My Chai

Malabar Chai has been my go-to beverage for a while and this is a fool-proof recipe I use to bring back the Malabar Chais that have gotten me through my Masters thesis in India.

Thanks to western interpretations, Chai is now popular in several forms some that get Indians going on an hour-long rant about how that is not Chai. While there are numerous varieties of tea from across Asia some extremely delicate and fine, Chai fills a very specific and huge niche in India. Strong liquor enjoyed with milk and sugar. Any other kind of tea might make for a great drink but Chai is all about CTC tea! Being biased towards simple clean flavors, I skip the spices and ginger that make Masala Chai which is more popular in the North of India. Here is a very simple recipe for my Chai. It is fool-proof so even when my husband makes it or I am in too much of a hurry to pay attention to timing and quantities, it still turns out great!

What is CTC tea? CTC stands for Crush, Tear, Curl. Usually higher grade tea is made by selecting specific types of leaves (and/or buds). It is a method of processing tea leaves that involves crushing the leaves into small particles. This makes the tea brew faster and stronger. This process was supossedly specifically developed to for the Indian market where people prefer strong tea. CTC tea is the most common tea used in India. Consequently, abroad (here in Switzerland at least) it is mostly just found in Indian stores. I have found that Assam tea is a good substitute but the liquor is not strong enough if the tea is of high quality and the leaves are more intact.

In India, it is common to boil water and add the tea leaves to boiling water. In my recent trip to Kerala I learnt that this is detrimental to the flavor. Since CTC tea comes with smaller particle sizes as it is, boiling it in water will extract too many unnecessary compounds and more tannins and make the tea bitter. So, I now heat the water in a kettle and add it to the tea and steep. Steeping too long also makes the liquor bitter so I usually stick to 3 minutes but this depends very much on the type of tea used.

My recipe

I use a kitchen scale as I find it makes me use even less of my brain in the morning! For the CTC leaves I use Taj Mahal tea from Brooke Bond that I stockpile from the Indian store nearby.

Place a tea cup and tea separator (that can reach low enough and contain the tea like this one) on the kitchen scale and tare.

3.5 g CTC tea leaves and tare

3.5 g of sugar and tare

100 g of kettle-boiled water (at 98°C) and set aside to steep for 3 minutes

Warm up 100 g of milk in a vessel that pours well in the microwave for 1 minute (depends on the microwave, the goal is to stop just before it boils over)

When the steeping time is up, pour the milk into the tea cup, remove the tea separator and Chai is served.