Cardamom, ginger, cloves, milk, sugar. The trick is the order, the boil, and the patience.
Prep
3 min
Cook
8 min
Total
11 min
Yields
2 cups
Ingredients
2 cups water
1 cup whole milk or 50:50 with water for lighter cup
2 tsp Aburaj Premium Leaf
4 green cardamom pods lightly crushed
1 inch fresh ginger smashed, not grated
2 whole cloves
2 tsp sugar to taste
1 small piece cinnamon stick optional
Method
Bring water to a boil with cardamom, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon. Let it bloom for 1 minute.
Add tea. Boil 2 minutes — you want the liquor deep amber, not dark.
Add milk. Bring up to just below a boil, then drop the heat. Simmer 3 minutes.
Stir in sugar. Taste, adjust.
Strain into kulhads or warmed cups. Serve immediately, with a thread of steam still rising.
Masala chai is not a recipe. It is a thirty-second decision made every
morning across the subcontinent, with whatever spices the kitchen holds
and whatever leaf the tin contains. This is the version we make at the
Aburaj kitchen in Sheoganj — for the moment when a guest walks in and the
day pauses to let them sit.
The single rule: boil the water first, with the spices, before the tea
and the milk arrive. Everything else can move.
