This Iced Ginger Chai drink is based on one of my favorite products, Bhakti Chai. My homemade chai recipe is heavy on the ginger, cardamom, and black pepper. I love a good cool, yet spicy drink in the summer.
While I love Bhakti Chai, it does not love me. There is way too much caffeine in regular chai for my body type, which is the vata dosha. Even the decaffeinated product contains small amounts of caffeine, which is too much for me. I use rooibos tea, which is herbal, as the base of my homemade chai recipe. This way I get the black tea flavor without any of the caffeine.
There are many ways that you could adapt this recipe, more spices, less spices, different spices, ground spices. Feel free to experiment with it and if you do, please let us know what changes you made and how well they worked.
Iced Ginger Chai
Ingredients
- 2 quarts water
- ½ cup finely chopped fresh ginger, skin on
- 10 cardamom pods
- 5 whole cloves
- 10 whole peppercorns
- ½ teaspoon fennel seeds
- ¼ cup organic loose rooibos tea
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in a medium pot and bring to a boil
- Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes
- Cool 3 hours
- Use a fine mesh strainer to transfer mixture into a one quart mason jar
- Fill each glass with ice, 1 cup chai mixture, and ¼ cup Almond Milk
- Serve
In my incredible cache of gluten-free recipes, I have a recipe for a hot chai which you’ll love. Chai, hot or cold, goes super well with any of my fan favorite paleo biscotti recipes below!
Marla says
Elana, I too love the flavors in chai tea. The only problem is my vata personality has learned to live with waaaayy too much caffeine.
Elana says
Marla, chai is the best!
alex says
wow! looks greattttt!!! I love chai tea
Elana says
Thanks Alex!
RolyPoly says
I made this last night and I’m loving it! I went on an Indian spice shopping spree not too long ago and I ended up with some things I didn’t really know what to do with. This gave me the perfect reason to put those cardamon pods to use :-)
Elana says
RolyPoly, I’m so happy to hear you are loving my chai recipe!
Marte says
this looks delicious! i think i’ll have one as i gaze at the pacific today. i just discovered your blog and it’s really something i’ve been looking for – gluten free, tempting recipes, without all the regular white rice and starch. thank you :)
Elana says
Marte, you’re welcome!
The Newlywed Chefs says
We love ginger- how wonderful to incorporate it in this recipe! Thanks!
Elana says
You’re very welcome!
Hallie says
This sounds so unique and refreshing. The heat continues here in the upper Midwest, so I’ll definitely be giving this a try! Perfect to throw together quickly in the morning after a walk or run. :)
Elana says
Thanks Hallie!
Stephanie says
Hi! i love your recipes!! For your Ginger Chai recipe, can you use black tea in the same proportions as rooibos?, and can you boil it for 30 minutes?
Thanks,
Steph Dem.
Elana says
Steph, I haven’t tried that :-)
stace says
Oh, yum. I love making chai…. though it’s been a while! I’m always looking (and adjusting) for the perfect ratio of spices…. definitely trying your suggestions! Thanks so much for sharing!
Elana says
Stace, you’re welcome!
Brandon says
For some weird reason I was expecting a recipe from you today–must be my psychic powers? :)
Anything with rooibos and I’m on board. It looks as though this beverage is full of antioxidants–awesome! Thanks for sharing.
Elana says
Brandon, you’re welcome!
eden says
Yum! That looks delicious… and the biscotti links make me want to walk out of my office early so that I can go home and bake all weekend.
If I lose my job over this I’m going to site extenuating blog reading circumstances. (I kid…)
Elana says
Thanks Eden!