CHAI

I prefer tea over coffee. Guess thats not a bad thing when you find yourself living in the UK. I was a little let down expecting to find loads of Chai being served up all over London dude to the large Indian community. Besides one experience in Southall (a particularly large and concentrated Hindu community on the western edge of London) I still find that my homemade Chai is still the most satisfying. Perhaps thats how its meant to be though....

CHAI
Ingredients 
-about 20 green cardamom pods
-1 black cardamom pod
-about 1/2 inch of canela cinnamon (use whatever whole cinnamon you have, i just prefer mexican canela)
-10 black peppercorns
-2 cloves
- 1 cup or 1 and a half cups milk (whole milk is tastiest obviously but suit yourself)
- 4 bags of assam black tea (dont waste money on a super fancy grade here)
- sugar (optional I guess... but its always sweetened in India I hear...)

Method 
Using a mortar and pestle, smash up the green and black cardamom until the pods break and the seeds escape. Put the milk in a small pot over medium heat. Add all the listed spices and the broken up cardamom. Cook milk and spice mixture until slightly reduced and be sure to stir occasionally.
Meanwhile brew the tea. I prefer really strong Chai, so I use 4 bags of tea brewed (for about 3 mins) in 3 1/2 cups of boiling water.
Strain the tea bags and remove from tea. Combine the milk and tea into a vessel (most likely a tea pot but  whatever - sometimes I add the tea to the milk in the pot). Add sugar to taste, pour through a strainer into cups (to catch whole spices and pieces) and serve.

I also like not straining it and just having a couple bits of spice floating about in my cup but I guess im dirty like that.