Chai Tea

Chai Tea

Makes 4-6 servings

This tea is excellent for boosting the immune system improving health in general!

If you don’t have one (or even a few) of the ingredients, you can still make a tea with the ingredients you do have and it will be beneficial.  Try to get organic ingredients where possible.

You can serve it hot or cold.  Store it in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

  • 6 cups of water
  • 4-6 tea bags, organic Green tea*
  • 4 sticks of Ceylon cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) (powder is ok if sticks are not available)
  • 2 inch chunk of Ginger (1/2 tsp of powder is ok if fresh is not available)
  • 2 inch chunk of Turmeric (1/2 tsp of powder is ok if fresh is not available)
  • ½ tsp of peppercorns
  • 1 tsp Fennel seeds
  • 1 tsp Fenugreek seeds
  • 6 Cardamom pods cracked open (or ½ tsp ground Cardamom)
  • 16 Cloves
  • 6 Star Anise pods**

Put all ingredients except ginger and turmeric in a big pot and simmer on low for at least half an hour, and up to 4 hours.  You don’t want it to be bubbling, just steaming.

Right before you are ready to serve it, grate or thinly slice the ginger and turmeric*** and put in the pot for 5 minutes only.  Heating them longer will reduce the benefits.

Strain and serve!  You can add Monk Fruit or Stevia for sweetness, and some kind of organic creamer for taste, if you want.

 

* For caffeine-sensitive people, white tea can replace green tea.

** Make sure that you are using Chinese star anise and not Japanese star anise. The Japanese version is inedible and actually poisonous if consumed by mouth.

*** I recommend you get reusable, organic cotton tea bags, and put the grated ginger and turmeric in one of those.  Then, after the 5 minutes, let the tea bag cool and manually squeeze all the juice out of them!

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