Cold-brewed Chai brings peace overnight

So by this point it is absolutely no surprise that my wife is with child.  Up until a few weeks ago you wouldn't have known unless you caught a glimpse of the elastic belly thing that magically transforms normal jeans into pregnancy jeans when the button can no longer snap.  You may have gotten an idea if you happened to be anywhere near her when a commercial about babies or puppies graces the screen.  For those of us who spend the majority of our time in such close quarters with her though, the pickles and the olives and the hard boiled eggs are all evidence enough that something has taken over her body.  Some glorious parasite has taken up residence and has been holding her insides hostage at the threat of a blindsided fit of tears or other inexplicable outburst.

Somehow, my ability to drink fresh brewed fully charged black diesel coffee in the mornings has been held against me by both the parasite and the host.  Sure, she drinks a large half-caf, or a medium cup'o'joe in the midst of her day, but that doesn't exactly level the scales on those mornings when my tall steaming cup of caffeination towers well over her cute little mug of caffeine-control.

Being the model-citizen that I am, I recognized the growing dissonance from this, and I took it upon myself to create something for her that could possibly begin to balance those scales and somehow overshadow the fact that I don't plan to stop drinking coffee just because she happens to be pregnant.  Knowing how big her soft spot is for chai, I set out to find the perfect recipe that would keep her from even considering a comparison to my morning dark roast.

During the summer mornings in our house, we have somewhat perfected the art of cold-brewing

coffee in mason jars.  There is something about steeping the beans overnight without using hot

 water that makes it less acidic, and therefore less bitter (definite perk when the final goal is iced

 coffee).  In my search for the perfect cup of chai I found that there are thousands of different chai

 recipes, but none that I could find that cold-brew it overnight. 

*insert mental-lightbulb and that dreaming-determined 500 yard stare here*

After a few semi-successful, and a few failed efforts, I found that it is actually way too easy to make really great chai as long as you remember a few important things:

1)whole ingredients, whole ingredients, WHOLE INGREDIENTS! 

As great as you might think powders can be in the kitchen, ground ginger

will RUIN your chai, whereas fresh ginger may just prove to be its salvation. 

2)hold this recipe with open hands...it isn't intended to be followed to the letter, but rather to provide a framework from which you can experiment.

I searched and found hundreds of variations on Chai, but there were some ingredients

that were common denominators in all of them (ginger, cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon). 

None of them need to be measured or leveled, and you can always add others. 

(Just remember how much of what you put in, so you can tweak it to your liking in the next batch).

3)try changing everything, EXCEPT THE TEA

To save on the caffeine, I tried using Green Tea for a batch.  Avoid this temptation and actually

go purchase some black tea leaves, there are many kinds of black tea available, but they all have

the same full flavor needed to carry the spices in Chai...I'm not saying that green or white tea

 absolutely won't work, but they simply don't have the backbone to carry the flavors of

a good solid Chai.

Cold-Brewed Chai Tea
materials/ingredients:
1 mason jar (2 cup capacity)
1 cinnamon stick
2-4 cardamom pods
3-5 whole cloves
5-7 fennel seeds
3-4 black peppercorns
1 vanilla bean (actually only about 1/2 inch snipped off of one)
2-3 thin slices of fresh ginger
2 cups milk/water (portioned to your liking)
1 TBSP black tea leaves (I like assam leaves for this)
1-2 tsp honey


Step 1:


Bruise ginger slices with side of knife (you're not trying to juice it...just press it till it sweats a bit)

-toss bruised ginger into mason jar

Step 2:

Slice the cardamom pods in half and break the cinnamon stick into a few pieces.


-scrape all the seeds/hulls/pods into the mason jar with the ginger

Step 3:

Snip 1/4-1/2 inch piece off of the vanilla bean, cut lengthwise, and toss it in the mason jar too.

-Add tea leaves to the mix as well.

Step 4:

Put all remaining ingredients in mason jar (cloves, peppercorns, fennel seeds)


-this is where you add whatever variations you want to try out (star anise, nutmeg, almond, etc...) 

Step 5:

Add liquid to the dry ingredients to fill the jar


(I use half skim milk and half water, but almond milk or soy milk would offer a nice variation.)

Step 6:

-put it in the fridge after dinner, and forget about it until breakfast

Step 7:

-wake up, strain all the bits and pieces out, sweeten with honey to taste, and enjoy (iced or warm).

(that whole bit about not using powders in the place of whole ingredients really helps

at the strain-step...if using whole ingredients, you can actually do this in a simple colander)