Warm & Cozy Indian Ginger Tea Recipe - Adrak Chai

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Indian Ginger Milk Tea Recipe

You may be quite familiar with the word chai, which is Hindi for “tea.” If you’re wondering, to say “chai tea” literally is saying “tea tea.” So when you’re asking for a chai tea latte at your favorite coffee shop, you are saying a “tea tea latte.” Just something that makes me chuckle!

Chai is a staple beverage in India, consisting of black tea that is brewed with water, a variety of spices, sugar, and milk. Despite its popularity, believe it or not I’ve not gotten into it many years later after having come to Canada! My parents just never allowed me to drink tea growing up in New Delhi! Why? I’m not quite sure, they just said I’m too young. So unfortunately I’m not the right person to ask about the experience of enjoying chai street-side, offered by the chaiwalas (tea vendors).

My first venture into chai was with my Masala Chai recipe, which features a homemade spice blend that’s added to our boiled black tea. It is indeed very special for sure, not to mention super fast to make!

Indian Ginger Tea with Milk Benefits

Our Ginger Milk Tea will certainly not only be delicious but good for your body! Let’s start off with the numerous benefits of black tea, which include:

• Potentially reducing the risk of heart disease through polyphenols
• Heart health may be improved by flavonoids
• Possibility of the reduction in LDL cholesterol
• Easy on the gut and digestion
• Can be helpful in reducing blood pressure

To learn more about the health benefits of chai, you can check out this article by Healthline.

Not only that, but you may have heard that ginger root is widely used in alternative medicine. Ginger has got a handful of health benefits, so let’s just go over a couple:

• Many of the health benefits come from gingerol, the main bioactive ingredient in ginger. Gingerol has strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects.
• Ginger assists in alleviating nausea and morning sickness
• Can reduce blood insulin levels
• Helps with digestive problems
• Assists in lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol
• Boosts immunity by reducing the risk of infections
• Can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and improve brain function.

Get more details about ginger’s health benefits here.

Why Make This Indian Ginger Milk Tea?

I bet you’ll become as addicted to this Indian Ginger Milk Tea recipe as I am! In fact, if you’re a regular coffee drinker, perhaps you’ll even swap out your morning coffee for this amazing tea! Here are only a few reasons why you need to make this today!

• Minimal ingredients: You’ll soon see that you’ll only need a handful of ingredients that you most likely already have at home! If you’re a tea drinker, then I’m sure there’s loads of black tea laying around!
• Fragrant: The smell of this tea is just out of this world and it’ll warm you up before you even start drinking!
• Healing ginger flavor: The ginger flavor runs through and through and is enjoyable till the last sip, whether your throat needs it or not.
• Easy process: When you read the instructions, it may seem like we’re doing a lot. However, most of the work is just done over the stove with water and tea boiling. Just don’t stray away to ensure that the tea doesn’t boil over!

Tips for How to Make Indian Ginger Tea Taste Better

• The longer you boil the ginger, the more intense the flavor would get in the tea. Make sure to smash it to release all the juices from the ginger into the tea.
• Tea strength will increase the longer you boil it, boiling too long can cause the tea to become bitter. 2-3 minutes works best for me.
• You require a good quality fine mesh sieve to ensure any bits of the brewed tea leaves are filtered from your serving.
• The milk only needs to come up to a simmer and not a boil. Keep stirring to ensure it doesn’t burn and keep a close eye to ensure it does not boil over.
• Double walled cups or a teapot can be helpful to keep the tea hot for a long time - especially if you drink slow.

Tools Needed

• Mortar and pestle
• Chef's knife
• Saucepan
• Spoon
• Fine mesh sieve
• Teapot

Ingredients for Indian Ginger Tea

Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD or press the “Jump to Recipe” button to get all ingredient quantities and to save the recipe for later! You can also scale the recipe based on how many cups of chai you want to make. If you’re making chai for a party, then this will help you ensure you maintain the correct ratios without having you to do any mental math!

• Water: To boil the ginger and the tea.
• Milk: Whole milk will give you a nice creaminess to the tea. I first made this with 1% fat milk, but the texture really wasn’t the same! You CAN but if you want the best results, I do really recommend you use whole milk. If you only have milk with a lower fat content, you could either reduce the amount of water you’re adding for the tea, increase the amount of milk, or add a splash of cream.
• Black tea leaves: Alternatively use black tea bags.
• Green cardamom pods: This will really add an extra fragrant touch here. In my Indian dessert recipes such as Chawal Kheer (rice pudding) or Gajar ka Halwa (carrot pudding), I love to add a sprinkle of ground green cardamom. Cardamom is just so aromatic and will further enhance the ginger flavor and the creaminess from the milk!
• Ginger: Whole ginger that will be crushed. I wouldn’t recommend you substitute with ginger powder because you won’t get as potent of a ginger flavor.
• Sweetener: Use your favorite choice of sweetener here. I’m just using simple granulated white sugar.

How to Make Ginger Milk Tea

Smash the ginger pieces in a mortar and pestle or with the side of your chef’s knife.

