Tea is a popular drink whose aroma is associated with warmth and comfort in everyone. However, it can not only have a pleasant taste, but also bring health benefits - if you make tea with spices.
Spices give the drink healing properties. The tradition of adding spices to tea originated in Asia. In Europe, it gained distribution relatively recently. Now we know a huge number of recipes that allow you to make tea, which contains vitamins and other substances necessary for the body.
The healing properties of spices
Tea recipes with spices and herbs are in Ayurveda. The healing properties of the drink are determined by the spices used for its preparation.
- Cinnamon helps to cure colds and flu, normalize blood sugar levels.
- Anise can improve digestion and relieve cramping.
- Peppermint improves brain function, relieves headaches.
- Nutmeg has an antibacterial effect and relieves inflammation.
- Ginger strengthens the immune system and promotes weight loss.
- Cardamom has an anti-inflammatory effect, is a strong antiseptic and expectorant.
- Pepper removes toxins, prevents the appearance of malignant tumors, accelerates metabolism.
- Vanilla normalizes hormonal levels, relieves stress and increases potency.
- Clove improves intestinal function, and is also used for otitis media and throat diseases.
- Star anise eliminates colic, relieves pain, cleanses the bronchi.
Useful recipes
Spices for tea are best bought on trips to Asia, but if you are not a lover of this part of the world, go to shops with Indian goods or shops that focus on healthy eating. At first, you can strictly adhere to the recipes below, but then trust your creative impulses to find your own combination.
Tea with ginger spice helps to cure coughs and colds, as well as keep warm in the cold season. To prepare the drink you will need half a lemon, 5 g of the root of the plant, a glass of water, 10 g of tea. First remove the skin of ginger and rub it on a coarse grater. Wash citrus, pour boiling water and cut into circles.
Spice, lemon and tea leaves are placed in a teapot net, boiled water is poured into it and insisted for a quarter of an hour. Served with honey or sugar, garnished with lemon slices.
Clove
Cloves are commonly used as a spice for marinades or mulled wine. However, it can be used to make spiced tea that warms, relieves cramps after physical exertion, and relieves diarrhea. There are many recipes for the drink with spices. The easiest one is to add two dried plant buds, a spoonful of lemon juice and a little sugar to the tea.
You can put cinnamon in clove tea. This combination of spices will add new notes of taste to it. Making tea with spices is easy. Pour cinnamon stick with 500 ml of boiling water and let it brew for ten minutes. At this time, the peel of one orange is finely chopped.
Then four spice buds are placed in the container, and after three minutes - zest. After that, add two teaspoons of dry tea leaves and after ten minutes the finished drink is served on the table.
Vanilla is a spice that is used to make fragrant black tea. There are several ways to make a drink with this spice.
- Two tablespoons of tea leaves and a vanilla stick are poured with two glasses of boiling water, insisted for five minutes in a container with the lid closed. Then filter and serve with honey or sugar.
- Two tablespoons of tea pour 700 ml of water. 100 ml of milk is warmed up a little, add a quarter of a teaspoon of cardamom, the same amount of ginger, 15 g of vanilla and 40 g of cane sugar, and then mix. Warm milk with seasonings is poured into cups with strained tea and served on the table.
Masala is a popular tea with spices. His homeland is India. However, due to its beneficial properties, this warming drink quickly gained popularity. Masala tea energizes, removes toxins, normalizes blood pressure and circulation, enhances the body's protective properties, and has a positive effect on the functioning of the brain.
There are a lot of options for making a drink. However, each of them includes four essential ingredients: loose leaf tea, milk, spices and a sweetener, which is usually sugar, but condensed milk or honey can be used.
To prepare spiced tea in a classic way, you will need:
- 150 ml of water
- 200 ml of milk
- four peas of black pepper,
- five boxes of cardamom,
- three carnation inflorescences,
- one pinch of cinnamon and ground ginger,
- two teaspoons of dry tea leaves,
- a teaspoon of sugar.
The spices are finely ground and placed together with tea leaves in a container. Then add water and milk in equal proportions (150 ml each), bring to a boil, and then pour the remaining milk and put sugar. After the tea boils again, it is filtered and served on the table.
A variety of spices for tea makes it possible to experiment with notes of taste. However, in order for the drink to bring the body only benefits, when choosing spices, you should familiarize yourself with the contraindications.
The main ingredients:
- Green Cardamom: gives a pleasant aroma of spices, we can say that this is the most important part of tea.
- Fresh Ginger: gives a spicy taste and light pungency.
