Skip the chai lattes, leave the sugar loaded chai powder mixes, forget about the boxed ready made chai drinks. Making your own chai or Yogic Tea is simple, quick, without refined sugar and oh so delicious.
Chai is a real thing in India. You basically drink Chai all the time 🙂 after a meal, in the morning, in the afternoon. You talk over tea, have meetings with tea. You drink chai when you’re sad, when you’re happy. When you’re troubled, when you’re relaxed. As I said, basically all the time. It is the thing to offer when someone comes to your home or you will be offered when you meet someone.
Although coffee is definitely not part of the Yogic Diet, chai indeed is a Yogic Tea. The spices you put in your chai can differ. Sometimes you only add Cardamom to make Elaichi Chai. Other times you add star anise, black peppercorns, cinnamon and cloves to make Masala Chai. Make tea with fresh ginger and you get Ginger Chai. Use jaggery as sweetener to make Jaggery Chai, which is especially popular in winter. Of course you can make your own combination of whatever you like, it is your cup of tea 🙂
Here we made Masala Chai with star anise, cardamom and cloves. We used cardamom pods, but cardamom powder would be a very good substitute as it gives more and immediate flavor. Of course in India people use sugar or – in winter – jaggery instead of honey. I will tell more about Jaggery in another blog post, but it is a good and surprisingly nutritious alternative to honey (and most certainly to refined sugar).
Here are some organic ingredients to get you started (these are affiliate links, purchasing through these links gives us a small commission)
As we always like to do, we give you the benefits of our recipes. See our apps for the full version, but here is an insight into the yogic health benefits of Chai or Yogic Tea and its ingredients as per Yogi Bhajan, the Kundalini Yoga guru. Knowing why it is good for you, you will enjoy your tea even more!
- Chai or Yogic Tea has many health benefiting properties thanks to the many spices that are being used. The tea itself is said to help with overall weakness and to prevent colds. Despite the many yogic health benefits, the main ingredient of Yogic Tea is still black tea which contains caffeine. So limit your cups of Chai to only 1 or a few per day.
- Cardamom is a strong antioxidant and full of minerals. Cardamom is good for the heart and blood pressure. Furthermore, cardamom is a great help to detox the body.
- Cloves have a very strong taste, but are also full of health benefits. This spice helps fight infections and relieves digestive problems. It boosts the blood circulation and ones memory.
- Honey is useful to the body for assimilation and elimination. It is a longevity tonic and has many Ayurvedic benefits.
- Freshly ground black pepper is a blood purifier. It is also an important digestive aid.
Our apps have lots of delicious vegetarian and vegan recipes for every occasion; breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack or shake. All recipes are without refined sugar, no eggs and many are nut free or gluten free. Each recipe shows you the related chakra and ways to balance your chakras through food or meditation. Download here from the AppStore.
Making Chai or Yogic Tea is truly very simple and mostly a matter of taste. Do you like less milk, use less milk. Do you like cinnamon add cinnamon. You can make it your own, feel free to experiment. See the video below to see how we make our Chai.