Chai Tea Mix (Homemade Food Gift with FREE Gift Tags!)
Chai Tea Mix is a delicious pantry staple or a unique homemade food gift for those who love chai tea! Use the mix to whip up everything from a chai tea latte to a vanilla chai tea milkshake, or put it in a jar with the free printable tag of directions for gift giving!
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If you enjoy warm drinks, you'll also love Homemade Vanilla Coffee Creamer, Crock Pot Hot Chocolate, and Dairy-Free Almond Cashew Coffee!
Raise your hand if you like to make homemade food gifts for friends and neighbors during the holidays or throughout the year? (I do! I do!) However, as much as I enjoy baking and sharing Christmas cookies and quick breads, there's something I especially enjoy about food gifts that can be packaged up in a jar. In that past, I've made big holiday batches of candied nuts, flavored coffee syrup, caramel sauce, and even savory Marinated Cheese & Olives. But one of my most popular food gift ideas is a treat for the chai tea latte lovers in my life...Chai Tea Mix!
What Is Chai Tea?
For those of you unfamiliar with the wonders of chai, the American version of this Indian-inspired drink typically combines black tea, aromatic spices, and milk. The resulting beverage is a lightly sweet, warmly spiced, creamy blend of tea and milk.
And today's Chai Tea Mix recipe gives you the satisfaction of drinking chai tea almost instantly...without the hassle (or cost) of a trip to Starbucks!
Chai Tea Ingredients
- Unsweetened instant tea. This powdered mix is sometimes labeled "unsweetened iced tea." You can opt for regular or decaf.
- Nonfat dry milk powder + powdered non-dairy creamer. To give this chai tea recipe its creamy consistency.
- French vanilla-flavored powdered non-dairy creamer. For a subtle vanilla chai tea undertone. However, if you prefer your chai tea latte with no vanilla flavor, you may omit the vanilla powdered creamer and increase the plain powdered creamer to 2 cups.
- Sugar. Because it's not possible to make a Starbucks copycat at home without some sweetness. 😉
- Chai tea spices. Specifically, ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, and black pepper.
How to Make Chai Tea Mix
This Chai Tea Mix is incredibly quick and easy to put together. In fact, it's as simple as mixing everything together!
That being said, I highly recommend using a large food processor or blender to do so. Pulsing the chai tea ingredients together in a blender or food processor ensures that the final Chai Tea Mix will be a well-combined, homogenous, chai tea powder that will dissolve quickly.
If your blender or food processor isn't large enough to hold all of the ingredients at once, you can first whisk everything together in a large bowl and then transfer the mixture to the blender/food processor in batches for pulsing into a fine powder.
Let me just warn you that blending this mix will make your house smell like chai potpourri for the rest of the day! But that's not at all a bad thing. 🙂
How to Make a Chai Tea Latte...and More!
Chai Tea Mix is a unique, versatile, powdered drink mix that can be stirred into warm milk for a homemade Chai Tea Latte.
Or you can chill it and serve over ice for an Iced Chai Tea Latte.
Or you can add some finely chopped semisweet or white chocolate to turn it into a Chocolate (or White Chocolate) Chai Tea Latte.
And you can even blend with vanilla ice cream for a Chai Tea Shake!
See what I mean? Versatile. 🙂
Perfect for Gift Giving
You might choose to make a batch of Chai Tea Mix to enjoy all to yourself. And there's nothing wrong with that!
However, if you plan on using it for gift giving, I've created some printable gift tags with directions for how to make various drinks using this mix. Simply scroll down past the recipe at the bottom of this post to download and print the tags!
There's also a coordinating Christmas or holiday gift tag that you can layer on top of the Chai Tea Mix directions. I shared it previously in a Cinnamon Bread post, so click over to find that "Wishing You a Sweet Christmas" or "Wishing You a Sweet Holiday Season" printable HERE!
And that's it! This super easy, super yummy drink mix is your make-at-home secret to enjoying scrumptious chai tea lattes and more!
Not only would this make a fun, unique, homemade food gift this holiday season, but it just might become your new drink-o-choice on a cold winter's day. 🙂
More Holiday Food Gifts
- Candied Cashews
- Candy Cane Kiss Brownie Bites
- Pecan Praline Bread
- Jam Thumbprint Cookies
- Reindeer Rice Krispie Treats
- Soft Chewy Ginger Cookies
- Christmas Tree Sheet Cake
- Christmas Puppy Chow (AKA, White Chocolate Peppermint Muddy Buddies)
Chai Tea Mix (Homemade Food Gift with FREE Gift Tags!)
