When we were in India the last time, we collected discarded matchboxes on the roads. There are so many, and it’s sorta like trading cards among travelers. These, along with the countless, amazing retro designs from India’s past (recorded in the beautiful book, LIGHT ON INDIA by Warren Dotz), inspired me to create chai spice icons for our chai book-in-the-making. These are most of them…Tulsi and maybe a couple others are still coming.
One of the best (and most challenging) parts for me with this journey in self-publishing is being my own art director and creating the illustration “jobs” throughout the book. I can’t wait to dive into the recipe section. I LOVE illustrating recipes, and perhaps even more, I LOVE being a taster for all of Patrick’s creative masala chai concoctions! It’s going to be a really yummy winter here…
By: Emily Smith Pearce,
on 12/3/2010
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Emily Smith Pearce
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What with the dropping temperatures and snow I’ve been drinking a lot of hot tea. There is plenty of rooibos tea here in Germany, and in fact they have a blend of rooibos and caramel that is awesome (can you get that in the U.S.?). But I haven’t found any rooibos chai, which I’ve been craving. I’ve made my own blend before, but I lost that recipe, so this time I tried this one, with modifications.
Obviously, I used rooibos rather than black tea, but I upped the dosage to 2-3 TB to make it stronger, since rooibos can be a little weak. I also added some black cardamom (and when making the second batch had no green cardamom left) and subbed fresh nutmeg for the allspice. I had no anise, so I left that out. I used fresh orange peel rather than dried. It turned out really well. I didn’t realize that the ginger is what gives it such a nice bite, so if you want spice, use plenty of it. I used fresh ginger, but I’ll have to make a big batch of a dried version recipe so I can have the tea whenever I like.
Let me know if you see a rooibos caramel blend in the U.S. so I’ll know if I need to stockpile it before we leave Germany.
We’ve never heard of rooibos chia. Is it some form of tea or something else? Sounds like there were a lot of etours in that formula before you were finished with it.
GD Bob
Yes, it is tea. Rooibos means “red bush,” and it is a kind of herbal tea from South Africa that tastes a little bit like regular black tea but has no caffeine. You can serve it with milk and sugar like black tea. Yes, I changed several things but in essentials it’s similar to the original. Chai (rhymes with “bye”) is a spicy Indian tea served with milk and sugar —-it is usually made with black tea.