Rooibos Chai Tea: Super Easy Caffeine-Free Chai Tea Blend
Rooibos chai tea blend is my spicy friend. It has the lovely autumn feeling (despite I drink it year-round!) with the warm spices of cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger. With a fragrant homemade chai spice blend of seven spices, you can make your own tea blend at home, and with rooibos leaves, it becomes caffeine-free too!
I started playing around with chai blends when my three-year-old fell in love with chai latte. I loved that she enjoyed it so much, but I wasn’t so keen on the caffeine in black tea. You know, it’s not exactly one of those low-caffeine teas. With the caffeine content of about 40-70mg per cup, black tea starts to reach the same levels as a cup of coffee (average 90mg!).
So long story short, rooibos came into the picture.
It happened so that the beautiful nuttiness of red rooibos leaves matched perfectly with chai spices, and the caffeine-free rooibos chai latte recipe was born. Today’s recipe of the rooibos chai tea blend is the natural continuation of the chai story, which I wanted to deepen with more spices and the lovely liquorice root, which is totally my favourite in any winter tea blend.
Tips for making the best rooibos chai blend
- Always choose whole spices. They keep their flavor longer and mix better with loose-leaf tea.
- Don’t crush the spices too much; the smaller and more powdery your spices are to slip to the bottom of the jar without mixing in.
- Double your favourite spice! I tend to double the cardamom every time.
- For maximum flavour: grind the chai tea blend right before steeping to release maximum flavour into your tea.
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Ingredients for rooibos chai tea blend
- Cardamom pods: If you love cardamom as I do, use the measure in seeds, not in pods, to have a more intense cardamom flavour
- Cinnamon bark: If you want to make a beautiful gift, you can leave the cinnamon bark as bigger chuncks into the blend, but just crush it before using.
- Whole cloves
- Dried ginger bits: You can dry easily at home: slice thin slices of ginger and leave them on a plate in a dry place. Turn once in a while to help the drying process. Takes about 2-4 days.
- Whole black pepper
- Nutmeg bits: nutmeg is sometimes hard to find as whole or in bits, so just use the powder as I do, or skip it.
- Liquorice root bits: optional but an amazing addition!
You can find the exact measurements on the recipe card below!
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Rooibos Chai Tea Blend
Simple Rooibos chai recipe that is ready in less than 5 minutes. Match the spices with the same amount of tea; you can change the recipe to “parts” if you want to scale it up or down. 7 parts of tea and 7 parts of different spices. So that the ratio of spices to tea is 1:1.
Ingredients
Chai Blend
- 1 tsp cardamom pods
- 1 tsp cinnamon bark
- 1 tsp whole cloves
- 1 tsp dried ginger bits
- 1 tsp whole black pepper
- 1 tsp nutmeg bits
- 1 tsp liquorice root bits
- 7 tsp red rooibos , loose leaf
Instructions
- Crush green cardamom pods and cinnamon bark with a mortar and pestle. Don't grind too fine: aim for the same size as the rooibos loose-leaf tea.
- Add to a jar the rest of the ingredients: whole cloves, ginger root and liquorice root bits, whole black peppers, and nutmeg bits. Blend well with crushed cardamom pods and cinnamon bark.
- Measure the same amount, 1:1 ratio, of rooibos loose-leaf tea to spices and mix well.
- Store airtight in a cool and dark place. Keeps well for at least one year, depending on the freshness of the spices you have used. After that, the taste will get milder.
Steep rooibos chai tea using your chai tea blend
- Measure 1-2 tsp of rooibos chai tea blend you just made into an infuser basket and place it into your teacup.
- Pour 250ml (1 cup) almost boiling water over your chai tea blend.
- Steep for about 5 minutes, discard the tea blend and enjoy your rooibos chai tea hot.
Notes
- When making a chai tea blend, always choose whole spices. They keep their flavor longer and mix better with loose-leaf tea.
- You can use the same chai blend to season other teas, such as the black tea, like in a traditional chai blend, or the caffeine-free equivalent, fermented fireweed tea (ivan chai), or even coffee!
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 7 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 19Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCarbohydrates: 1gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 0g
These calculations are generated automatically by Nutritionix based on the ingredients shown in the recipe. The nutrition information is an estimation and may include errors. All nutritional information presented and written within this site (blueteatile.com) is intended for informational purposes only. The writer is not a certified nutritionist or registered dietitian and any nutritional information should be used as a general guideline only.
FAQ
If you can’t find the answer to your chai question, leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you!
Caffeine in chai tea
Traditional chai tea does contain caffeine, about 40-70 mg per cup, depending on which black tea is used in the tea blend.
Does Rooibos chai tea have caffeine?
Rooibos chai tea does not contain caffeine. Rooibos chai tea is a tea blend made with rooibos tea and chai spices. The black tea, that is traditionally used in the chai tea blend, is swapped with rooibos tea to make it into a caffeine-free chai tea blend in this recipe.
Chai vs chai latte: What’s the difference?
Generally, we refer to chai when it is the chai tea blend. Chai tea blend is made with black tea and chai spice blend, which consists of warming spices such as ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom. Chai latte is actually technically a tea latte, a tea made with milk (latte means milk in Italian).
Chai latte is a Western adaptation of the Indian hot beverage called Chai Masala. Masala means spices in hindi and very surprisingly (notice my irony), chai means tea. So Chai Masala means spiced tea, simple.
When chai tea is infused into water to release the flavours of the chai tea blend, a chai latte is infused into hot milk to create more rounded and fuller flavours. You can make a beautiful caffeine-free chai latte by substituting the loose-leaf black tea leaves with rooibos leaves.
