Chai Masala Recipe: How to Make Chai Spice Mix and Spiced Chai at Home

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons green cardamom pods
• 1 tablespoon cloves
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 2 cinnamon sticks, about 2 inches (5 cm) each
• 2 tablespoons ground dried ginger (sonth)
• Optional: 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, or a little freshly grated nutmeg

Method

1. Break the cinnamon into small pieces.
2. Toast the cardamom, cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon (and fennel, if using) in a dry pan over low heat for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring, until they smell fragrant. Do not let them darken.
3. Tip them onto a plate and let them cool completely.
4. Grind to a fine powder in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle.
5. Stir in the ground ginger (and nutmeg, if using). Sift out any coarse bits of husk or bark if you like a smoother cup.
6. Store in a small, airtight jar away from light and heat.

Mixing masala into dry tea

If you would rather keep a ready-spiced tea in the jar, follow the rules our blenders use. Our tips for home blends say to crush the spices first and then mix them with the tea, and to keep nearly two-thirds of the blend as tea.

Match the size of the spice to the size of the leaf, so that both brew at the same pace and the spice does not sink to the bottom of the jar. The same tips, written with our blender Shruti Tripuraneni, put it as a rule: “Always use ingredients of similar density and size to avoid de-blending.” Our Tea 101 advice is to pair small ingredients such as cardamom with a smaller CTC grade such as BP (Broken Pekoe), and big, chunky ones such as star anise with a larger grade such as BOPSM (Broken Orange Pekoe Souchong Mixed). A fine homemade powder works with any CTC.

This is the method from our own Indian masala chai recipe, first published on our blog in 2016. It makes one generous mug in 9 to 12 minutes.

Ingredients (1 mug)

• 1 teaspoon CTC black tea
• ¾ cup water
• ½ cup full-cream milk
• Sugar, to taste
• 2 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
• ¼ inch fresh ginger, crushed
• ½ inch cinnamon stick

Method

1. Bring the water to a boil. As it starts to bubble, add the tea and let it boil for about 2 minutes.
2. Add the spices and simmer for another minute.
3. Add the milk and simmer for 2 to 5 minutes.
4. Add sugar to taste and simmer for about 2 minutes more.
5. Let the chai rise to a boil, then once more, until it turns toffee-colored.
6. Turn off the heat and strain into a mug.

To use masala powder instead, stir about ¼ teaspoon into the boiling tea at step 2. For the full method, milk ratios and how to scale up for a pot, see How to make masala chai at home.

Other ways our writers add the spices

The order is not fixed, and our archive holds several house methods that work. Jerry Pinto’s Mahim kitchen, in our story A Mumbai tea story, builds the spice in the water: “Tear open two elaichi,” add a strand of lemongrass, a cinnamon stick “one inch long, well-thumped,” or “a clove or two,” then “one level teaspoon of tea leaves for each cup.” The pot is lidded until it boils, and hot milk goes into each cup separately.

Another writer’s mother kept the spice apart. She brewed “a pot of regular chai (with a little less milk than she’d conventionally use)” and, on the side, made “a fiery concentrate of spices” from ginger, pepper, fennel, cinnamon and cardamom, adding it “just as the tea would come to a boil.” That is the slow-pot version of a jar of masala: the spice is ready before the tea is.

Whichever order you choose, keep the water hot. Our first Tea 101 gives 95–100°C for chai, and fresh ginger should only meet milk that is already very hot.

Spices need a tea strong enough to stand up to them and to milk. That is why most masala chai is made with Assam CTC: the small, rolled granules brew fast and dark. “Black tea offers briskness and astringency to the infusion, and takes to the addition of milk effortlessly,” as our tasting note for Assam Masala Chai puts it.

Our own chais are built on small grades for the same reason. Our chai product notes say they use “a mix of BP (Broken Pekoe) and BP1 (Broken Pekoe 1),” because “the smaller grain size allows for a quicker and more robust infusion.” For an unspiced base, our Kadak Chai is made from premium CTCs that we choose from Assam gardens.

A malty whole-leaf summer Assam such as Halmari Summer Black also works well; brew it a little longer. Tea 101 says the same: other teas that work with milk “are most Assam black teas, especially the summer black teas,” and most breakfast teas are made to take milk well.

Our tips for creating your own tea blends warn against the opposite: delicate first flush Darjeeling should not be paired with “strong, intensely aromatic flavors like cardamom or ginger.” See Orthodox vs CTC tea and Assam tea for more on the base, and Karak (kadak) chai for the extra-strong style.