To prepare two cups of traditional Indian tea with milk and ginger, the following components are required:
- Two glasses of milk
- Glass of water,
- Two tablespoons of black granulated tea,
- Two tablespoons of sugar
- A slice of ginger root
- A couple of cardamom stuff.
Cooking process:
- We put a small saucepan on the stove, pour water and milk into it, bring to a boil.
- Rub the ginger root, or grind it in a mortar, put in a pan with milk,
- Pour tea and sugar into the pan and simmer for about 5-7 minutes. If the tea does not seem strong enough, it does not have a light beige color, you can add more tea.
- At the end, add a couple of cardamom pieces.
- Pour into a cup through a fine sieve.
This is a recipe for classic Indian milk tea, which is sold on the streets of India and which is brewed by the local population at home if you want to get masala tea, just add a special masala spice to it, half a teaspoon is enough, tea sellers will do the same.
Indian brewing approach
Piquant, exotic, specific - such epithets give an extremely accurate description of the masala. You either fall in love with this drink from the first sip, or you immediately understand that the spices in tea are not for you.
Masala is a particularly brewed combination of strong black tea, milk and spices. Spices are selected based on individual preferences.
There is no single method of preparation, there are many variations of the drink, but invariably the recipe includes such components as:
- Large-leaf (granular allowed) black tea with a strong taste and aroma. The Indian method of preparation is designed for inexpensive, but strong varieties - spices "beat off" 80% of the taste of tea leaves.
- Milk. Steam or chilled is added to tea, trying to avoid too low-fat liquids. You can use condensed, which at the same time fulfill the role of sweetener.
- Spice. With the help of various combinations of spices, not limited to pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, it is possible to create many original tea drinks. In India, every woman seeks to invent her secret recipe, which will become a symbol of her concern for guests.
- Sweetener. Spices give the drink piquancy, but taste buds literally “ask” the body for a break. Regular or brown sugar, honey reduce susceptibility to spices and gently emphasize milky notes.
Masala - The Original Health Recipe
The benefits of an Indian invigorating drink are determined by a competent selection of spices. In the country, it is believed that milk is useful to drink only before bedtime, preheating it and seasoning it. Masala is a kind of concession to his lovers, since the combination of tea (masculine), milk (feminine) and spices (creative, divine) - is considered extremely useful for the body.
The benefits of masala tea are directly related to the spices included. A rare recipe dispenses with ginger, allspice, cinnamon, cloves or cardamom, whose properties are simply invaluable. However, more specific spices are often added - nutmeg, anise, saffron, fennel.
What is Indian tea good for:
- satisfies / interrupts the feeling of thirst / hunger (indispensable for people who are used to working a lot in adverse conditions),
- has an invigorating effect (at the level of 2 cups of strong coffee),
- if you brew such tea daily, the process of digestion and metabolism will return to normal (it is useful to drink for those who want to lose weight),
- improves immunity and mood (spices invigorate the body).
Despite the value of such a composition, it is important to choose the right spices - not every organism is ready for Indian diversity. Have you decided to make masala tea yourself? Start with the familiar components.
How to cook - do I need to grind spices?
There is no traditional recipe for masala; each family has its own. But cooking requires the right combination of elements and sequence of actions. In specialized stores (Vedic, vegetarian) you can buy ready-made sets of spices for its preparation. But it is better to brew yourself, picking them (as well as the quantity itself) to your taste.
Before preparing tea with spices, you need to stock up on the main ingredients. For 3-4 servings you will need:
- 400 ml of water
- 200 ml of milk (as much as you like),
- 2-3 teaspoons of black granular or loose tea,
- sweetener (sugar, aromatic honey),
- ginger (ground or fresh, sliced or grated) - 1-2 cm,
- cloves - 2 pcs.,
- cinnamon - ½ sticks,
- 2 peas of allspice,
- cardamom - 2 pcs.,
- nutmeg pinch,
- star anise star
- honey, sugar to taste.
Don't like the smell or taste of certain ingredients? Just exclude them - the cooking method will not change.
- The classic recipe requires mixing and grinding all the spices to a powder. However, you can skip it, it's nice to see how cinnamon stick or fragrant clove floats in a cup.
- In a small saucepan, bring the milk and water to a boil and add in it all the crushed spices with a sweetener.
- Make the fire minimal and stir for a couple of minutes so that all the ingredients evenly distribute their taste.
- Add the tea leaves to the pan and cook for another 3-4 minutes until a uniform shade of liquid is achieved.
- Has the drink acquired a noble cream color? Remove the pan from the heat and leave it under the lid for about 5 minutes.
