Chai latte recipe with tea bag (better than Starbucks)
Learn how to make this easy chai latte recipe from scratch and don't step foot in Starbucks ever again! Not only is it cheaper and highly customizable but it's also made with simple ingredients like black tea bags, cinnamon and milk. You'll fall in love with the warm, calming taste of this easy recipe.
Servings: 1 Serving
Calories: 226kcal
Equipment
- 1 small saucepan
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups milk or dairy-free milk of choice
- 1 cinnamon stick about 2 inches long broken into pieces
- 5 whole cloves
- ½ star anise optional
- 1 black tea bag
- 2 teaspoons maple syrup or honey taste and add more if needed
Optional for garnish
- Freshly grated nutmeg
- ¼ cups whole milk for frothing
Instructions
- Steep the spices: Transfer the milk and the spices to a small saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring very often. Remove from the heat just before it starts to boil and let the spices steep for 5 minutes (skip this step if you're not using any spices).
- Steep the tea: Heat the milk again over medium heat and remove from the stovetop just before it starts to boil (don't let it unsupervised or it may boil over quickly). Add the tea bag(s), let them steep for 3-5 minutes and discard them.
- Pour and sweeten: Pour the chai into mugs (in most cases you won't need a strainer because the spices will remain at the bottom of the saucepan, but you can also remove them with a spoon) and add 1-2 teaspoons of maple syrup or honey. Taste and adjust the sweetness to your liking.
- Garnish (optional): froth some warm milk using a milk frother or a French press, and pour it over the chai latte. Grate some nutmeg over the surface and serve immediately.
Notes
- For ground spices: use ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ⅛ teaspoon cloves and ⅛ teaspoon star anise per serving.
- Instead of the spices and the black tea bag you can use one chai spiced black tea bag.
- For a stronger flavor: Use 2 tea bags and steep them for less time rather than using 1 tea bag and let it get bitter from over-steeping.
- Heat the milk over medium heat and don't let it boil, in order to prevent it from scorching (forming a burned layer at the bottom of the saucepan).
- Break the cinnamon stick in smaller pieces to help it extract more flavor.
- A drop of vanilla extract and a tiny pinch of salt (just 2-3 granules!) will accentuate the rest of the flavors!
- For the perfect frothy milk with thick foam, make sure to use whole milk (even better if it's UHT).
- Nutrition facts have been calculated with 2% milk for the latte and whole milk for the frothed milk.
Nutrition
Serving: 350grams | Calories: 226kcal | Carbohydrates: 27g | Protein: 12g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.3g | Cholesterol: 31mg | Sodium: 166mg | Potassium: 553mg | Fiber: 0.4g | Sugar: 26g | Vitamin A: 403IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 454mg | Iron: 0.4mg
