This was lovely and made the whole house smell great! I subbed 1 tbsp powdered ginger for the fresh and it worked out great. I also subbed 2 c milk and 1 1/4 c sugar for the sweetened condensed milk. This tastes great and is a lot cheaper than these small boxes of chai at the store!
This is a great base recipe for Chai that I will use again and again. I intend to make a batch each weekend and store it in the fridge to save on calories (and money) for Chai from the coffee shop! Comparatively, this recipe is pretty low calorie. 90 cal per serving compared to 240 cal for a grande Chai latte at Starbucks. My first batch had a good balance of spices, but was just a little sweet for my family's liking. I think next time I make it, I'll use 3/4 of the sweetened condensed milk rather than the whole can.
Am a little suprised that so many people said this was good. Not spicey enough and the sweetened condensed milk adds a totally different flavor. Does not taste like a traditional Chai tea.
This recipe is very good. I added 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1/4 tsp nutmeg a dash of fennel seeds and a dash of anise. Also a handy conversion is: one cinnamon stick equals 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon. It makes the house smell great!
I used A LOT of spices and will keep this spiced water as a base to make tea. I'm freezing some of it and putting the rest in the refrig. When I'm ready for my chai I can prepare 1 cup at a time. I heat it up add the tea bag as usual. After steeping I add milk and perhaps sugar. Actually tastes much like the chai tea bags I purchase but this is much healthier! (I forgot the ginger and will add it next time!)
My slow cooker is small so I only made half of this recipe. I added all of the ingredients (except for peppercorns...I didnt have any) and put it on low around 10pm so I could enjoy it around 7am the next morning. The chai tasted GREAT. I added the condensed milk little by little so I could avoid having it taste too sweet. This tastes just like the Starbucks version, but a little better.
We made this for Christmas day and it was a big hit. We did some variations. First we let the tea bags sit in the slow cooker for 4 hours or so with the spices. It made the tea nice and smooth (decaf). Instead of fresh ginger we used about a tablespoon of the dry stuff. We also used dried cardamom and about half the cloves. We did included nutmeg. Wow! we will be using this recipe often and avoid the long and expensive lines at that well known coffee shop.
I was leary of this recipe for some reason but it turned out really good! I used 1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom (it's all I could find) and 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon instead of cinnamon sticks. I also used fat free sweet and condensed milk and it tastes great. When I strained the tea I made sure most of the ground cinnamon and cardamom were strained out otherwise it would have had too much muckiness to it. I would make this again.
Best chai ever! My crockpot could only hold 2 quarts so I couldn't make a full batch. I also chose to add allspice nutmeg and a vanilla bean.
