamom powder i'm going to put the ginger in my mortar and pestle and as usual i have to preach or practice what i preach i have my towel under my mortar and pestle and here we go so you're basically crushing it you're not making a paste out of it and this is how it looks so let's go ahead i actually lowered my heat because i was talking so much that it was boiling over so add your ginger and your cardamom powder let it come to a nice boil then we're gonna add our tea leaves and let it steep for about a minute or two and turn it off and put a lid on just come to a nice boil i'm gonna add one two two teaspoons but this is a little smaller than usual so i'm gonna add one more so that is three which would be probably two teaspoons on a regular teaspoon and i'm gonna let it steep through a little bit i'm gonna put a lid on it and turn off the stove let it just you know intermingle and marry itself while i warm up some milk my husband is lactose intolerant so i have a lactate milk so i'll be warming up half a cup to a cup of milk while the milk was heating i had a chance to put away all my stuff now we're gonna open our tea you see how all the tea leaves have settled at the bottom that's how it should be and then you add your warm or hot milk it's a minute or two should be fine and then never use a plastic strainer always use a metal one because this is a hot liquid you don't want any plastic to go in your belly plastic will melt at high temperature and this is a high temperature drink but please don't burn your mouth when you're drinking it let it cool down to your desired temperature definitely let it boil a little bit today i decided to add my monk fruit sweetener so i'm gonna add one teaspoon in each of my cups maybe a little bit more in both because it does taste a little better with extra so my tea is boiling or going to boil you could use brown sugar to sweeten your tea or honey but basically i don't like to add milk and honey together and honey should never be added to any hot liquid when it's on the fire you usually take it off the flame and then add honey that's kind of a tip i learned in the long run so just come to a nice rolling boil you can give it a stir or two and don't let it boil over you're gonna have a mess to clean up i already spilled some milk so now your tea is ready turn off the stove and pour it into your cups serving cups so first we do is drain it out please be careful hot liquid always use a towel if needed and work carefully it is such a pretty color and the whole house smells very good so that's how you make your tea and serve it elegantly a nice little tray of course this is a saucer there you go enjoy