TITLE: Best Traditional Indian Tea---FROM SCRATCH FROM: vijay DATE: 11/22/97 EMAIL: stjbtraf@inreach.com I read the Indian Tea recipes on your Chai Recipes page. Quite interestingly, most of these recipes are for "busy" people. Even from the well known cook expert. I do not want to boast, but try the following traditional recipe, which is used by hundreds of thousands of Indian housewives, who have lots of time to prepare tea. Remember, good food, especially indian food, is never cooked in hurry. Try it, and if you do not like it, do not post on the net. First, all of these ingredient should be fresh (or as fresh as possible). You can get all these spices in Indian-american grocerry stores. 1. Brooke Bond Red label, Mamri, or Tajmahal Black tea [DO NOT USE GREEN OR LEAF TEA, IT WILL RUIN THE TASTE]. 2. Cloves, cinamon stick (good quality), fresh ginger (powder or prepackaged cannot be substituted), whole black pepper, cardomon pods. 3. Optional items: White khas-khas (Indian name of a spice, which is round dried seeds); and soanph (green dried, not roasted) 4. Half-and-Half milk. No other milk can be substituted (if you really want the taste of real chai) PREPARATION METHOD FOR 1-CUP CHAI: In a clean deep dish container, put 3/4 cup water, 1/2 cup milk (Half-and-Half), 1 full teaspoon black tea and spices as follows. 1 pod cardomon 2 pea size fresh ginger (mulched) 1-2 big size whole black pepper 1/8 to 1/6 cinnemon stick On a hard piece of paper, crush all of them together. Immediately put this mix in dish with water and milk. Keep them on heater plate or gas range for about 15 minutes, keep stirring continuously. Add sugar to your taste. Drain on strainer and serve in a cup. The idea is to burn water from the tea while mixing the spices into the leftover tea. You may have to experiment with the quantity of water and milk to the final quantity of tea. In my experience, 2:1 ratio works better, i.e. I use 2 cups of (milk + water) for making one cup of chai. 1 cup of water is burned in the process. This provides smooth taste of chai. Please note: Chai making can be fun, but you cannot cut time. I have always made the best chais and never thought of time. Belive me it is time well spent. Send me your comments. Vijay