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Cooking With Anadi
12K subscribers · bold spices and rose petals steeped into creamy milk tea
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be incorporating so much rose into my recipes!
When I think of roses, I definitely think about happiness. Making a Rose Masala Chai is definitely a special occasion! This rose milk tea recipe has all of the goodness of a classic Indian chai, plus rose goodness for extra antioxidant benefits - and of course, a delicious flavor! To put your heart in a cup, be sure to try this chai today as part of your Live to Cook one-month challenge! Sign up to my newsletter to get started on your cooking journey for free, and you’ll get all of my new recipes delivered right to your inbox!
Be sure to watch the video to follow along with all of the steps to set you up for success! If you’re not already, I’d appreciate it if you subscribe to my YouTube channel. Don’t forget to hit the bell button to be notified when all of my video recipes go live! Let’s get brewing!
What is Gulab Chai?▼
Gulab Chai translates to “Rose Tea.” Chai is an Indian milk tea that is made with black tea leaves and whole spices. This Rose Tea will have rose petals and will be sweetened with rose syrup. We will also add some whole spices, a “masala chai” blend, inspired from a classic Indian masala chai.
Can I Have Rose Masala Chai Before Bed?▼
While there is a bit of caffeine in black tea leaves, the amount is not too much. Rose petals in particular have properties that assist with relaxation and sleep, so this is an excellent drink to have before bed!
Do I Have to Make the Rose Syrup?▼
Well, technically you don’t. I’m adding the rose syrup at the end when serving for sweetness. If you don’t want any sugar added to your chai, you can omit the rose syrup. However, you could also use some rose essence, which is much more concentrated than rose water. This can be added directly into your chai for extra rose flavor, but you won’t have any sugar added.
What Does Rose Chai Taste Like?▼
It’s really delicious! You get the heat from the spices and the ginger, but you also get the sweet aromatic flavor infused into the tea. Without adding your rose syrup, you still get a wonderful flavor of the dried rose petals that were brewed with the water, but the prominence of the rose is less intense.
What are the Benefits of Rose Chai?▼
Rose Chai is excellent for your health! Let’s begin by listing the benefits of chai:
- The risk of heart disease can be reduced thanks to polyphenols
- Heart health improved with flavonoids
- Can help reducing LDL cholesterol
- Assists with digestion
- Assists with reducing blood pressure
Check out this article by Healthline to learn more about the health benefits of chai.
Rose petals themselves are loaded with antioxidants, containing anti-inflammatory properties. The antioxidants in rose petals can help the overall quality of your eye health, skin health, and hair health. Furthermore, antioxidants can reduce the risk of heart disease. Moreover, rose petals are loaded with vitamins, particularly, vitamins C and A.
What Tips For A Warm Cup of Gulab CHai▼
- The longer you boil the tea masala and 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.
- 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.
- The amount of rose syrup while serving can be adjusted based on sweet preferences and how intense you’d like to enjoy the sweet rosy flavor.
- 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 to Make Gulab Tea
Ingredients for Indian Rose Tea with Milk
For all ingredients and their quantities and to save the recipe for later, scroll to the bottom of this post or press the “Jump to Recipe” button for the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD. You can also scale the recipe based on how many cups of chai you want to make so that you have the right amount of syrup and chai masala for your most delicious rose chai!
For the Rose Syrup
- Edible rose petals: Mine are dry, but you can use fresh rose petals if you can find them.
- Cane sugar: Any sweetener of your choice - liquid or powdered - will work for your rose syrup. Cane sugar has just been my favorite lately! Other sweetener choices could be honey, maple syrup, sugar or jaggery.
For the Rose Chai
- Water: You need some water for boiling the tea and spices.
- Milk: I always like to add full fat dairy milk for creaminess to the tea, but you can definitely make this vegan with whatever milk you have on hand. As I describe in my free motivational guide to explore your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!, if you have a suitable substitute, then go ahead and use it! Great plant-based milk for creaminess are soy milk and coconut milk. However, you could also go ahead and use oat milk, cashew milk, or almond milk (if you make your own almond milk, that can be best!)
- Black tea leaves: Black tea bags can also work, but tea leaves will give a more intense chai.
- Ginger: Some ginger root will be mashed and added to the chai for
- Whole spices: These spices make up our “chai masala.” We will be using a cinnamon stick, green cardamom pods, black peppercorns and cloves.
- Edible rose petals: To boil in the water with the tea.
- Rose water: Add this after the milk for even more rose flavor.
- Rose syrup: From above.
How to Make Rose Milk Tea
For the Chai Masala
Take the whole spices and place in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle and grind until broken down into a coarse mixture. You do not have grind it completely until it turns into a powder.
