Chai tea

I went to visit a friend of my mother's in Victoria a few weeks ago, and she made chai tea. It had never occurred to me to make chai tea before, so I gave it a try when I got home. Needed a bit of experimentation, but I've found a version that I'm pretty happy with :)

There's a lot of room for improvisation in chai tea because its taste varies widely from place to place. There's really no one strong distinguishing ingredient - I've found you can even replace the black tea with green tea. You can use whatever spices you have on hand - just use some common sense as to what would be appropriate.

My method:

Boil water in kettle (I do this because it's faster than doing it on the stove)
Add boiling water to pot on stove with two black tea bags - can also use some kinda spice tea bag, e.g. bengal spice or gingerbread spice or anything that sounds like it'd work from its ingredients
Add ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom
Let simmer for a few mintues, then add two capfuls of vanilla
To sweeten, add any of the following: honey, sugar (brown or white), syrup, etc. I use a combo of honey and brown sugar myself.

then just ladle it out and add milk!

It keeps well in the fridge and can be consumed hot or cold.