A sugar-free chai for people who love drinking spicy chai but don't want the sugar-laden mixes from the store. Tweak the spice ratios to create a chai that's tailored to your tastebuds.
To speed things up, boil the water in an electric kettle. (I like to boil extra in case I lose some from evaporation.)
Measure out the spices.
Slice the ginger. If you want your chai really spicy with ginger, squeeze the ginger root through a citrus press.
Put your saucepan on low-medium heat. Once the saucepan is hot, add the cloves, peppercorns, fennel seeds, cardamom, cinnamon, and bay leaves. Toast the spices for 3-5 minutes.
Constantly shake the saucepan to ensure the spices do not burn. Once the spices look golden brown, remove from heat. If the saucepan starts to smoke, remove the saucepan from heat to stop the spices from cooking.
Boiling the Spices
Keep the saucepan with the toasted spices on the stove. Add in the water and milk.
Boil the spices, ginger, water, and milk for 10 minutes.
Once the 10 minutes is up, turn off the heat and remove the saucepan from the stove.
Putting It Together
Add the black tea to the mixture.
Mix well and allow the tea to steep for 2-5 minutes depending on how strong you want your masala chai. The longer you leave the tea leaves steeping, the stronger and more bitter the tea will be. I like my tea steeped for 2 minutes.
Strain the tea into a teapot with a sieve to filter out the spices. Your chai is now ready to drink.