Types of Chai Tea

If you want the chai most Americans order, the milky, spiced tea from the café, that's masala chai, and a box of Twinings Chai makes it at home for about 18 cents a cup. If you want the same cup with no caffeine, get Numi's Rooibos Chai, which swaps the black tea for rooibos.

The other types split four ways: one spice up front (ginger, cardamom), a different method (all milk, a half glass), a region (Kashmir, Hyderabad, the Gulf), or no black tea at all (green tea, rooibos, tulsi, yerba mate).

Sixteen kinds of chai side by side

Chai	Base	Milk?	Tastes like	Caffeine
Masala chai	black tea, usually Assam	yes	cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, clove	about half a coffee
Adrak chai (ginger)	black tea	yes	hot, peppery ginger	about half a coffee
Elaichi chai (cardamom)	black tea	yes	sweet, floral cardamom	about half a coffee
Doodh pati	black tea	milk only, no water	thick, creamy, sweet	about half a coffee
Cutting chai	black tea	yes	very strong and sweet, in a half glass	about half a coffee
Noon chai (Kashmiri pink tea)	green tea	yes	salty, creamy, often with nuts	some
Kashmiri kahwa	green tea	usually no	saffron, cinnamon, almond	some
Irani chai	black tea	yes	strong and milky	about half a coffee
Karak chai	black tea	yes	strong, sweet, spiced	about half a coffee
Sulaimani	black tea	no	lemon, mint, light spice	about half a coffee
Green tea chai	green tea	optional	lighter, grassy under the spice	some
Rooibos chai	rooibos	optional	sweet, woody, spiced	none
Tulsi chai	holy basil, sometimes black tea	optional	peppery, clove-like	none to a little
Yerba mate chai	yerba mate	optional	earthy, spiced	high
Chai latte	black tea concentrate	yes, half the cup	sweet, creamy, cinnamon-forward	55 mg in a Starbucks grande
Dirty chai	chai latte plus espresso	yes	spice and coffee together	tea plus a shot

"About half a coffee" is roughly 47 mg in an 8-ounce cup, going by USDA figures for brewed black tea, against about 95 mg for drip coffee. Does chai have caffeine works it out cup by cup, decaf included.

Masala chai and its everyday versions

Masala chai means "mixed-spice tea," and every other chai on this page is a variation on it. It has three parts: the spices, the tea and the milk. The tea is black, most often Assam, the malty Indian tea that also holds up breakfast blends; Darjeeling and Nilgiri get used too. Cardamom, fresh ginger and cinnamon are the core spices, with cloves, star anise, black pepper, mint or lemongrass depending on the family making it. Sweeten it with sugar, honey or jaggery. Ginger gives it a little heat at the finish, and it's the chai most cafés copy.

Twinings Chai is the easy version: black tea with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and ginger, steeped three to five minutes. It's gentle on the spice, so people who like it loud use two bags or add a pinch of their own cinnamon.

Adrak chai is ginger chai, with fresh ginger boiled right in with the tea and milk until the cup has real heat. Pick it if cinnamon bores you. Tea India's ginger chai puts black tea and ginger in a bag at about $9 for 40: steep, add milk, done.

Elaichi chai is cardamom chai, made with crushed green cardamom pods. Cardamom tastes sweet and floral, a little like eucalyptus, so this cup is softer and more fragrant than masala chai. VAHDAM's cardamom chai is black tea with extra cardamom, about $15 for 30 pyramid bags.

Doodh pati means "milk leaf tea." Tea and sugar are boiled in milk alone, with no water at all, so the cup comes out thick and rich, almost like a dessert. It's what roadside stalls pour across northern India and Pakistan, often with cardamom and ginger boiled in.

Cutting chai is a serving size, not a recipe: in Mumbai, a half cup of strong, sweet chai from a street stall.

Regional chai: Kashmiri pink tea, kahwa, Irani, karak and sulaimani

Noon chai, also called Kashmiri chai, sheer chai or pink tea, surprises people: it's pink, and it's salty. It starts with green gunpowder tea, boiled for about an hour with a pinch of baking soda. The baking soda turns the tea deep red, and when milk goes in, the cup turns pink. "Noon" means salt in Kashmiri, and the traditional cup is salty rather than sweet, served with bread several times a day. Outside Kashmir, and in Pakistan especially, it often comes sweetened and topped with crushed nuts.

Kashmiri kahwa is drunk clear. It's green tea boiled with saffron, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and cloves, sometimes rose petals, and it's usually served without milk, sweetened with sugar or honey, with crushed almonds or walnuts. In Kashmir it's the cup for guests and for after a big dinner, traditionally brewed in a copper samovar. At home, VAHDAM's kahwa has the saffron and almond already in the bag: 2 grams of leaf in a cup of boiling water for three to five minutes. Expect something light, golden and fragrant, nothing like a milky masala chai.

Irani chai comes from the Irani cafés of Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune, opened by Zoroastrian immigrants from Iran in the 1800s. It's strong, milky black tea, and in Hyderabad it comes with Osmania biscuits for dunking.

Karak chai is the name milky spiced chai goes by across the Gulf, where South Asian communities made it popular. Think strong, sweet and milky.

Sulaimani skips the milk: black tea with a little spice, a squeeze of lemon and a few mint leaves, from the south of India. It's bright and clean, the opposite of a milky mug.

