It's been a very long time since I entered a Ladies of Hive contest, but this week's prompts are simply irresistible!
"What a fantastic combination!" I thought to myself as I sipped my home made Dirty Chai Latte out of my beloved thermos flask, that I NEVER EVER leave the house without (Thanks @ZakLudick)!
So. As you might have guessed, my favorite smell and my favorite hot beverage are the same thing: a dirty chai latte!
We are not in America (or Europe), so Star Buck's are very far and few between. I think there are two stores in Cape Town now, but that's a very recent thing.
We heard everyone else around the world going bonkers over pumpkin spice lattes for years, and we were all like.... what on earth is that? I don't know if I want my coffee to taste like pumpkins....... and then a friend brought some pumpkin spice ground coffee from the states.... and oh damn. Was I hooked.
I actually come from 15 years of joy (hell) in the restaurant trade and have had a fair amount of barista training. I've gone through all the fads from the late 90's until now, from "let's see how many layers you can make with your latte without serving your customer an accidental iced coffee" to the goal of being able to make AS MUCH foam as possible, like a four-year-old in a bubble bath, rather than the classy creamy foam you get today with the coffee art and stuff.
We used to just crank those bulkheads with as much espresso as it would take while still being able to seal and screw in properly to the espresso machine, to the point that when the espresso started oozing out of the pourers, it looked like tar. Then we'd make snowcones of foam and top it with a crap load of hot chocolate sprinkles for decoration.
I did, however, evolve and move with the times and realised that making coffee in the manner above was an abomination. You burn the milk, you burn the coffee and the caffeine content was so high in those espresso shots that you could see through time.😵
Funny...... I had a similar approach to making cocktails when I first started bartending at 15 and I didn't know that I was supposed to be using half shots for my long island ice teas. No wonder there was never any room for the Coke-a-cola and I was the most favouritest bartender out of a 6 guy and 1 female bartender team 😬🤣 I was like OMG girls rock!!!! And then I was like OMG why are the toilets upstairs 🤢
Anyway. Back to the topic at hand, my favourite drink and smell... and my trick to an affordable, homemade dirty chai latte goes like this:
A dirty Chai Latte from Seattle or Bootleggers or Starbucks or Vida E will set you back anything from ZAR 45.00 to R60.00.
I'm sure as heck not spending that like more than once every other month.
but the craving is REAL so.
I discovered House of Coffees makes a cinnabun sachet for around ZAR 9.00 each. You can also apparently now buy them in boxes of 10 (oh dear) which makes them slightly cheaper per sachet.
I tear open and pop in the contents of the sachet into my thermos flask, I two teaspoons of my own good quality instant coffee at home a wee bit of extra sugar (honey is better, but expensive), hot water and milk and TAADAA!!!!
Perfection!!
If you're wondering what kind of milk I use, you can watch the clip below. Apologies in advance to the vegan or lactose intolerant ladies 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😬😬😬😬
Credit: Jack Whitehall | Stop Milking S**t!
Here's a photo of my cat, Chai, to redeem myself 🙈
I would like to invite 