Tea or chai latte is a unique, delicious, and warm drink that comes around the winter. Made from a mixture of cinnamon, honey, vanilla, black tea, and a variety of comfort spices blended with milk, tea latte has become the best non-coffee drink that you can use to jump-start your day.
Cooking your tea latte at home is easier said than done, and it allows you to use toppings and spices of your liking. Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
- A pinch of cinnamon
- A tbsp. agave nectar
- A tbsp. vanilla
- 1 part of 4 oz. water
- Two parts 8 oz. non-dairy milk
- One teabag
Apart from the listed ingredients, it would help if you had a saucepan, a fork, and an object to strain the tea away from the liquid.
Step 1: Start by Heating
Using a large saucepan, mix water and the non-dairy milk, heat the two until it starts simmering. As it gets hot, make sure you stir regularly but don’t allow it to boil. For the right consistency, make sure you use 1part of water and two parts of milk. When preparing a larger latte, ensure that you keep these ratios consistent. You can also use soy milk.
Step 2: Combine the Ingredients
Now open the tea bag then add the loose tea inside the pan. This is essential. If you place the tea bag inside water, the milk is thicker and may fail to penetrate the walls of the teabag. This will leave you with very weak tea with no spices. With that done, whisk your tea, then give it a short time to simmer over the heat.
Step 3: Brew
After you simmer the mixture, please remove it from heat and sit for 5 minutes to give it more time to brew. Next, add in the vanilla, agave, and cinnamon pinch to add the spiciness.
Step 4: Strain
With any strainer, transfer the tea to a cup, then strain the tea leaves. You’ll find many strainers built for preparing tea, but you can use one with tiny holes to trap the leaves.
How to Make Tea Latte Iced
Cooking an iced tea latte is pretty simple. If you don’t know how to prepare one, here is the step-by-step guide to unlocking the delicious iced tea latte.
Step 1: Choose Your Tea
Begin by choosing the type of iced tea latte you want: spicy, floral, light, zesty, tropical, or fruity. You can sip almost all kinds of tea. Therefore, select the type of tea blend that your heart loves most.
Step 2: Select Your Milk
Use whichever milk you always drink or consider choosing the milk depending on how it pairs with the selected tea.
Step 3: Find Your Sweetener
Cooking the tea latte with a sweetener is purely optional. However, a small pinch of sweetness makes the iced tea latte more delicious. The options include honey, cane sugar, maple syrup, agave nectar, and any other sweetener in your pantry.
Step 4: Now Cook the Iced Tea Latte
Immediately after collecting your ingredients, now follow the steps below to come up with a delicious iced tea latte.
- Pour fresh filtered water into your kettle, then heat.
- After that, add water on the infuser full of leaf loose tea or the teabag. Here, you can use two times the quantity of tea when making an iced drink. But you must follow the instructions on the packet.
- As the tea gets cool, use a tall glass then fill with ice cubes. Then add the cold tea to the glass roughly half full.
- Next, fill the remaining part of the glass with your desired sweetener and milk.
- Lastly, shake properly to mix. If you want a frothy iced drink, then prepare the beverage on a mason jar, close the lid tightly, then shake properly. Savor sip by sip.
David Nilsen is the former editor of Fourth & Sycamore. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. You can find more of his writing on his website at davidnilsenwriter.com and follow him on Twitter as @NilsenDavid.