How to Make Masala Chai
Also known as: chai recipe, spiced tea
What this guide solves
Real masala chai: water and milk boiled together with crushed ginger and green cardamom, then strong CTC tea and sugar — the two-essential-spice version that street stalls and home kitchens actually make, not tea-bag-in-warm-milk.
Where it goes wrong
Tea-bag-in-milk 'chai' is a different drink — no spice extraction, no real boil, no body. Proper chai is boiled hard with the spices in from the start, and the usual shortcuts (steeping instead of boiling, long-leaf tea instead of granular, powder instead of crushed fresh ginger) each produce something that looks like chai and tastes like sweet milk.
The method
- 1. Water and milk, roughly 1:1 — In the pan together from the start. The water fraction is what lets tea and spice extract before the milk coats everything.
- 2. Crush fresh ginger and green cardamom — A thumb of ginger, smashed or grated, and three or four pods cracked with the flat of a knife. These two are the essentials; cinnamon and clove are optional extras, not requirements.
- 3. Use strong CTC-style loose tea — The granular dark kind, not long-leaf. CTC gives colour and bite that survive milk; long-leaf brews thin and perfumey here. A heaped teaspoon per cup.
- 4. Boil the spices 2–3 minutes before the tea goes in — The spices need the head start — ginger in particular releases its warmth only with a genuine boil.
- 5. Add tea and sugar, simmer 2 minutes — Sugar during the boil, not after, so it thins into the drink instead of sitting in it. And watch the pan: this is when it climbs.
- 6. Strain into the cup from height — A steady pour from 20–30cm froths and aerates the chai at once. That foam is the finish.
Pro tips
- Do not walk away from a boiling chai pan — milk goes from calm to over the rim in seconds, always at the worst moment.
- Steeping longer does not make stronger chai; it makes bitter, tannic chai. Want it stronger? More tea or a harder boil, not more time.
- A few fennel seeds crushed in with the cardamom give the sweeter, more perfumed version many stalls pour.
- Japanese supermarket milk is excellent for chai but runs lighter than Indian full-fat — shift toward 40:60 water to milk for a richer cup.