When I was growing up my mom started taking trips to explore India. Whenever she would come home her bags would be packed to the brim with rugs, hats, colourful notebooks with tissue thin paper, and everything was steeped in the smell of incredible spices. We adopted lots of traditions when she came home, and aside from the food (oh the food!) my favourite was definitely homemade chai.

It's suddenly started to get cool in my city, making it comfortable to wear jeans again or to wear a sweater at night but until now it has been hot! This recipe can be made hot or cold, but since it's probably hotter where you are I'm showing you how to make a batch of the cool stuff.

We're all a little pampered with our chai tea bags and chai lattes, but with a few basic spices and some black tea you can have dirt cheap, delicious chai until it's cool enough to skip the steps where you cool it off!

Chilly Chai from Scratch

Best made in the evening so you can enjoy it all the next day :)

Grab:

• 6 Cups of water
• 3 Tbsp. black loose leaf tea (any tea will work, including tea bags- but purists prefer Darjeeling)
• 5 Cinnamon sticks (reduce to 3 if you're not a cinnamon fiend)
• 1 Tbsp black peppercorns
• 2 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 10 whole cloves
• 1 tsp ground cardamom (or 6 pods if you can find them)
• 1 Cup of Milk or Silk's Vanilla Coffee Creamer
• 1/2 Cup brown sugar (or stevia to taste)

Okay!

1. In a medium sauce pan, add all spices to water and simmer on medium for 10 mins. Strain out the spices and discard.

2. Add tea leaves, milk and sweetener and bring to a boil, whisking to ensure sweetener fully dissolves. Steep to desired strength or 5 – 6 minutes. Strain out the tea leaves and discard.

3. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature, then pour into a pitcher and cool overnight. Enjoy over ice until the leaves start to fall!