Disclaimer: "can become a daily addiction"-ha ha. Making your own spicy rooibos latte is the best daily comfort drink in the world (for me and many I've introduced to the mixture). I will show you how to do the mix and you can add more or less of a certain favorite or not so favorite spice.
* Tea infuser or cheese cloth: an extra fine, fine infuser is best so that the herbs do not come through into the chai
* Cutting board
* French knife or cleaver
* bench scrapper tool
* plastic bag for crushing peppercorns
* stainless steel or glass sealable container for storage
Ingredients:
@ 1 and 1/4 cup of organic rooibos (found in health food stores or on the web. Rooibos does not contain caffeine and has very very low tannins compared to tea leaves, save your tannins for the spices)@ 1/4 cup of cardamom pods or seeds
@ 3 sticks of ceylon cinnamon
@ 2 whole nutmeg nuts
@ 1/2 vanilla stick or whole if you love vanilla
@ 1/8 cup + 1 TBL (or more if you like hot/spicy) white peppercorns
@ 2 small slices of fresh ginger, cut the skin off while slicing
@ sweetener of choice
@ vegan milk of choice
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| The final mixture, a scent and drink from utopia |
& Add your rooibos to container, set aside
& Add cardamom to cutting board and, carefully, cut with knife until each seed or pod is crushed up, use bench scrapper to bunch together the seeds if the knife sends them scattering. Add to rooibos container
& Take your cinnamon sticks and cut up and disassemble with knife, using bench scrapper to bunch together. Add to rooibos container
& Slice your nutmeg nuts up with french knife horizontally and vertically until very grated. Use bench scrapper to add to rooibos container
& Slice up and disassemble your vanilla stick, add to rooibos container with bench scrapper
& Place your peppercorns in plastic bag and push air out and seal bag. Place the bag full of peppercorns on the cutting board and take the bottom thick part of the french knife and, with a fist, punch the knife down on the bag and break up the peppercorns. You can flip the bag over, and repeat until you have course pepper. Place in rooibos container
MIX MIX MIX, then seal your container and store in pantry
Chai Latte Method:
* Place around 3 tsps of rooibos mixture and a couple small slices of fresh ginger into infuser
* Heat around 1/2 of the cup of water to tea boil or microwave simmer (you are making concentrate)
* Place the filled infuser into 1/2 cup of water and let sit for around 15-20 minutes
* Once the mixture has steeped into the water you can disgard the spent mixture by composting or garbage heap
* Add enough vegan milk to fill up the rest of the cup and add sweetener to taste, I usually add around 3 tsp of sugar, mix.
* If you like your chai cold, add ice. If you like your chai hot, heat up mixture and serve
