Indian Traditional Tea

Ingredients:

• Tea Powder 
• Cloves, cinnamon stick, fresh ginger, whole black pepper, cardamon pods. 
• Optional items: White khas-khas and soanph 
• Milk 

Method:

• In a clean deep dish container, put 3/4 cup water, 1/2 cup milk (Half-and-Half), 1 full teaspoon black tea and spices as follows.
• 1 pod cardamon
• 2 pea size fresh ginger (mulched)
• 1-2 big size whole black pepper
• 1/8 to 1/6 cinnamon stick
• On a hard piece of paper, crush all of them together. 
• Immediately put this mix in dish with water and milk. 
• Keep them on heater plate or gas range for about 15 minutes, keep stirring continuously. 
• Add sugar to your taste. 
• Drain on strainer and serve in a cup.

The idea is to burn water from the tea while mixing the spices into the leftover tea. You may have to experiment with the quantity of water and milk to the final quantity of tea. In my experience, 2:1 ratio works better, i.e. I use 2 cups of (milk + water) for making one cup of chai. 1 cup of water is burned in the process. This provides smooth taste of chai.