The chai from most cafés is syrup and steamed milk waving at India from a great distance. Real masala chai is simmered — tea and whole spices boiled properly in water, mellowed with milk, sweetened without shame. It takes ten minutes and one small saucepan, and once you’ve made it this way the powdered version becomes very difficult to order.

Our Taste of India organic masala chai arrives with the hard part done: robust black tea with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves and pepper already in balance. Your only jobs are heat, patience, and deciding exactly how sweet you like it.

What you need

4 tsp Taste of India masala chai blend (2 tsp per cup)
250 ml water
250 ml full-cream milk — this is not the drink for skim
2 tsp Hunnie raw WA honey, or to taste
2 thin slices of fresh ginger (optional, for extra bite)

Method

Put the chai blend — and the ginger, if using — into a small saucepan with the water. Simmer over medium heat for 3–4 minutes, until it turns deep amber and the kitchen smells of cardamom.
Pour in the milk and bring back to a gentle simmer for another 3 minutes. Stay close: chai’s favourite trick is boiling over the second you check your phone.
Take it off the heat and stir in the honey.
Strain through a fine sieve into cups, pouring from a little height if you’d like a light froth and a small moment of theatre.

A few rules worth keeping. The simmer matters more than the steep — boiling coaxes out the spice oils that hot water alone never reaches, which is why the teapot version always tastes thin by comparison. Stronger chai comes from more time, not more leaves; give it an extra minute at each stage. And sweetness is not a failing here — chai was built to carry it, which is why the honey goes in last, to taste, cup by cup.

Weekend upgrade: our organic sticky chai is the honey-coated version of the same ritual, and the rest of the organic tea shelf covers every other mood of the afternoon. If you are still choosing, our sticky chai buyer’s guide compares what is worth stocking.