Showing posts with label Chai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chai. Show all posts

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Three Cheers for Chai!

In the early morning it's coffee and coffee alone that will awaken me from my zombified swagger into work. I don't know what I'd do without it. Plus I love the taste.




However in the afternoon especially around 2 o'clock I just need a simple pick me up but I don't want to visit any coffee shops because their brew is overpriced and typically burned anytime after 12pm. This is where I turn to chai. Also because it's a lesser amount of caffeine.



One day on a trip up to NYC to visit Mark's university friends Pallavi (Pallu) and Sham, (an extremely entertaining couple because of their sarcastic humor) my whole life was changed. Especially for the 2 o'clock sleepies that is. Pallu gave me some tips on Indian spices and told me a good recipe to use for making a dry powder masala (mix) for chai. When living in Austria a friend of mine, Ginni, gave me a great recipe for chai over the stove but I can't really bring together all the spices like that at work so to hear that I can pinch this powder into some tea, milk and sugar was just the cat's meow! She inspired me to find a spice market and I picked up a jar of chai masala. I have had it for over a year now and I use it at least once a week but it looks like I never touched it. It's SO delicious! But the small container in this picture is actually the masala that Pallu's sister had made. I haven't used it for a long while because it's the best ever so I'm trying to save it. I forgot one thing though. The pepper in her blend has such a kick. I pinched one too many pinches of that stuff and WOW was I in for it!


Ymmmmm!
 Now maybe some folks won't enjoy chai with earl grey as it may be too perfumed for some but I love it as the base for my chai. Just a simple black tea of any kind works. I hope I can dig up that chai recipe from Ginni... I THINK I know where it is.



What do other folks do with they get the afternoon sleepies?