Masala chai recipe

How to make real masala chai at home — whole spices, fresh-bloomed, finished in milk. The Ayurvedic ritual our family has been making since 1935, in twelve minutes.

By PGP Iyer · April 30, 2026 · 3 min read

Real masala chai is a simmer, not a steep. It's water and whole spices brought to a bloom — cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, clove, pepper — then black tea added late, milk added later still, and the whole pot pulled off heat the moment it threatens to foam over. Ayurveda has called this drink a ritual for three thousand years. It takes twelve minutes.

This is how our family has been making chai since 1935, scaled down for two cups.

Ingredients

• 1½ cups water
• 1½ cups whole milk (or barista oat milk)
• 2 teaspoons loose-leaf Assam black tea — CTC for the strength most chai stalls in India use, orthodox if you want more leaf-character
• 4 green cardamom pods, gently cracked
• 1 cinnamon stick (about 1 inch)
• 4 whole cloves
• 4 whole black peppercorns
• 1 thin slice fresh ginger (about ¼ inch)
• 1–2 teaspoons sugar or jaggery, to taste

Method

1. Bloom the spices. Combine water, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, and ginger in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer four minutes. The water should turn faintly amber and smell like baked apples and clove. This step kindles what Ayurveda calls agni — the digestive fire warming spices are meant to wake.
2. Add the tea. Drop in the loose tea. Simmer two minutes. The liquid turns deep mahogany.
3. Add milk and sugar. Pour in the milk and stir in the sugar. Raise the heat until the chai reaches a rolling foam — right when it threatens to boil over, pull it off the heat. Repeat the raise-and-pull motion two or three times. This is what builds chai's signature creamy body.
4. Strain and serve. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer into pre-warmed cups. Drink immediately.

The single biggest mistake

Adding tea and milk at the same time. Tea needs to steep in water first — milk fat blocks the extraction of tannins, leaving the cup pale and flat. The order is non-negotiable: water + spices, then tea, then milk.

Variations worth knowing

North Indian street style (strong)

Double the tea, add 1 star anise to the spice mix, and let the milk reduce visibly before pulling. The cup should coat the spoon. This is the chai you'll find in a Delhi chaiwala's pot.

South Indian style (soft)

Halve the cardamom, skip pepper and clove, increase ginger. Cleaner, more floral — closer to the kerala estates' afternoon cup.

Vegan

Barista-grade oat milk is the closest substitute for whole milk. Coconut milk overpowers the spices; almond milk thins them. Stick with oat.

The thirty-second version

Twelve minutes is faster than ordering a chai latte but slower than most mornings allow. For the same Ayurvedic blend — cardamom, ginger, Ceylon cinnamon, milled black tea, plus collagen peptides — in a cup that's drinkable in thirty seconds, we built Spice Rush. It's the same ritual we grew up with, just engineered for the modern morning. No strainer, no waste, real spice.

Storage

Drink masala chai fresh. The tannins in steeped black tea oxidize within an hour and the flavor turns flat. If you want chai ready on demand without making a fresh pot every time, see our chai concentrate recipe — the concentrate keeps in the fridge two weeks and only needs hot milk to serve.

For the difference between traditional masala chai and the cafe-style chai latte, see what is a chai latte.

Ayurveda discovered the spice blend three thousand years ago. Modern science measured why it works. We just put both back in the cup.