Masala chai

Masala chai (chai, masala tea, spiced tea) is an Indian drink of strong black tea, spices, milk and a sweetener. The Tea Board of India describes it as spiced tea based on Indian black tea with cardamom, ginger and cinnamon, tasting spicy, strong, malty and earthy. In Hindi, chai simply means tea, so the English chai tea is a tautology.

Underneath the spices sits Black tea, made from Camellia sinensis leaf. The spices come from other plants, and the mix is not fixed: UKTIA says it differs by region, most often cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and pepper.

UKTIA describes the drink as strong black tea with plenty of milk, a spice mix and a sweetener. The sources give no single recipe with proportions or times, and no reliable dates for when the drink appeared.

Nobody has measured caffeine in finished masala chai: milk dilutes the brew and every kitchen uses its own proportions. The base is your guide: for brewed black tea USDA lists 20 mg caffeine in 100 g, so about 48 mg fits a 240 ml cup (estimate).

Earl Grey tea is also black tea with an addition, but its aroma comes from bergamot oil, and it is drunk with or without milk. Masala chai is unthinkable without milk, which makes it closer to tea with milk than to English Breakfast tea. In Europe the term chai latte is common, yet the sources hold no official definition of what it contains: syrups, powders and tea bags are all sold under that name. Do not confuse it with a coffee latte.

In the EU, tea with spices counts as flavoured tea, so the dry mix falls under the pyrrolizidine alkaloid limit of 150 µg/kg. On the pack, look for masala chai or masala tea and a list of spices.

For the black base, UKTIA gives water at 90–98 °C and counts a single bag or one rounded spoonful of leaf for every cup. The sweetener is usually sugar, in whatever amount you like. UKTIA notes that the spice mix differs from region to region, so you can change it.

Why this matters to you: knowing there is no canonical recipe, you can build your own spice mix and count caffeine by the black tea base.