How to make the best chai lattes at home (hot or iced) (vegan)

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you might know that I actually posted a Copy-cat Starbucks Chai Tea Latte recipe last summer. In that post, I mentioned how 1) expensive and 2) much sugar a single chai tea latte from Starbucks can be/have. Well, since then, I’ve consumed lots of chai, and have been working on improving that recipe, and I think I’ve done it.

One thing I don’t enjoy about chai purchased from cafes is that there isn’t a decaf option. Although I know tea doesn’t contain nearly as much caffeine as coffee, I’m super sensitive to caffeine, and have found that I can really only drink chai before noon, otherwise I cannot sleep. So this time around when I was testing chai concentrate recipes, I used decaf black tea, and now I can drink it all the time and anytime. Which you can bet I do!

Here’s the recipe:

Yields: 5-6 servings

Ingredients

• 4 cups water, divided
• 5 black tea bags (I used decaf)
• ~ 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled
• 16 cardamom pods
• 16 whole cloves
• 1 tbsp black peppercorns
• 3 star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick
• *Optional* 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Boil 3 cups of water and steep the tea bags for 1 hour.
2. While the tea is steeping, blend together 1 cup of water with 1/3 cup of fresh ginger and set aside.
3. Combine the cardamom, cloves, peppercorns, and star anise in a bag and crush with a rolling pin. Alternatively, use a mortar and pestle.
4. After 1 hour, remove the tea bags from tea and combine the tea, crushed spices, cinnamon stick and remaining 2 tbsp fresh ginger in a pot and bring to a boil. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes.
5. After 15 minutes, add the blended ginger and continue to simmer for another 5 minutes.
6. Remove from the heat and strain using a fine mesh sieve. Then, add in the vanilla extract.
7. Serve with equal parts chai concentrate and non-dairy milk of choice (I prefer oat), and sweetened to your preference.
8. Transfer to a jar and refrigerate the remaining concentrate for future use.