Video
Ingredients
- 2 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¾ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¾ teaspoon ground cardamom, optional
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 ¾ cups sugar
- 1 ½ cups unsweetened instant tea, regular or decaf (this powdered mix is sometimes called "unsweetened iced tea")
- 1 cup nonfat dry milk powder
- 1 cup powdered nondairy creamer
- 1 cup French vanilla-flavored powdered nondairy creamer
Instructions
To Make Chai Tea Mix:
- Measure all dry ingredients into a blender or food processor. Pulse or puree until well-combined and mixture becomes a fine powder. Transfer to an air-tight jar or container or spoon into gift jars.
To Make a Chai Tea Latte:
- Stir 2 heaping tablespoons of Chai Tea Mix into a mug of hot milk or boiling water.
- Chill and serve over ice for an Iced Chai Tea Latte.
To Make a Chocolate (or White Chocolate) Chai Tea Latte:
- Make a Chai Tea Latte with milk, as directed above. Stir in 2 teaspoons of finely chopped semisweet or white chocolate until melted.
To Make a Chai Tea Shake:
- Blend ½ cup milk, 1 ¾ cups vanilla ice cream, and 2 tablespoons Chai Tea Mix in a blender until smooth.
Equipment Needed
Notes
- Since this recipe yields a little over 6 cups of mix total, you can divide it into your chosen size of jars or receptacles for gifting. For example, if you're using Mason jars, you can fill six 8-ounce jars or 3 pint jars.
Nutrition
To download Printable Chai Tea Mix Directions Tags <<< click here!
These tags print four to a page. Print on cardstock for heavier tags, cut out, and punch a hole at the top. Please be patient if these take a moment to load. For personal use only, please. Enjoy!
Adapted from Southern Living Ultimate Christmas Cookbook.
Post originally published on December 14, 2014, and updated on December 5, 2020, and November 30, 2023.
Hi there- looking forward to making this for holiday gifts! Could you link to the tea powder you use? I can only seem to find lemon. Thanks!
Hi Emily! Lipton makes an instant iced tea powder that can be found at a lot of grocery stores. Or if you don't mind ordering, this one from Amazon gets good reviews. Hope that helps! 🙂
could this be made with raspberry flavored iced tea powder and if so, would you adjust or change the spices?
Hi Sean! I'm sure you could make this recipe with raspberry iced tea powder, but I don't think the warm chai spices would complement the berry flavor. So I'd just leave them out. 🙂
Thank you so much. I am going to make this as a gift for all of the teaches that I work with. Who would love a cozy cup of chai. I appreciate the gift tags too!!
Samantha, your recipes are all awesome. Thank you. I save so many of them. Susie
Makes me so happy to hear that, Susie...thanks for taking the time to share! 🙂
Made exactly according to directions. I wasn’t sure about why there was both plain and vanilla creamer and was iffy on the pepper, but it all came together magically into THE perfect chai latte mix. I’m on my third double batch. 😂💜 Thank you!!
awesome recipe! how would you suggest to make it vanilla chai?
I haven't tried it, but I imagine you could use only/all vanilla-flavored powdered nondairy creamer, instead of incorporating any plain powdered nondairy creamer. So in other words, increase the amount of vanilla-flavored powdered nondairy creamer to 2 cups, and omit the plain powdered nondairy creamer. Hope that helps! 🙂
Jars of this Chai Tea Mix were a big hit with my daughter's teachers! The gift tags are perfect!
I love this so much. Chai tea is my favorite thing to order when I got to coffee shops. So I made a big jar and now I can enjoy it at home any time!
I made this for my co-workers as a holiday gift. They loved it and said its the best chai tea they have ever had! Thank you for such a simple but great recipe AND the cute printable tags!!!
This recipe makes a wonderful chai tea. I made the first batch with out cardamom and another batch with cardamom. Hands down for me was without cardamom. The flavor took over of cardamom completely took over the flavor. Its a nice drink before bed or a short afternoon break. I love it!
Thank you for the great recipe and the printable tags!