Green Cardamom Loses Its Point Within Weeks of Grinding
The compounds that make cardamom worth using are volatile, and pre-ground pods have already lost most of them.
Sunayana Bose
Contributing writer, Indian Chai Masala
Sunayana writes about regional chai and has ridden a lot of trains for research.
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12 articles
Fresh Ginger Will Curdle Your Milk If You Time It Wrong
Ginger carries a protein-cutting enzyme, and dropping it into hot milk is a reliable way to break a pan.
Cloves Are the Spice Most Likely to Ruin Your Masala
Eugenol is powerful enough to numb the tongue, and two cloves too many will silence everything else in the blend.
Almost Every Cinnamon Stick Sold as Cinnamon Is Cassia
The two barks sit side by side on a shelf, behave differently in a pan and are not interchangeable by weight.
Black Pepper Does Something in Chai That Ginger Cannot
Piperine bites at the back of the throat rather than the front of the tongue, and that changes how a cup ends.
Fennel Makes Chai Taste Sweeter Without Any Sugar Going In
Anethole registers as sweetness on the tongue while contributing nothing that a sugar-reduction plan would object to.
Simmering and a Rolling Boil Make Two Genuinely Different Cups
The same leaf, the same masala and the same milk land in different places depending on how violently the pan is moving.
Dried Ginger and Fresh Ginger Are Not Substitutes in a Chai Pan
They come from the same rhizome and behave like different spices, because drying converts the compound that makes ginger sharp.
Dry-Roasting Chai Spices Buys Aroma and Costs You Shelf Life
A short turn in a hot dry pan changes what spices smell like and starts a clock on how long they will stay that way.
Dried Rose Petals Are a Perfume Ingredient, Measured in Pinches
Rose enters a chai pan as scent rather than as flavour, and the line between fragrant and soapy is remarkably narrow.
Coriander Seed Is the Quiet Bulking Spice in a Chai Masala
It rarely announces itself, which is exactly why it is in so many blends: it fills space that would otherwise go to clove.
Buying Whole Spice by Smell Rather Than by the Label
Nothing on a spice packet tells you how long the contents have been sitting, so the only useful test is the one you do yourself.