- Pour into cups and enjoy the original taste!
For convenience, you can make tea with ground spices. To do this, they are placed in a special bag, which can be made of thin cloth or gauze, and removed after brewing from a container with a drink. This will make the taste of spices in it barely noticeable and you do not need to filter it.
Each recipe is a manifestation of creative energy. Yogis believe that when brewing tea, you open a personal path to freedom and self-knowledge.
We also recommend reading about the properties and recipes for making Kalmyk tea.
Masala tea: recipe
Before you start talking about the technique of making fragrant Indian tea, it is worth stopping at the ingredients. Indeed, many will be interested in what set of products is included in a unique recipe. Masala tea suggests the simplest composition. To prepare a cup of aromatic and soul-warming drink for yourself and your loved ones, you will need:
- Tea. Desirable black large-leaf Indian. However, some recipes allow the addition of a small amount of green, red, white tea. But this will not be a classic recipe.
- Spice set. You can take any favorite options for spices of warm varieties. For example: cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, black pepper, saffron, basil, star anise, lemongrass.
- Milk. For this drink you will need fresh milk of medium fat content (not higher than 2.5%). But you can choose a milk supplement to your liking. Some, for example, dilute milk with water before adding it to the original masala tea.
- Sweeteners. Sugar, cane, or brown sugar, popularly known, is traditionally used. We do not recommend using white sugar for dishes of this category. But if you do not accept fast carbohydrates in your diet, you can leave the drink without sweetness or choose Stevia powder / syrup as a sweetener. Coconut, palm sugar, fructose, natural honey are also used as a sweet additive.
The amount of each component can be taken in accordance with your own taste preferences, or you can make masala tea strictly according to the recipe. If you have never tried to prepare this drink, we recommend that you first choose the classic recipe for making masala tea. Once you have gained experience brewing this invigorating elixir of energy, it is worth starting to boldly experiment with unusual variations of the preparation.
masala tea
Masala tea: a classic recipe
So, are you planning an Indian-style tea party and do you have everything you need for this event? Then proceed to the preparation of the main drink.
For a classic recipe you will need:
- Cow's milk - 1 liter (or 1: 1 with water).
- Water - 0.5 l (if it is decided to add milk in its pure form, water is not needed).
- Cloves (spice) - 4 pcs.
- Cardamom Pod - 2 pcs.
- Black pepper - a pinch.
- Ginger shavings - ½ tsp.
- Leaf black tea - 2 tbsp. l
- An acceptable sweetener.
- Cinnamon - 1 stick.
How to brew masala tea
Take a convenient refractory container and mix milk and water in it. Add spices to the mixture. Within 10 minutes, the contents of the container should be heated over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Next, add the main ingredient - tea leaf and sugar (cane or selected replacement option). Increase the heat for 5 minutes and let the drink boil. After 5 minutes, the fire should be removed, and the finished liquid strain through a fine sieve. Serve a fragrant drink in medium ceramic cups. You can decorate the dishes with a slice of lime or crush the surface with lemon zest. However, it should be remembered that the classic version is served without additional decorating components.
The benefits of taste and the effect of composition on the body
Let’s figure out how so many people like Masala tea. First of all, it's all about taste. If you have ever tasted this drink, you cannot but recognize its charming feature. This tea is unlike anything else. He simply will not find equal even in the menu of the best restaurants in the world. Masala invigorates, relieves fatigue, gives strength and improves mood. Having made one small sip, you can feel a pleasant warmth and a “cozy” combination of shades of taste. This warming nectar of energy is moderately sweet, very slightly burns with the warmth of spices. The aroma of the drink plays with oriental colors and whets the appetite.
Secondly, it is worth saying here that the calorie content of the drink is 378 kcal per 100 grams. But the balance of the BJU in this case is ideal:
- proteins - 65 kcal,
- fats - 140 kcal,
- carbohydrates - 173 kcal.
This drink will completely replace a snack during an active day and nourishes energy in the morning. At breakfast, masala can be combined with your favorite foods. And as a snack, tea can be selected as an independent product.
The obvious benefits of this drink to the body cannot be denied. In addition to a good mood and energy boost, the product gives a cleansing, antiseptic, immunomodulating effect. This is worth talking about in more detail.
masala tea
Composition, benefits of spices and other ingredients in masala tea
The combination of black pepper, ginger, cardamom, sage, basil and saffron has a healing, restorative, preventive effect on the body. These spices have antiseptic ability, provide anti-inflammatory effect and are natural immunomodulators.
