Kashmiri Chai, also called noon chai or pink tea, is a creamy, smooth, yet spicy beverage instantly recognisable for its iconic bright pink colour. Our pink tea recipe will show you how to make Kashmiri chai at home.
Kashmiri chai usually tastes like a creamy, milky, floral hot drink, with warmth from the spices and salt. Some may describe it as a savoury drink because it has a distinct saltiness that is unique among different milk tea drinks. However, it lacks the more robust and darker bouquet of regular chai since you make it with green and not black tea leaves. Variations include adding sugar, nuts, and dry fruits that add fattiness, sweetness, and a delicious crunch.
Our tried and tested noon chai recipe will give you the pinkest Kashmiri chai possible at home with limited ingredients and tools.
Jump to:
Kashmiri Chai Ingredients
Traditionally, pink tea (Kashmiri chai) is made of Kashmiri green tea leaves, milk, salt, baking soda, and spices.
Tea Leaves
To achieve the pink colour, you will need to use a specific type of green tea called Kashmiri green tea. It's also called Kashmiri chai patti, gunpowder, or ball-rolled tea leaves.
Instead of loose leaves, you can also use Kashmiri chai tea bags, which will still give you the pink hue at home. We prefer to use Kashmiri pink tea bags because they are cheaper and speed up the cooking process.
If you can't find this, you can also use Chinese green tea leaves in our pink chai recipe. The taste is almost exactly the same, but you won't get the pink colour.
Milk
Full-fat cow's milk is the most common creamer for making Kashmiri chai. However, you can add cream to accentuate the drink's creaminess.
Although many cooks will not encourage using plant milk, it is still an acceptable substitute. However, some non-dairy milk won't give the beverage a strong pink colour when added. Additionally, it might not add to the drink's distinct creaminess and lightness, either. But we assure you it will still taste great.
Spices
The most common spices used in Kashmiri chai recipes are star anise, cinnamon, green cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, and rarely black cardamom or even saffron.
Our pink tea recipe uses cinnamon, green cardamom, star anise, cloves, nutmeg powder, and salt.
However, you may add as many or as few of these spices as you wish. Additionally, crushed pistachios or almonds can be used as toppings if sugar or a sweetener is added. We like to use crushed pistachios as a garnish.
Some cafes may add dried rose petals or rose syrup to enhance the pink colour. However, adding these rose ingredients is not traditional or authentic.
Salt
Salt is one of Kashmiri chai's most characteristic, traditional, and essential ingredients. Using salt with the noon chai leaves gives the drink its distinctive flavour. Typically, restaurants will choose to use pink Himalayan rock salt. Although it's nicer, you don't need to use Himalayan rock salt. We just used table salt, and it works perfectly well, too.
Baking Soda
Baking soda is also an essential ingredient, giving the chai its unique pink colour. Do not exclude this if you want the magic pink colour. However, if necessary, you can use pink food colouring instead.
Sugar
Traditionally, we don't add sweeteners to this beverage. But if you want some added sweetness in your chai, use regular white sugar.
How Does Kashmiri Tea Turn Pink?
Kashmiri noon chai turns pink due to a chemical reaction between the chlorophyll in the leaves and the baking soda added to the Kashmiri chai recipe.
Pink tea results from a laborious process combining science and art. The first stage involves boiling green tea leaves and baking soda for an extended period of time. When cooked with a small quantity of baking soda, the fermented leaves change in colour from amber to deep crimson.
This acidic infusion is neutralised by sodium bicarbonate. As a result, the reaction improves the colour while lessening the astringency of tannins in the leaves.
Scientists refer to this as an acid-base reaction. In order to maintain the colour after the tea turns burgundy, you have to shock it with ice or cold water.
The Kashmiri chai becomes pink when you pour milk into it. The boiling dairy liquid is repeatedly ladled back and forth into the saucepan and vigorously aerated. This technique is similar to foaming milk for coffee and other variations of this hot drink, like in dirty chai or Thai tea.
Pink Tea Recipe (Kashmiri Chai or Noon Chai)
Ingredients
Kashmiri Pink Tea
- 5 tbsps Kashmiri gunpowder tea leaves
- 4 cups cold water
- ⅓ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt
- 1 cup ice water
Noon Chai Spices
- 3 cm cinnamon stick
- 3-4 whole green cardamom pods
- 1 star anise
- 2 whole cloves
- ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
To make Kashmiri Chai
- 480 ml whole milk
- 6 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon pistachio crushed, optional
Cooking Instructions
- Add the cold water, leaves, and the spices to a wide pot. Put the heat on medium-high and bring everything to a boil.
- Once the liquid starts to boil, add baking soda and salt. Reduce the heat to low and let it simmer until you see that the liquid has reduced to half its initial quantity (around 2 cups). Regularly, use a spoon, scoop the liquid up high above the pot, and pour it back down. This pouring technique will help aerate the kehwa.
- After the reduction, pour the ice water into the pot from above. Remove the ice cubes before you do this. Do not turn off the heat - instead, reduce it to the lowest possible setting.
- Continue to aerate the mixture by using a ladle and pouring from up high until the colour deepens. If, after a maximum of 7-8 minutes, the colour has not changed from green to pink, add more baking soda a pinch at a time until it does. If the colour has not yet changed after adding a whole teaspoon extra of baking soda, do not add more. Turn off the heat and strain the kehwa. You can let it cool, store it, and use it later.
