As I’d said in my post on making Garam Masala, we like to do up our own. As to what to do with it, well, we usually end up using it in shakes or in various sweet dishes, but as I was making my morning pots of tea (I have two French Presses … so I make two), I realized that I’d left out an important bit: you don’t necessarily end up with one batch when you grind whole spices into masala.
You see, when you grind up all of your spices using a blade grinder, you usually get sick of the whole fine-mesh strainer process after about half an hour of grinding, sifting, grinding, sifting… so you just give up & bodge the larger bits into a jar & leave well enough alone. What to do with the leftovers, though? Well, if you’re like me, you put them into cheap black tea, and have your own version of Chai Tea. You get a subtly different flavor from the coarse bits than from the fine bits, primarily because the pieces which get left behind tend to be largely comprised of coriander hulls. But there’s enough of the other spices to give you that distinctive Masala flavor, and it’s a good use of something which would sit until chutney-making season. Of course, for the decaffeinated version, you can still use the fine-powdered Masala with your hot soy-milk & a bit of sweetener, but for the tea version, the coarse grind make for a clearer brew.
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ok, so i am not really a fan of chai tea but it sounds so enticing when you describe it i find myself considering it!