The following beneficial effects of masala tea on the human body are noted:
- Improving the digestive tract. Gentle disinfection of the gastric mucosa, providing reliable protection against bacteria.
- Normalization of blood circulation, stabilization of the normal process of blood formation.
- Leveling blood pressure.
- Recovery of the correct metabolism.
- Strengthening the walls of blood vessels.
- Immunity support.
In fact, this drink brings many benefits. In addition to the healing powers of spices, it is worth noting the saturating qualities of milk and the invigorating effect of black tea. This drink contains all the best that a person needs in order not to feel hunger, quench his thirst, get a boost of energy, strength and not to leave during the day in a good mood.
Note! Masala tea cannot be a substitute for a full meal. For breakfast, lunch and dinner you should eat the usual dishes, and tea can only be a great addition to the daily diet.
If a person suffers from chronic diseases of blood vessels and the heart, and is also prone to allergic reactions to the components that make up, consult with a specialist about the permissibility of using this drink. In the case of allergies, you may have to exclude inappropriate ingredients from the recipe. For diseases of the internal organs, masala tea may be contraindicated.
How to make masala tea at home
There are many recipes for this invigorating, warming drink. And if suddenly during the day I really wanted to treat yourself to masala tea, then you can certainly find in the kitchen everything you need to prepare it. Deviations from the classic recipe are not only acceptable, but sometimes extremely desirable. This will help to better master all the facets of the taste of the magic drink and dilute the boredom of monotony.
Masala Recipes
We bring to your attention several other recipes for making masala tea.
Simple universal recipe
To create this fragrant drink you will need:
- Milk - 600 ml.
- Water - 200 ml.
- Cane sugar - 3-4 tsp.
- Black leaf tea - 2 tbsp. l
- Spices: cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, cardamom or any other (to taste).
First mix water, milk, sugar and cook until the sugar suspension is dissolved. Ready hot mix pour black tea leaves and season with spices. Cover the whole mixture for 2-3 minutes. Filter the finished drink and pour into ceramic mugs.
masala tea
Orange Masala Tea
This variation of the recipe involves the preparation of a fabulous drink with light citrus notes.
To create you will need:
- Clean water - 1 l.
- Large-leaf tea suspension - 2 tbsp. l
- Orange - 2 pieces medium or 1 large.
- Sugar is added to taste separately in each serving.
- Spices are the same as in the classic recipe.
Grind the spices well and rub in a mortar. Wash orange fruits well and do not peel. Put oranges in a bowl and pour boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Then cut into circles. Next, put the water on the fire and let it boil. Throw spices and tea into boiling water. The drink needs to boil for 3-4 minutes. Then strain the finished tea and pour into circles.
You can replace 1 orange with lemon or add 1-2 cubes of fresh pineapple pulp to the combination. It will make a gentle fruit masala.
Masala tea with condensed milk flavor
This option will appeal to fans of creamy sweets. The rich, deep taste of this drink will remind you of dessert with condensed milk, and also will not leave indifferent those who love something new, made from the usual ingredients. However, there will be no condensed milk, but only its taste. The combination of milk boiled with tea suspension and vanilla will help to get the same shade of taste and aroma.
- Water - 300 ml.
- Milk with a fat content of 3.2% - 300 ml.
- Spices from the classic recipe + vanilla.
You can prepare this drink in accordance with the recommendations for the preparation of a classic masal with brewing leaves in milk. At the stage of mixing and heating water, milk and spices, you need to add a couple of pinches of vanilla. It is better that it be an extract or powder of natural vanilla.
You can also invent your own options for combining products to create a unique masala. Perhaps it is your recipe that will appeal to fans of Indian warming tea.
A few words about a delicious Indian invention
According to legends and fragmentary texts of history, masala tea was invented about a millennium ago. The birthplace of the drink is considered to be India. Although in recipes of Thai cuisine you can also find similar variations of drinks. They have long attached particular importance to tea. The drink was used to raise the spirit and as a remedy for diseases. Masala has always been considered an Ayurvedic drink. Tall persons drank it in order to get a pleasant tone, good mood and vivacity. And, of course, people always understood that the use of this magic elixir of health supports the body and protects it from many diseases.
Today we choose this culinary masterpiece to please ourselves and loved ones with a new magical taste. At the same time, the drink allows you to touch the unique gastronomic culture of India and slightly plunge into the incredible atmosphere of the colors of this country.
PS: If you find yourself in India and want to try this drink in its homeland, we recommend that you do it in an institution in which elementary sanitary norms are observed. And we do not recommend doing this on the side of the road.