Then, add the ginger to a saucepan with water and bring it to a boil. Boil for 4-5 minutes or until the water changes color with a tinge of yellow.

Add the tea leaves and boil for 2-3 minutes. Lightly smash the cardamom pods and add to the tea, along with sugar (or sweetener of choice) and mix well.

Then pour in the milk and heat until it starts to steam. Once the milk starts to simmer, immediately take the saucepan off the heat and pour the milk through a fine mesh sieve into your teapot or cups.

Serve hot with your favorite snacks.

Variations to Chai with Ginger

• Sweetener: As mentioned earlier, you can use your favorite sweetener! If you want a natural option, try honey, cane sugar or jaggery if you can find it in your area.
• Milk: If you’re vegan, you can opt for a plant-based milk alternative, such as oat milk, almond milk (or perhaps you can make your own!), coconut milk, or soy milk for more protein. However, the texture and taste will differ for sure. Additionally, if you’re lactose intolerant and still drink dairy milk, then lactose-free milk will work perfectly fine, and that’s actually what I used here!
• Stronger ginger flavor: Boil the ginger for longer or add more ginger if you want it even stronger.
• Creamier chai: The ratio I used is 2 cups of water to 2 cups of whole milk, so equal parts. Use less water, or more milk, if you want a creamier chai.
• Stronger tea flavor: If you boil the milk for longer than indicated here, you will have a stronger chai flavor. This is also known as “Kadak” chai.
• Other spices: You could also throw in a cinnamon stick and either turmeric powder or turmeric root into your tea to further enhance the flavors and to gain additional medicinal properties from these popular spices!

What to Eat with Indian Ginger Tea

Indian Ginger Milk Tea is perfect on its own or to pair with breakfast or snacks. Here are some of my favorite breakfasts that will go really well with our chai recipe to start your day right!

• Egg Bhurji
• Sabudana Khichdi - Tapioca & Potato Fry
• Chicken Keema Paratha
• Besan Chilla - Chickpea Flour Pancake
• South Indian Rava Upma

Looking to enjoy a warm cup of chai in the afternoon with some tasty snacks? Here are only a handful of snacks that will be perfect with our chai!

• Paneer Pakora
• Delhi-Style Aloo Chaat
• Paneer Patties - Indian Cottage Cheese in Puff Pastry
• Aloo Cutlets
• Baked Paneer Jalfrezi Samosa
• Sabudana Tikki Recipe
• Air Fryer Chicken Cutlets
• Aloo Tikki Chaat

More Cozy Hot Drinks

• Easy Red Velvet Latte: As Valentine’s Day is soon approaching, this is the perfect easy pretty drink to serve your loved one!
• Starbucks Eggnog Latte: Although the holidays are over, you can enjoy Eggnog Latte any time of the year! The best part is that it only takes about 15 minutes to make!
• S’mores Hot Chocolate: Feeling chilly but want to enjoy a campfire favorite in a cup? This is the perfect drink for you! The roasted marshmallows on top make them super special!
• French Vanilla Cappuccino: A favorite recreated by the iconic Canadian coffee chain Tim Horton’s, this French vanilla cappuccino right from home is creamy with a hint of vanilla goodness! Excellent for those really cold days when you don’t want to visit the coffee shop!

No Black Pepper, No Cloves, No Cinnamon: Adrak Chai Is Not Masala Chai

If you have made masala chai before, you are used to a spice list as long as your arm. This is not that. Adrak chai is built on ginger, and the entire spice cabinet contribution here is 3 green cardamom pods. There is no black pepper, no cloves, no cinnamon stick, no star anise and no fennel. What goes into the pot is 4 tablespoons of black tea leaves, 1 tablespoon of fresh ginger, those 3 cardamom pods, 2 cups of water, milk and sugar to taste. That is the original recipe, and the restraint is the entire point: strip the other spices out and you can finally taste the ginger.

If you have no pods in the house, the card's swap is ground cardamom at a quarter teaspoon per pod, so roughly three quarters of a teaspoon ground cardamom for this batch, stirred in at the same moment the pods would have gone. Smash the fresh ginger before it goes anywhere near the pan, in a mortar and pestle or under the flat of a chef's knife. Minced is fine, but smashed gives up far more of its juice. This is the cup that comes out when the weather turns, and adrak chai in the monsoon is practically an institution in India, which is no accident given how long ginger has been used in Ayurveda for warmth and digestion.

The Water Gets a Full Boil. The Milk Never Does.

This is the step that separates real chai from beige tea, and the two halves of the pan want opposite things. The smashed ginger and the 2 cups of water go on over medium high heat and get a proper full boil for 4 to 5 minutes, until the water takes on a tinge of yellow. That color change is your timer, not the clock. Then drop to medium heat, add the tea leaves and boil for 2 to 3 minutes, then the lightly smashed cardamom and the sugar.

Now the milk goes in and everything reverses. Take the heat down to low heat and stand over it. The moment it starts to simmer, the pan comes off the burner. Not a minute later, not once it begins climbing the sides. Strain it through a fine mesh sieve into your teapot or straight into the cups. Hot chai is the whole idea here, and at ten minutes start to finish there is no reason to let it sit.