Where can the best Indian Chai be purchased?

[djtanng]

I'm looking for high quality, loose leaf, and as authentic as possible. I know I could just look up how to make it, but I want to try a few pre-mixes of chai before I get into all that. Please and thanks!

[teaformeplease]

Yogic Chai has been my go to for years. They're a local company (to me in NJ) and it's as close to authentic as I've been able to find. Better than what most Indian tea companies have sent me

http://www.yogicchai.com/original-masala-chai.html

[Alucard]

I've never bought chai so I can't give you a direct answer. The online shops below sell chai and are based in India. I would like to think they are authentic. Maybe try a local Indian grocery store?

http://goldentipstea.com/
http://www.teabox.com/

[JAndrews2]

Desi and "international" grocery stores often have mixes. So do maybe specialty tea shops, though they're expensive. Sometimes tea + spices in a bag or loose, sometimes an instant tea powder (obviously much inferior but still tasty). If you can, you'd probably love to go to a good, authentic Pakistani or Indian restaurant and have chai there

Nothing like making it yourself, though, and it's really easy, especially once you've had some premade stuff and gotten a feel for what you like. Here's a good site with many recipes: http://www.chai-tea.org/recipes.html

You can make it as simple as tea + cardamom + sugar and it's still great. I just throw it all in a lidded cooking pot with some water, let it boil, pour milk in, let it froth, and take it off the burner. Some people throw the milk in with everything else, reducing it to one step. Just make sure you don't boil the milk.

[JAndrews2]

Also- the best chai I've made or been served was made with low quality, CTC/crushed leaves and even- gasp!- teabags. The tea is there to provide a base for the flavor, but not the whole flavor. So your priority is something strong and black that will cut through all the sweet stuff. Finer notes will be drowned out by all the wonderful milk and spices you're putting in.

Don't get me wrong- I love high quality tea, but that's what my yixing and ceramic pots and my gaiwans are for. Although experimenting is fun, I don't make a habit of boiling my expensive Darjeeling or single estate Assam or Yunnan in a steel cooking pot for 5-10 minutes

[MEversbergII]

I've been using this recipe:
http://thehathicooks.blogspot.com/2011/ ... -ever.html

And this tea:
http://amzn.com/B007SH2C6S

Turns out pretty good. I've recently transitioned from brown sugar to palm sugar, as well, which is nice.

M.