Carrageenan Free Chai Spice Iced Tea

Total time45 min

Prep time5 min

Cook time10 min

4.5

(23)

Warm spices meet a cool glass in this deeply aromatic iced tea that tastes like a café drink you'd pay too much for. Cinnamon, fresh ginger, cardamom, cloves, and black peppercorns are simmered together until the water turns fragrant and lightly amber, building a spice base that's bold without being harsh. Black tea bags steep right into that spiced liquid, and a drizzle of maple syrup rounds everything out with gentle sweetness. The whole thing gets strained clean and chilled, so what hits the ice is a smooth, complex tea with zero cloudiness or grit. For anyone navigating carrageenan concerns, bottled chai concentrates and many ready-to-drink teas are exactly where that additive tends to hide — often used as a thickener or stabilizer in commercial blends. This recipe sidesteps all of that entirely, since every ingredient is a whole food or pantry staple with nothing processed in the mix. The result is a refreshing, spiced iced tea you can feel genuinely good about pouring over a tall glass of ice on a warm afternoon.

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Ingredients

4 servings

3 cups water
3 black tea bags
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp fresh ginger, thinly sliced
6 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
4 whole cloves
¼ tsp black peppercorns
3 tbsp maple syrup

For serving

1 cup ice cubes, for serving

Instructions

1
Combine the water, cinnamon stick, sliced ginger, crushed cardamom pods, whole cloves, and black peppercorns in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes, until the liquid is fragrant and lightly amber.
2
Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add the tea bags and steep for 4 minutes, then remove and discard the tea bags.

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