Spiced Indian Herbal Tea

Spiced Indian Herbal Tea and Snacks

Black Spiced Indian Herbal Tea With Lemon and Honey

Tea is the refreshing drink taken in the morning and when tired or stressed out what better than a hot cup of tea. All over the world tea is taken in one form or other. In India tea with milk and in some places tea made in pure milk is preferred. I love black tea or tea with lots of herbs and spices. My creation of this tea is not only refreshing but has medicinal values also. In normal cough and cold, headache it works wonder. My daughter in-law loves the flavor of this tea prepared by me. All ingredients are easily available in market and most of them are available in every kitchen. This tea can be taken only as herbal tea or tea leaves can be added to have black tea with a dash of lemon or with tea leaves and milk added as we Indians are normally used to.

Preparation Time: 5 min.

Making Time: 10-15 minutes

Servings: 4 cups of Tea

Ingredients Required For Making Spiced Indian Herbal Tea:

• 4 Tea cup water
• 1 Lemon Grass (Gawati chai)
• 10-12Holy Basil leaves (Tulsi)
• 1 inch Ginger (Adarak)
• 2 Black Cardamom (Badi elaichi)
• 2-4 Cloves (lawang)
• 1 Inch Piece of Cinnamon (Dalchini)
• 1 Teaspoon Fennel(saunf)

Material For Spiced Indian Herbal Tea

Directions For Making Spiced Indian Herbal Tea:

• Pound the black and green cardamom so that the seeds are crushes and the peel is split.
• Grate ginger
• Wash the basil and lemon grass.
• Cut lemon grass to pieces.

All Herbs and Spices Ready for Tea

• In a kettle take 4 cups of water.
• Add
• Black and green Cardamom
• Fennel
• Cloves
• Lemon grass
• Basil leaves

All Herbs and Spices Added to Water

• Cover the kettle and keep the kettle with water and all ingredients on heat.

Water With Herbs and Spices Kept For Boiling

Herbs and Spices Boiling in Water

• When water starts boiling lower the flame and let the water with all herbs and spices boil for 5 min.
• The water will reduce by one cup and three cups of liquid will be left.
• Add two tea spoons of your favorite tea leaves and let it stand for 10 min.

Tea Leaves Added To boiled Water with Herbs and Spices

• Boil one cup of milk.
• Add milk and sugar according to your taste and liking and herbal tea with milk is ready. My personal preference is tea without sugar.
• Get refreshed with Indian Herbal tea.

Spiced Indian Herbal Tea and Vada 

• Tips:
• Do not remove the peel of cardamoms as they impart good flavor and have lots of medicinal values.
• Do not cut the basil leaves.
• Do not boil after adding tea leaves as the tea will become very dark and bitter.
• Never add cold milk and then heat the tea it spoils the taste of tea.
• Correct practice is adding milk to tea not tea to milk this way the amount milk can be regulated without spoiling the taste of tea.
• To get the complete flavor of herbs and spices boil the water for at least 5 min.
• Amount of water should be 1 cup more than finally required amount in the case of herbal/black herbal tea as no milk is being added.

Suggested Variations:

• Filter the liquid in a cup add one tea spoon of honey and take hot piping refreshing herbal tea.

Spiced Indian Herbal Tea With Honey

• Heat the black herbal tea and filter in a cup.
• Add one teaspoon of fresh lemon juice and 2 teaspoon of honey/ sugar to taste. Serve with a wedge of lemon.

Spiced Indian Herbal Black Tea With Honey and Lemon

• Stir and have wonderful herbal black tea with lemon and honey taste.