- To make the chai, lightly simmer the milk in a saucepan. Add the kehwa and any sweeteners. Afterward, cover the pot and reduce the heat to medium-low. Let the tea steep for 2-3 minutes before straining again into serving mugs.
- Garnish with crushed pistachio if you're using them. Serve hot, and enjoy your Kashmiri chai.
Recipe Notes
- If you don't like the idea of a savoury beverage, you can exclude the salt. However, remember that salt is the most traditionally essential component of pink tea.
- If you cannot find pink Himalayan salt, try any table or sea salt.
- We recommend light brown sugar as the sweetener for this drink, but you can also use white sugar or honey.
- You can substitute the whole cinnamon stick for ½ teaspoon or 1.3 g of ground cinnamon.
- Make sure the ice water is ice cold. You can use ice cubes melted down into the water instead of adding them to room-temperature water. This step is crucial to the chemical reaction which results in pink tea.
Nutrition
Calories have been calculated using an online calculator. Nutritional information offered on Honest Food Talks is for general information purposes and is only a rough estimate.
Why Is My Kashmiri Chai Not Pink?
There are several reasons why your noon chai might not be pink.
The first and most simple reason is that the chemical reaction required to change the colour of the chlorophyll in the tea to pink never took place. This issue could be because you used too much or not enough baking soda, added it in at the wrong time, or the water was at the wrong temperature.
You also need to aerate the tea a lot during cooking to encourage this chemical reaction. So, not doing so may be why it did not change colour.
Another potential reason your pink tea might not be pink is that certain varieties of green tea might not produce the chemical reaction required for the colour change. In such a scenario, you can turn to food colouring or rose syrup, or drink it as is—the flavours would still be delicious.
Pink Tea Cooking Tips
Here are some helpful tips for brewing the perfect Kashmiri chai every time.
- Try using Kashmiri or gunpowder green tea for the best results. If not, try using these other forms of green tea in the following order of preference: loose leaf, bags, or powder.
- To increase the flavours you can use 2 -3 tea bags for every serving of this drink. Additionally, using bags will take longer as the leaves used in them are intended to be boiled for longer.
- You will need a ladle, a wide pot, and a strainer to make this recipe. You will not need other special equipment.
- If you would like to expand the flavour profile, try adding a small amount of saffron to your Kashmiri chai with the rest of the spices for a more complex taste.
- Including all the spices listed in the noon chai recipe is not a requirement. Instead, you can use whichever ones you have on hand.
- If the colour of the Kashmiri chai does not change from green to red at the end of this recipe, it might be the fault of the leaves used. In this case, use red food colouring or rose syrup to change the colour.
- If you use rose syrup, adjust the amount of sweetener accordingly since the syrup is quite sweet.
Noon Chai Using Powder
The steps to making this recipe, in short, are:
- Boil the tea powder and additional spices you'd like to add.
- Add baking soda and salt. Aerate the mixture.
- Add ice water and additional baking soda to initiate the colour change.
- Boil milk and salt. Add the kehwa to the milk tea. Kehwa refers to the traditional preparation of green tea in the Indian subcontinent.
- Garnish with crushed nuts and serve hot.
We do not recommend using Japanese matcha powder since it doesn't mesh well with spices, fats, salt, and baking soda. Not only would the drink not end up pink, but it would also not turn out as tasty.
On the other hand, using prepackaged green tea or Kashmiri chai powder would produce a better result. Ensure to thoroughly mix this so you don't end up with a grainy and clumpy drink.
Although powder would be faster to use as it imparts flavour almost immediately, it may not be as aromatic. However, powder use could also be more cost-effective, especially if you are not a regular chai drinker.
We highly recommend using loose-leaf green tea or bags if you are going to make noon chai, as it depends entirely on the infusion process.
Noon Chai History
It originated in the Kashmir region of northern India, where it is usually served savoury. However, this drink is served throughout the Indian subcontinent, in places such as Pakistan and central India.
In these places, people have sometimes modified it to contain sugar or any other sweetener since savoury chai is not very common in this region. Similarly, they also top it with nuts and dry fruits. In Kashmir, this is a staple drink at breakfast or in the evening.
The spices inside the drink also provide a warming sensation to the body when you drink the beverage. And that's why this drink is perfect in the cold, snowy climate of Kashmir.
Pink tea is related to the salty milk infusions of Central Asia. They are typically prepared and served in a copper vessel. These central Asian varieties include the Uyghur etkanchay and the Mongolian suutei tsai.
According to legend, this drink travelled through the Silk Road from Yarkand, now in Xinjiang, China, to Kashmir. However, the usage of baking soda suggests that this particular drink originated much closer to India. Noon chai is an integral part of Kashmiri culture, locals drink it 2-3 times a day at a minimum.
Kashmiri Chai Calories
A single serving of Kashmiri chai contains only around 100 calories. However, adding extra milk and sugar will substantially increase the calorie count.We hope you enjoyed reading this article about Kashmiri chai. Although it is relatively unpopular in the Western world, it is a part of the cultures of many countries in the Indian subcontinent, and we hope you try our recipe.
If you enjoyed our recipe and want to discover more delicious drinks, follow us on Instagram @honestfoodtalks.
Leave a Reply