Everyday Ginger Chai Syrup
I’m a big fan of little food luxuries like artisan chocolates, real vanilla beans, or an excellent cup of gourmet coffee. After all, what’s the saying? Life’s too short for bad coffee? Well, I think that goes for tea as well.
I love chai, but have found that the commercially available varieties (whether in powder, liquid concentrate, or tea bag form) fall short of my expectations. The traditional method of simmering spices with tea is clearly the way to go, but who has time to do that every morning?
It finally occurred to me to make a spiced chai syrup to add to plain black of green tea. You get all the complex spice of the traditional method but it won’t take any longer to make than your basic cup of tea.
Everyday Ginger Chai Syrup
Ingredients:
* 2 cups sugar
* 1-1/4 cup water
* 2-inch piece ginger, sliced into several pieces
* 4 pods cardamom, smashed
* 3 cloves
* 2 sticks cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
* pinch salt
Directions:
Combine the ingredients in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer until is has thickened slightly. Let cool and then strain into a jar of bottle. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.
Welcome! I'm Cate and Girl Cooks World is my recipe journal from my culinary trip around the world. 
How can I cut the sugar from this? Do you think it would work with stevia or spelda?
Reply
CATE — March 5th, 2012 @ 8:59 am
I don't think stevia would work, unfortunately, but Splenda might. According to this forum (http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f122/making-simple-syrup-with-splenda-6271.html), splenda can make a simple syrup, although I've never tried it myself.
Hope it works for you!
Reply
Would Honey or Agave Syrup work instead of sugar?
Reply
CATE — March 6th, 2012 @ 6:17 am
You should be able to use honey… I've seen honey simple syrups that are in a 1-to-1 ratio. So just simmer about a cup of honey with an equal amount of water with the spices.
I haven't seen many agave simple syrup recipes before so I'm not sure how that would work.
Good luck!
Reply
Hi there and thanks for the recipe, I’ll definitely be trying this! Can you tell me how long this usually keeps in the fridge?
Thanks!
Reply
Cate — November 22nd, 2012 @ 10:00 am
Hi Elisa- it always gets used pretty quickly around here, but it should definitely keep at least two weeks or so. Hope you like it!
Reply