Chai without black tea: green tea, rooibos, tulsi and yerba mate

Green tea chai keeps the cinnamon, ginger and clove over a lighter, grassier tea. It's good plain, with no milk, and it has less of the malty weight of masala chai. Stash Chai Green is the everyday box, 100 bags for about $22.

Rooibos chai uses rooibos, a red bush from South Africa, instead of tea. It's naturally sweet and woody, and it has no caffeine at all. Numi's Rooibos Chai blends it with cloves, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg and cardamom, and you can leave the bag in as long as you like.

Tulsi chai is built on holy basil, which tastes peppery, a bit like clove. Read the box: Organic India's Tulsi Masala Chai has Assam black tea in it and lists 13 mg of caffeine a serving, while its Tulsi Red Masala Chai uses rooibos and has none. My tulsi tea guide tells the boxes apart.

Yerba mate chai goes the other way: the South American leaf with chai spices, for a cup with more of a kick than black tea.

Café chai: chai latte and dirty chai

If you're wondering about the types of chai at Starbucks, there are really two. The chai latte is a sweet black-tea concentrate topped up with steamed milk; Starbucks brought its version out in 1998, and a grande lists 55 mg of caffeine. Iced, it's the same thing over ice. A dirty chai adds a shot of espresso, so you get the coffee's caffeine on top of the tea's.

At home, a carton does the job. Tazo Classic mixes half and half with milk, hot or over ice, for about $6 a carton. For a dirty chai, pour it over a shot; macchiato vs latte explains what that shot brings.

How to make masala chai on the stove

The bagged boxes are fine, but stovetop chai is where the flavor is. For one cup:

1. Put ½ cup of water and ½ cup of milk in a small pan.
2. Add a little grated ginger and a pinch of chai spices: crushed cardamom, cinnamon and cloves.
3. Bring it to a boil.
4. Add 1 teaspoon of loose black tea, Assam if you have it, and let it brew until it's as dark as you like.
5. Strain into a mug and sweeten to taste.

Swap the spices and you have the other types: all ginger for adrak, all cardamom for elaichi, all milk and no water for doodh pati. The tea is the same black tea you'd buy for breakfast; the types of black tea explains why Assam is the one that holds up to milk.

Which chai to start with

Get Twinings Chai if you want the classic masala chai, milky and spiced, for every morning. Get Tea India's ginger chai if you like your chai with heat, or VAHDAM's cardamom chai if you'd rather it sweet and fragrant. Get Numi's Rooibos Chai if you drink chai after dinner. And get VAHDAM's kahwa if you want something new: no milk, saffron and almonds, nothing like the café cup.

A box for each type

• Twinings Chai masala chai, the classic, for milk and honey
  $17.98
• Tea India Ginger Chai adrak chai, black tea with ginger heat
  $8.99
• VAHDAM Cardamom Chai elaichi chai, sweet and fragrant with extra cardamom
  $14.99
• VAHDAM Kashmiri Kahwa Kashmiri kahwa, green tea with saffron and almond, no milk
  $14.99
• Stash Chai Green Tea green tea chai, lighter, good plain
  $21.99
• Numi Rooibos Chai rooibos chai, no caffeine at all
  $5.96
• TAZO Classic Chai Latte Concentrate a café-style chai latte, half carton, half milk
  $5.19

At about 18 cents a bag, it's the cheap way to find out whether you like chai before buying loose spices. It's black tea and four spices, masala chai with nothing added. The spice is gentle, so give it the full five minutes, or simmer two bags in a pan of milk and water and you're most of the way to stovetop chai.

Keep this one for after dinner. With six spices over rooibos, it reads as chai, not herbal tea, and there's no caffeine to worry about at 9 p.m. About $6 for 18 bags.

Common questions

What is the best type of chai tea?+−

For most people, masala chai: black tea, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon and cloves, with milk. Cafés sell it and most boxes make it. If you like it hotter, try ginger chai; sweeter and more fragrant, cardamom chai; no caffeine, rooibos chai.

What are the different flavours of chai tea?+−

The flavor comes from the spices. Cardamom tastes sweet and floral, ginger hot, cinnamon warm and sweet, cloves dark and a little numbing, black pepper sharp. Masala chai uses several at once; adrak chai is mostly ginger, and elaichi chai mostly cardamom. Shop blends add vanilla, chocolate or pumpkin spice on top.

What flavors are good in chai tea?+−

Beyond the classic spices, star anise, nutmeg, fennel, black pepper, lemongrass and mint all show up in Indian homes. Vanilla and a little honey round it out. Kashmiri kahwa adds saffron and almonds, and sulaimani goes bright with lemon.

Is chai tea the same as masala chai?+−

Mostly, yes. Chai simply means tea: the word comes from the Chinese cha, through Hindi, so "chai tea" is really "tea tea." In India, "chai" can be any tea. In the US, "chai" or "chai tea" almost always means masala chai, the spiced black tea with milk.

Which type of chai has no caffeine?+−

Rooibos chai, and tulsi chai made without tea leaves. Anything built on black or green tea, including masala, ginger, cardamom, Kashmiri and green tea chai, has caffeine. Decaf chai still has a little, about 2 mg a cup by USDA's figure.