I’ve been back in Virginia for eight months now! It’s so great to be back in my beautiful little town, hanging out with my hubby and my sister, treading all my familiar paths and finding some new ones. When I got home, there were three main things on which I wanted to focus: writing (of course!), downsizing/tidying up (my never-ending quest), and becoming more physically active. Here’s a little story that illustrates why that hasn’t happened as rapidly as it should have.
I love chai tea. (Side note: I recently found out that “chai” actually means “tea,” so when we say “chai tea,” we are actually saying “tea tea.” But I digress.) It’s sweet, it’s spicy, it’s caffeinated — essentially, it’s the perfect substance. Also (don’t faint) but I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of coffee I drink. It’s been a hard road, friends, I won’t lie! Anyway, not long after I got back to Virginia, I started having these crazy cravings for a masala chai latte. But that delicious beverage is hard to find here in the country, so I decided to try to make my own.
I found some chai spice tea bags online, and that temporarily sated my thirst. It was fun playing with different sweeteners and trying coconut milk and other things. But then one day, when I was supposed to be writing (of course!) I got to thinking, how amazing would it be to make an authentic masala chai from scratch. Oooh, something shiny! What a great distraction!
I spent thirty minutes searching out recipes online, (this is the one I liked the best from the Feasting at Home blog) and I found that, although I have almost all the ingredients on hand (I would have to find cardamom pods, but that’s not completely impossible, and would be a good excuse to put off writing a little while longer), it seems kind of labor-intensive for a single cup of tea. So I then spent another thirty minutes looking for bulk teas to buy online. And finally, finally, after having spent two hours from the initial thought of “I’d love a chai latte,” I had to actually knuckle down and get some work done. But I’m not done with this whole tea thing.
When I was writing this post, I got interested again, and found this recipe from the Oh, How Civilized! blog. This one, because it’s focused on a large batch of tea, actually seems more like something I could do. So, I’m going to try it out and I will let you know how it goes. But now, I really, really have to do some writing.
Oh look, something shiny!
