Dirty Iced Chai latte

A creamy Dirty Iced chai latte. A coffee flavored with Chai herbal tea. The flavors blend wonderfully in this cooling drink. A tasty and simple recipe.

There was a new swiepswoepswap on Instagram and I decided to get involved. I was assigned the account of culinarydreaming. After swiping through her instagram photos I ended up on the recipe for a Chai latte. That seemed very nice to me, but a bit heavy for the summer. And because we were allowed to give it our own twist, my recipe became a Dirty Iced Chai latte.

Keep it simple

What I always find very important is to keep the recipe very simple. And this recipe for a Dirty Iced Chai latte doesn't even need extra cooling time (although you can cool everything in front of course). This gives you a delicious cooling drink within 10 minutes.And very tasty because of the spices. Try it yourself!

How to prepare Chai tea

You can make your own Chai tea very well, for example with this homemade Chai tea recipe. But you can also buy ready-made Chai tea.

 For extra flavor accents I added some spices today. Star anise, cardamom and cloves. And they went well with this iced coffee.

What makes this recipe dirty?

In this recipe you combine chai tea with its delicious herbs with creamy milk and a shot of espresso. The 'dirty' is because you add coffee to your tea which makes it look a bit like mud. And because it is served cold, it is a Dirty Chai latte. It is a popular recipe that you can even get at Starbucks.

📖 Variations and substitutes

• Replace the milk with almond milk or vanilla almond milk. You can leave out the honey or replace it with maple syrup or stevia. With that you get a vegan variant.
• If you don't have an espresso machine, make very strong coffee and add ¼ cup of it to the tea.
• Honey gives a nice flavor accent but it's optional. You can choose to leave it out of this recipe.
• It is also nice to add some aniseed or cinnamon to the spice mixture.

💭 Top tips

• You can also make Chai tea using the cold brewed method as explained here. Just as tasty, but it will take you a little longer to get the great end result.
• Dissolve the honey in the hot water. Sweeteners dissolve best in warm liquids rather than cold tea.
• Make the tea and coffee a little earlier and let it cool down. This way you can add less ice cubes.
• Use a strainer to remove the herbs and the tea bag.

⏲️ What to do with left overs?

• make it earlier: prepare the espresso and steep the tea a few hours in advance and let it cool well in the refrigerator. This way you will be ready in a wink when you want to drink this iced coffee.
• in the refrigerator: you can mix this dirty Chai iced latte and keep it covered for up to 3 days in the refrigerator. Add the ice just before serving.
• in the freezer: you can also freeze the iced tea. For example, consider freezing the liquid in an ice cube tray. You can then put the ice cubes in your glass and let them melt and you have ice cold iced coffee.

🥘  Other delicious recipes

If you like this Dirty Chai iced latte than you probably love these recipes:

• Creamy iced coffee
• Mexican iced coffee
• Ginger iced tea with lemon and mint
• Lime rose iced tea