Alternatively, you can bundle the spices in a bunch in a kitchen towel and use a heavy pan or rolling pin to create the ground masala.
For the Rose Syrup
Add the rose petals and water to a saucepan and bring the water to a gentle simmer over low to medium-low heat. Simmer for 15-25 minutes or until the rose petals release most of the color into the water. The petals should turn almost greyish-pink in color.
Strain the water into a bowl using a sieve and press upon the petals with a spatula to release any remaining color/water. Return the water to the saucepan and add the sweetener. Mix well and bring the water back up to a gentle simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the rose syrup thickens slightly.
Once cooled slightly, transfer to a jar and store for use later.
For the Rose Chai
In a large saucepan, add water, tea leaves and rose petals. Bring the water to a simmer.
Add all of the chai masala, ginger and simmer for 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The longer you simmer, the more intense the flavor. Then add in the milk and mix well.
Add rose water and bring the milk up to a gentle simmer.
Once the milk starts to simmer, immediately take the saucepan off the heat and transfer through a sieve to a teapot.
Add rose syrup from earlier to the serving tea cups, as much as you prefer and then pour in the tea. Serve hot and garnish with more rose petals if desired.
Enjoy!
Can I Make Rose Chai Iced?▼
Yes, you can! Here are some modifications to the recipe for making Iced Rose Chai.
- Don’t add the milk while brewing the tea.
- Let the tea sit for a little while before serving.
- Place ice cubes in your glass, then pour in the Rose Chai, the rose syrup, and milk. Mix well and enjoy!
What to Eat with Rose Chai?▼
Technically you can have whatever you want with chai! However, if you’re looking for some tea time snacks to have with your chai, you could do
Other Chai Variations
- Masala Chai
- Ginger Chai
- Turmeric Chai Latte
- Starbucks Dirty Chai Latte
- Starbucks Iced Gingerbread Chai Latte
Other Yummy Hot Drinks!
Chai Spices, Loose Leaf Tea, and Why This Is Made on the Stove
The chai spices here are whole, not scooped from a jar, and there are only four of them: 4 cloves, 16 to 20 black peppercorns, a 2 to 3 inch cinnamon stick and 4 green cardamom pods. They go into a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder and get broken down into a coarse mixture. You do not have to grind it completely until it turns into a powder, and you genuinely should not. A coarse crush cracks the cardamom pods and the peppercorns open so they give up their oils in the pan, while a fine powder muddies the tea and slips straight through the sieve into the cup. If you have neither a grinder nor a mortar and pestle, bundle the spices in a kitchen towel and crush them with a heavy pan or a rolling pin. This is masala chai the way it is made across India, with the spices cracked fresh and simmered along with the tea rather than steeped beside it, and the rose layered on top of that base.
For the tea itself this recipe calls for 4 tablespoons of black tea leaves. Loose leaf tea is worth seeking out here. Black tea bags will work, and 4 bags swapped in and removed before serving is a perfectly good shortcut, but the leaves give a more intense chai, and that matters when there are 2 cups of milk for the tea to stand up to. Assam loose leaf tea is the one I would reach for if I were buying specifically for this. Oolong tea is not the swap to make: it is a lighter oxidation with a delicate, almost buttery character that gets flattened the moment dairy goes in, and the whole point of a masala chai base is a tea assertive enough to survive both the milk and the spice.
All of it happens on the stove in a saucepan, and the aroma is your timer. Water, tea leaves and rose petals go in first and come up to a simmer, then the chai masala and a tablespoon of minced ginger join them for anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The longer you simmer, the more intense the flavor, so this is the moment where you decide how strong you want it. Once the milk goes in and comes up to a gentle simmer, take the saucepan off the heat immediately and strain everything through a sieve into a teapot. Milk pushed past a gentle simmer turns from creamy to scorched very quickly, and there is no rescuing it once it does.
Rose Buds, Floral Notes, and Turning It Into a Rose Chai Latte
The rose arrives three separate ways in this recipe, which is why the floral notes read as layered rather than perfumed. Dried edible rose petals simmer in the water with the tea, 3 tablespoons of them; a full cup more go into the rose syrup; and 2 teaspoons of rose water go in right at the end, after the milk. If your shop only sells dried rose buds rather than loose petals, buy them and pull the petals off the buds before you measure. Buds are simply the whole flower dried intact, and those papery outer petals are exactly the part you want. What you should avoid is anything sold as potpourri, or ornamental roses from a florist, since neither is grown to be eaten.
