Labor of Love; Chai Tea Recipe

At ChocolaTree, people often ask about our delicious, dairy-free Chai (tea) recipe! Our chai recipe, is vegan & a labor of love, (taking about 2 days to prepare) additionally, one of the most famous in our garden oasis. 
This delicious & nurturing recipe, will fill the hearts of your loved ones & family for days to come, & can be most soothing/relaxing on the coldest of nights to the warmest of summer days. 

After brewing this tea, we make our own sprouted almond milk & add maple. We use whole spices, freshly ground, for example using cinnamon in this recipe as whole sticks & then course grind fresh. Allow the spices to smoke but stirring rapidly to keep from burning. 

Have fun with the spice portions. You might like it a little more spicy or with a little more ginger, so have fun and create the most delicious space chai to suit your own flavor preference.

Ingredients:

Cardamon, black pepper, Szechuan pepper, licorice, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, saffron, Star anise, nutmeg

Traditionally, the spices would be rough ground in a mortar and pestle. These days we use a blender to very quickly chop the whole spices so they are  very rough chopped not ground to powder.

In a heavy pot, with a wooden spoon, begin to cook the spices, one at a time, stirring often, to unlock the flavors of these whole spices, in this particular order.

1. Cardamom, Cinnamon, Star Anise

2. Licorice, Ginger, Nutmeg

3. Cloves, Black Pepper, Szechuan Pepper

4. Fill pot with water then let simmer for 5 hours - when completed, we add vanilla and saffron. Then let cool.

5. Make almond milk! Takes (12 hours soaked) rinse almonds & pour out all water. Mix 2 cups of soaked almonds, in Vitamix, with 8 cups water and blend for 3 minutes. Strain through nut milk bag, sweeten with 1 tbsp maple syrup, per 1 cup milk. (Save pulp for baking ... or other fun like homemade skin care!)

6. Mix 1/2 chai concentrate, to 1/2 almond milk and enjoy!