Chai Harder!

I love Chai. I love it hot or cold, anytime of year. I have special "Chai cups"; small tea cups without handles that I got at IKEA for 47 cents. I've got an extra special one from my dear friend, Andrea, that looks like a tiny owl.  Unfortunetly, the Chai tea that you buy at the grocery store and brew yourself, generally sucks. And when I put anything othe than cow milk in it, it get's funky and clumpy.
Boo-urns.
I've started to feel guilty about buying Chai and supporting Starbucks. Plus, I hate using paper cups. Sure, you can get the plastic, insulated ones, but those aren't great either. Anyway, back to the real reason I'm writing this: my Chai Concentrate Experiment.
A lot of the recipes I found online involved mixing the spices with condensed milk. I tried it a couple of times, but the spices sunk to the bottom, the jar got sticky and gross looking and I try to avoid cow milk when possible, since it's not super great for humans. Armed with my knowledge of how to make a simple syrup, I decided to make a concentrate like they have in coffee shops.
I'm fully aware that Chai Concentrate is available for sale at the grocery store, but it's not cheap and again, I'm trying to reduce the amount of waste I create and they come in coated cardboard, which I don't think can be recycled. This homemade concentrate is stored in glass jars! Recyclable and better for you!

Ingredients and Lab Tools:
Black Tea
Water
Sugar
Ground Cardamom
Ground Cinnamon
Ground Cloves
Ground Nutmeg
Glass Mason Jar
Heavy Sauce Pot

Experiment Steps:
I started by making a very strong black tea using several tea bags, letting them seep for about 10 minutes. I used the tea as the water to make the syrup. A simple syrup is 1 part water: 2 parts sugar, so I measured the tea and doubled the number for the sugar. I added the spices (1 part cardamom: 1/2 part rest of spices) to the sugar and added it to the tea. I dissolved the sugar, brought the mixture to a boil, reduced the heat and let the mixture simmer for 3 minutes to make the syrup. I let it cool for a bit, then poured it into glass jars and sealed them for future use.

Results:
The syrup was a little thinner than anticpated, but it actually works quite well. I've tried mixing it in a variety of ways and they all work well. I did it iced, mixing a little syrup with water, so it was like a sweet tea. I tried mixing half concentrate, half coconut milk; awesome. I did it mixed with hot water and a little coconut milk; equally awesome.

Overall Results:
An excellent experiment indeed! Extremely versatile, I can't wait to mix it with vanilla ice cream and try a Chai Milkshake!