I make Chai from scratch decently often. I use whole spices, give them a couple cracks with a pestle and add them to a pot of boiling water along with loose leaf black tea. I then let it continue to boil, or just cut the heat for a couple minutes, then add milk. I then bring it back to a boil, and wait for it to try to boil over. When it tries to boil over, you beat back the foam and take it off heat for a little. If you do that over and over, eventually, it won’t foam up anymore because those proteins have denatured. That’s when the tea gets that nice and silky texture. I’ll also throw some honey in there.

I always make a big pot and have plenty of leftovers for cold chai.

I don’t really measure anything, even though I should. I also change up ingredients. At a minimum, I always have green cardamom, ginger, and tea, but sometimes I also use black cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, aniseed, nutmeg, black pepper, or vanilla.

1. Heat water to 70 degrees using electric kettle.
2. Put loose leaf green tea in a strainer thingy. Leave room for it to expand 4 times as big
3. Swoosh some of the 70 degree water around a glass kettle to heat it up, pour it out.
4. Put strainer with tea in glass kettle.
5. Pour water over tea.
6. Let sit for a few minutes.
7. Drink.
8. Reuse the same leafs throughout the day using same steps.

I usually use unflavored green tea with decent quality. Very different from tea bags.

Ive been mostly doing western style with an infuser basket and a temperature controlled kettle, but I also have a gaiwan for when I feel like sitting down and doing a gongfu session.

Spring/summer Im mostly drinking chinese greens (longjing and biluochun) and high mountain oolongs (alishan, baozhong, dong ding). Fall/wintee I might still have those occasionally but Ill do more wuyi and dancong oolongs (shuixian, duckshit), and the occasional ripe puer

With bags like a savage usually, no sugar or milk. I’d up my tea game but I’m usually more of a coffee drinker.

Toss a big mug of water in the microwave with like 3 teabags in it. Nuke it for like 2 minutes 30 seconds. Then I add some French vanilla creamer in it and a ice cube to cool it down. Yum yum . If I really need some caffeine I add like 5 tea bags and make sure I squeeze them after microwaving.

As a British person, I want to go mad with the downvotes here.

Usually I drink Yorkshire Gold with sugar and a little evaporated milk.

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Depends on tea…

I start with boiling water because I don’t have a fancy kettle.

Tea bags? Leave in for a while, sometimes indefinitely, sometimes til the string annoys me. Black unflavored?With a little half and half. Sometimes brown sugar, tannin content depending. Black flavored (like Earl grey)? Plain. Green? A little honey. Most others? Plain

Loose? Timing depends on tea type, and can change based on specific tea and quality. Usually: Black/flavored green/lower quality teas? 3 minutes first brew, 5 till indefinite minutes second brew. Green? 1 minute first brew, 2 minutes second brew, 5 minutes third brew. Oolong/puer? 5 second rinse, toss the rinse, 20 second first brew. Or, without rinse, 30 second first brew. 1 minute second brew, 2 minute third brew, etc.

A lot of loose leaf depends on tea to water ratio too, these work for me. Quality and size of leaf effects how quickly the flavor can get into the water. Sometimes I’ll just stand over the brewing tea and sniff the whole time to determine best brew time. I might be a little crazy about it though.

I have a really nice Bodum glass kettle that I use every day. I usually drink it with a bit of honey. For chai, black tea, and other dessert-y teas, I like to add a bit of milk (powdered or almond).

I really like disposable, compostable tea bags. They’re made of the same stuff as coffee filters. But tbh I use pre bagged most days because I’m lazy.

On special occasions we bring out the Yixing

Cold brew over night, unsweetened

Electric kettle. Boiling water. Infuser basket in tea pot for 3 - 5 minutes depending on the type of tea. Drink pot and repeat around 1400

Electric kettle + tea berry and a one minute timer. Leave the bag in for extra goodness.

In the beginning of COVID I ran out of tea once and since then I got used to just drink warm water from the tap in most cases. 🚰

Electric kettle + Celestial Apple Cinnamon tea in a Yeti thermos. Let brew for 3-4 hours. It is absolutely glorious.