Cane sugar is what I use in the syrup, half a cup of it against 2 cups of water and a full cup of petals, but it is a to-taste ingredient and swapping it changes the character of the drink. Coconut sugar goes in one for one and brings a slight caramel note that sits surprisingly well against the cardamom and the cloves, though it will darken the syrup and the finished chai loses some of that pink blush. Honey works at about a quarter cup, provided you reduce the other liquids to compensate. The unique taste of this chai comes from a floral top note colliding with a properly spiced masala base, so any sweetener with a loud flavor of its own will start to compete with the thing you came for.
If a rose chai latte is what you are after, the difference is almost entirely in the assembly. A cafe builds one by pumping rose syrup into a cup and topping it with a chai concentrate and steamed, foamed milk. This version brews the tea and the milk together in one saucepan, so the spice extracts into the dairy instead of sitting alongside it. The syrup still goes into the serving cup first, as much as you prefer, and the hot tea gets poured over it. For the latte texture, froth a little of the 2 cups of milk separately and spoon it on top before you garnish with more rose petals. It makes 3 cups, it comes together in about 15 minutes once the syrup is already jarred, and the first sip will tell you whether you simmered that masala for 30 seconds or for the full 3 minutes.
If you liked this recipe please let me know in the comments. Tag your post on social media using #cookingwithanadi and mention me @cooking.with.anadi. Thank you!
Recipe by Anadi Misra
Fragrant, creamy, and deeply comforting, Rose Masala Chai blends bold Indian spices with delicate rose for a truly authentic cup. Easy to make and utterly irresistible.
Stovetop
Rate this recipe ✦
10 min
Prep
5 min
Cook
15 min
Total
3
servings
makes 3 cups
medium
Level
Ingredients
Ingredients
Tap any quantity to scale
For the chai masala
For the rose syrup
Instructions
For the chai masala
- 1
Take the whole spices and place in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle and grind until broken down into a coarse mixture. You do not have to grind it completely until it turns into a powder.
Take the whole spices and place in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle and grind until broken down into a coarse mixture. You do not have to grind it completely until it turns into a powder.
- 2
Alternatively, you can bundle the spices in a bunch in a kitchen towel and use a heavy pan or rolling pin to create the ground masala.
Alternatively, you can bundle the spices in a bunch in a kitchen towel and use a heavy pan or rolling pin to create the ground masala.
For the rose syrup
- 1
Add the rose petals and water to a saucepan and bring the water to a gentle simmer over low to medium-low heat. Simmer for 15-25 minutes or until the rose petals release most of the color into the water. The petals should turn almost grayish-pink in color.
Add the rose petals and water to a saucepan and bring the water to a gentle simmer over low to medium-low heat. Simmer for 15-25 minutes or until the rose petals release most of the color into the water. The petals should turn almost grayish-pink in color.
- 2
Strain the water into a bowl using a sieve and press upon the petals with a spatula to release any remaining color/water. Return the water to the saucepan and add the sweetener. Mix well and bring the water back up to a gentle simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the rose syrup thickens slightly.
Strain the water into a bowl using a sieve and press upon the petals with a spatula to release any remaining color/water. Return the water to the saucepan and add the sweetener. Mix well and bring the water back up to a gentle simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the rose syrup thickens slightly.
- 3
Once cooled slightly, transfer to a jar and store for use later.
Once cooled slightly, transfer to a jar and store for use later.
For the rose masala chai
- 1
In a large saucepan, add water, tea leaves and rose petals. Bring the water to a simmer.
In a large saucepan, add water, tea leaves and rose petals. Bring the water to a simmer.
- 2
Add all of the chai masala, ginger and simmer for 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The longer you simmer, the more intense the flavor. Then add in the milk and mix well.
Add all of the chai masala, ginger and simmer for 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The longer you simmer, the more intense the flavor. Then add in the milk and mix well.
- 3
Add rose water and bring the milk up to a gentle simmer.
Add rose water and bring the milk up to a gentle simmer.
- 4
Once the milk starts to simmer, immediately take the saucepan off the heat and transfer through a sieve to a teapot.
Once the milk starts to simmer, immediately take the saucepan off the heat and transfer through a sieve to a teapot.
- 5
Add rose syrup from earlier to the serving tea cups, as much as you prefer and then pour in the tea. Serve hot and garnish with more rose petals if desired.
Add rose syrup from earlier to the serving tea cups, as much as you prefer and then pour in the tea. Serve hot and garnish with more rose petals if desired.
Nutrition per serving
331
Calories
5g
Protein
67g
Carbs
5g
Fat
0g
Fiber
66g
Sugar
86mg
Sodium
Did you make this recipe? Tag @cooking.with.anadi on Instagram and hashtag it #cookingwithanadi
Tested & written in Anadi’s kitchen
Recipe history
- April 16, 2026 — Reworked and refreshed for the 2026 relaunch — new photography, restructured and standardized ingredients & instructions.
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