Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Care for a My Chai?


I've been meaning to do this for a while. I've had the ingredients gathered for about a week. I waited til noon today when after a week of the most marvelously pleasant weather, it looked like this:
As I felt the humidity build in the house I chopped the cinnamon and I explored cardamom in it's pod state.

I didn't think to visit an oriental import shop, so unfortunately, the tea I bought when I couldn't find any decent loose tea for less than 25 bucks a pound is "cut tea." I knew that would be smaller once I got it out of the teabags, but I didn't think it would be this fine. I did not figure out a way to preserve the fabric of the teabags for re-use. I know this stuff is too fine to bother with a tea ball or one of those tea spoons that clap shut around the tea, but is it too fine to put into the water and let it sink to the bottom? If anybody has a method of making teabags, please share it with me. I am considering buying some of those round coffee filters and using those. They seem thinner than the #2 cone filters that I have around.

5 comments:

bfmomma said...

I know you can buy empty tea bags--at Inspiredaroma.com if nowhere else. I assume you're looking for cheap, though?

How'd the chai turn out? I've never made my own, but would love to, now that Trader Joe's stopped carrying the unsweetened kind.

Elizabeth said...

Cheesecloth? Very lightweight muslin?

One of our local coffee shops uses these teabags that look like a coffee filter, sort of, but shaped kind of like a condom. Disposable.

Kathy Kathy Kathy said...

I have seen chi chi empty tea bags for sale, but they cost as much as tea bags with tea in them. I don't know how the chai is going to turn out because I assume that it need to sit in the container for a while to mingle, but maybe that's not so. Hmm. Tea for thought.

Kristina B said...

Yum. I'm sure it will turn out great. My coffee now suddenly tastes all bland...

I'd go with cheesecloth myself. I've seen the empty teabags and couldn't believe how much they cost.

Batty said...

Yum!

I know they have these fillable, open-on-top things that you hang in your tea here. They're made out of porous, disposable stuff that looks like a a sock made of gauze. I have no idea where they get them, though.