Iced Chai Cubes with Milk

iced chai cubes, pink chai livingIt’s no secret that I love a good cup of chai, and no matter what the weather is like, I start my day with a steaming hot serving. However, when the temperature heats up, I do enjoy an iced chai. The trouble is, most coffee bar versions are made with crushed ice, and I don’t like drinking icy drinks anymore. I’ve noticed that icy drinks taste good in the moment, but I feel cold and irritable for hours after I’ve had them. I think this is because my dominant dosha is Pitta so I do much better with warm foods. (You can learn more about dosha types here).iced chai cubes with ginger, pink chai living

I developed this recipe for iced chai cubes so that I can have a cool afternoon treat on-hand, and control the temperature of the drink. I can choose to serve it with chilled milk from the fridge {which is cool enough for me}, or if I have a guest over I can whiz it in my Nutri Ninja with some crushed ice. 

As I was working on this recipe, it occurred to me how strange the concept of me drinking iced chai is because I hate it when my boiled chai goes cold, and I refuse to drink it. I imagine most of my aunts would be mortified at the thought of serving cold chai too! 

Also a note on the addition of ginger in this recipe. Traditionally ginger is a food that has a hot taseer, or hot properties (I explained the concept of warming and cooling foods in this post). If you tend to get nosebleeds or very red skin in the summer, I would skip adding fresh ginger. I add it to my tea on warm days because it has heating properties and improves circulation causing you to sweat out more toxins. Use your own discretion with the addition of ginger, the recipe is just as yummy without it.

iced chai cubesIced Chai Cubes Recipe:

Ingredients:
3 cups of water
2 long cinnamon sticks
1/2 tbs fresh ginger thinly sliced
3 whole cloves
4 green cardamom pods crushed
3 tbs sugar
3 bags of black tea or 2 tbs loose leaf black tea

milk to serve

Method:
1. Add all the ingredients to a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil. 
2. Once the ingredients come up to boiling point, turn the stove down to low and let simmer for 10-12 minutes. Stir the sugar to ensure it dissolves fully
3. Remove from stove and cool. (After 12 minutes of simmering, I was left with about 2 cups of concentrated water).
4. Pour into a clean ice cube tray and freeze.iced chai, pink chai livingiced chai cubes pink chai

Add 3-4 iced chai cubes to your glass depending how strong you like your chai {3 is my magic number}, and top with chilled milk. That’s it! 

If you are after a hot chai, I recently shared my signature recipe with Hello Creative Family and you can view that here.

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3 Comments

  1. K
    June 20, 2015 / 4:57 am

    Really great idea!!

  2. June 20, 2015 / 7:51 am

    what an awesome idea! i’ve seen coffee cubes but not chai ones, this is great!

  3. June 22, 2015 / 12:59 pm

    This is a great idea! I’ll have to try this next time I’m entertaining some guests. Thanks for sharing! 🙂

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