‘Tis the holiday season.  Time to make candy, bake cookies, and whip up a few batches of Chai tea for gift giving.  The main ingredients in chai tea are black tea, milk, spices, and sweetener.  I’m not sure where I found the recipe but I’ve been making it for years.   It has cardamom but no coffee so it is definitely not a Finnish favorite.  I typically do not care for cream or milk in my tea or coffee but I do like an occasional cup of this tea.

Ingredients:

3 cups nonfat dry milk powder

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 cup unsweetened instant tea

3/4 cup vanilla powdered nondairy creamer

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp ground cloves

In a food processor combine all of the ingredients, cover and process until you have a fine powder.

Once the mixture is processed dump it in a bowl to make it easier to fill your jars.

Scoop the mixture into jars and store the jars in a cool place.  One recipe makes a little over 4 cups of the mix.  I made several batches.

To serve add 3/4 cup of boiling water to 3 T of chai mix.

NOTE:  Because the nondairy creamer is sweet you can choose to reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe or use a sugar substitute like truvia.

To make the jars more festive for holiday gift giving tie curly ribbon to the neck of the jar or take a square piece of colorful fabric and use the band to fasten the fabric down.  Include a copy of the recipe and instructions for mixing with the jar.

Hmmmmm.  I wonder how this would taste substituting instant coffee for the instant tea?  If I do a test batch I’ll be sure to blog the results.