Quick and Easy Chai Latte

The last few days I have been craving Chai Latte, but not wanting the fattening, sugar filled versions that various coffee stores and premixed Chai recipes showed. Nor did I want to take the time to make Chai concentrate at this time, although it sounded delicious. So the following is a quick and easy method I developed at home.

Tips:
According to my reading, even decaffeinated tea has about 3% of it's caffeine left. Please be aware of that if you are sensitive or even if you're just wanting a morning pick me up, but not the jitters

Black tea does come in decaf versions

Agave Nectar is about 2 times sweeter than sugar, so use sparingly, and make sure you get the 100% whole Agave kind, and not the versions which are mixed with other things in the process or it's glycemic index shoots up

Honey, if you are not allergic to it like I am, is a delicious sweetener for chai. I only wish it didn't give me hives.

Lemon peel would also be refreshing (I used orange zest due to lemon allergies)

Placing the ingredients in a cheese cloth would likely prevent the need to strain the tea

If you are a soy milk drinker or rice milk drinker those would work and this would still be vegan. Or if you're a dairy drinker this works with milk

Ingredients:

2 glasses filled with ice

8 oz hot water

8 oz Original Unsweetened Almond milk (with vitamin D)
2 bags decaf black tea (or iced tea bags)

1/2 teaspoon agave 

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cardimum or allspice 

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon orange zest

Instructions:

Heat water 

Place 2 bags of decaf black tea,  1/2 teaspoon agave nectar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, 1/4 teaspoon cumin, 1/4 teaspoon orange zest in a coffee mug or tea cup 

Pour 8 oz hot water over and allow tea to steep

Place a paper towel over the glass of ice (I used a couple pieces of ice to hold the paper towel slightly down into the glass) 

SLOWLY pour 1/2 hot tea and spices from the above over the paper towel so that it will strain out excess spices and not leave your latte gritty.  Allow to soak through the paper towel until the glass is 1/2 full of tea then move paper towel to other glass of ice and repeat

Add 4 oz Almond Milk to each glass

Mix

You can add more honey or agave to taste if you feel it is not sweet enough, but I like mine spicy and not overly sweet

Makes 2 8 oz glasses of Chai Latte providing you with 1/2 the vitamin D of a glass of milk, none of the dairy, and all the healthy antioxidents of the tea, plus some of the blood sugar control of the spices, tho those are minimal at this dose I'm sure, I figure it can't hurt my attempts to move towards a medicine free blood sugar control! 

Please let me know how you like it, and what spices you switch around for it. You may want to try ginger root in yours, I am allergic to ginger, so did not include it in this recipe but found it in several chair recipes on the net. ENJOY!