Karin Loves to Make Chai Concentrate

  Ingredients:

• 5.5 cups of filtered water
• 15 cardamom pods
• 3 medium size cinnamon sticks (break it up into pieces with your fingers) 
• 20 peppercorns 
• 10 cloves 
• 5 all spice balls  
• 3 whole star anise 
• 4 tbsp Darjeeling black tea (or a loose leaf black tea of your choice) 
• 25g (2inch) ginger knob (smashed/crushed)
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar (lightly packed down)
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions:

1. Add the cardamom, broken up cinnamon sticks, peppercorns, cloves, all spices balls, and star anise into a mortar and pestle. Crush up everything into pieces without grinding them fine. The point is to just open up the spices to allow for more extraction. If you don't have a mortar, you can add to a plastic bag and use a rolling pin, a wine bottle, etc to crush up the spices.
2. Add the crushed up spices to a sautee pan on medium heat and warm up the spices, stirring occasionally for 1-2 minutes (or until you start to smell it). The purpose here is to awaken the essential oils in the spices, which will make for a more flavorful tea
3. Add water, warmed up spices, and ginger to a pot, and turn on to high heat
4. Once the water is at a simmer/gentle boil, continue letting it all simmer for 10 minutes
5. Add the tea and then turn off the heat. Let the tea steep for 4 minutes
6. Strain the tea with a sieve or fine cheese cloth
7. Clean out your pot, then add the tea back to the pot and turn the heat back on to high
8. Add the sugar, nutmeg, and honey and let simmer for 5 minutes to reduce down the liquid. If you want a more concentrated flavor (ie if you are planning to mix with milk), you can cook it down longer.
9. Take off the heat and add the vanilla.
10. Let the tea cool down naturally. You can speed this up by sticking it in the freezer for 30 minutes, then letting it cool the rest of the way out on your counter.