Perfect cup of Milk Tea

I love tea. And by tea I mean chai/ doodh cha. My mornings are incomplete without the fragrant perfect cup of milk tea infused with the flavours of ginger and cardamom. I am swooning just thinking about it.

Now dont get me wrong though. I equally enjoy my cups of golden darjeeling, oolong, assam and green tea. But that is later in the day. By 11 am I have to have a cup of milky gingery goodness, commonly referred to as doodh cha inside my tummy.

Since I love this beverage so much, its no surprise that I have nearly perfected the process of making my cuppa of choice!
My hubby is from Assam and we are lucky enough to get our hands on one of the finest quality of Assam CTC tea for chai.

From roadside chai in small clay pots called kullhar in hindi and bhaar in bengali to the perfectly curated homemade cuppa in bonechina cups and saucers, I love it all.

Since I have a 9.30 to 6 job, I unfortunately dont get time to make and have tea in the morning at home. But there is a saviour at office who gets my daily dose of tea in a thermos from a chaiwala just outside our office gates.

Its the weekends mainly when I can hone my tea making skills.
The quality of milk and tea leaves is very important for the perfect cup of milk tea. Tata tea Gold is a good quality tea for good chai. Currently I am using Halmari Gold ctc blend and it is really very good.

Ingredients:

1. For 2 cups of tea the ratio of milk to water is 1.5:1 and a bit more water if required. This is very important factor for the consistency of the tea.
   i.e 1 cup milk,1 cup water and ½ cup
2. 2 tsp good quality CTC Assam tea*
3. 1 inch piece of fresh ginger
4. 2 green cardamom
5. Brown sugar/ sugar (as per taste)
   Method:
6. Take the milk and water in a vessel and heat it.
7. When the milk water mixture has boiled , boil for 2 minutes more.
8. In the meanwhile peel the ginger. Crush the ginger with the cardamom in a mortar and pestle.
9. Then add 2 tsps of tea and continue to boil.
10. Add in half of the ginger elaichi mix and boil.
11. When the tea has boiled for 2 to 3 minutes or till the exact colour of your choice has been reached add in the remaining of the ginger, give a last boil and switch of the gas.
12. Strain the tea into cups and enjoy the perfect cup of milk tea in all its fragrant and gingery goodness with your loved one.

The hubby and me look forward to our impromptu tea dates which have produced some of our finest chai memories. This photo is from our last years Gangtok trip when we found great cup of yummy tea on MG marg.

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