Shanti Chai & Co's All Things Tea Blog — Whole Spices
Shanti Chai Pumpkin Pie Recipe
Substitute Pumpkin Spice with Chai Spice for an Extra Special Pumpkin Pie! This past weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving and while we had a mellow day at home with the twins, we decided to cook up a chicken, with potatoes, squash and rosemary, thyme, parsley and sage from the garden. And of course, pumpkin pie! This pie is incredibly simple to make, richly spiced using a blend of our Original Chai Blend spices (with some added allspice), and has a lovely texture and an indulgent old school graham cracker crust. We topped ours with sweetened coconut cream. To Make a Shanti...
7 Health Benefits of Chai
Need another reason to drink a nice cup of chai? Or how about seven! Traditional masala chai is made up of a blend of spices (like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, peppercorns, cloves, fennel) combined with a black tea, often an Assam tea. Each of the spices used in chai has its own list of health benefits, especially the well known and much loved spice heavy hitters like ginger and turmeric. So, we could spend an entire blog post on any one of them - and one day, we will! - but for this post, we wanted to focus on the health...
Assam Tea Candied Ginger Chai Chai Golden Turmeric Chai Health Benefits of Chai Original Chai Blend Whole Spices
Etymology 101: The Meaning of the Word Chai
Did you know that the word chai is the word for tea in Hindi? And going back even further, the word chai originally came from the Chinese word for tea, cha or chá. In North America, we often see menus and shops offering "chai tea" and "chai tea lattes" but technically this is like saying "tea tea" and "tea tea lattes" respectively. It can be a bit confusing! So let's break it all down.
Assam Tea Chai Chai Concentrate Chai Latte Etymology of Chai History of Chai History of Tea Original Chai Blend Whole Spices
"New Momma" Tea: A Tea for New Mommas
In Summer of 2020, Shanti became a momma to beautiful fraternal twin girls. When they first arrived, certain herbs and flowers sounded delicious and for several months, every afternoon included an iced tea made from a long steep of various deep summer garden finds. Raspberry leaf, fennel, lemon balm, bright flowers... A few additions were made to create "New Momma" Blend: fenugreek, of course, one of the main aids for nursing mommas, lemon verbena, alfalfa. With the help of Shanti's own mother and learning more about ingredients that benefit the new momma, this herbal blend was born! Light, aromatic, grounding...
Fireside Tea: A Winter Blend
Spiced Tea for a Winter's Eve This spiced and fruity black-tea based blend was created after I asked my mum what ingredients she thought would make a perfect cup of tea for chilly nights. We brainstormed, blended, tasted and repeated. And this is what we finally created: Fireside Blend. Named by my sweetheart. Fireside Blend combines earthy Assam tea with cinnamon and citrus (orange peel) and spice (ginger), and finally rounds itself out with fruity notes of rosehips and cranberries. This is our favourite tea for chilly nights, perfect for when the summer turns into fall. We enjoy it almost...