Coconut Milk Chai Tea

2/10/2014
I'm going to keep this short & sweet. That might happen a lot as I scramble to document the things that I have cooked that I want to remember, but might not have a whole lot of time to really talk about or reminisce about it all. Tonight I made Chai, I've been thinking of doing it for some time, but just wasn't sure about the milk issue - not a milk fan - at all, and the fact that I am just not a big fan of caffeinated tea, and Chai is traditionally made with black tea, which is naturally caffeinated. So, I went to Whole Foods, found some Decaf Black tea - English Breakfast - that decaffeinates it's tea sans chemicals so is safe to drink, and decided upon Coconut Milk as a good alternative. So I bought vanilla flavored Coconut Milk, because I thought it would be tastier. I was hoping that I wouldn't feel the need to add any sweetener. It worked out. 
I dug out cardamon pods, cinnamon sticks, cloves, dried chopped ginger, and fennel seeds. I wanted to add black pepper but only have ground black pepper and the same with nutmeg.. only ground. I think this recipe would be much better with whole peppercorns and nutmeg, but hey, I do what I can with what I've got. I can always make alterations in the future. But it turned out great. So here's what I did: I poured about 4 cups of coconut milk into a saucepan and added:
Cinnamon Sticks
Cloves
Dried Chopped Ginger
Fennel Seeds
Cardamon Pods
Sprinkled in about a tsp of black pepper and powdered nutmeg
Turned on the heat high enough so that it would infuse the flavors into the the coconut milk, but low enough so it wouldn't boil and get goopy. I left it about 10 minutes. 

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I had some hot water left over from another cup of tea I made earlier with a tea bag, and I just poured it into the coconut milk, dropped 
2 black tea bags
into it, and kept the heat on low for another 5 minutes until the tea was infused enough into the mix. I then stirred it well, grabbed the strainer and put it over the tea cup, and poured the mixture over the strainer so the liquid went in & the herbs stayed out. It was delicious and I'm really happy about it. I think I will try to drink at least a cup of this a day! Healthy & Tasty! Good combo!