Chai Cold Brew | Delicious Cold Brew With A Chai Twist

Imagine two of the best things in the world, Chai and cold brew. Now imagine them combined and creating a delicious spiced chai cold brew that is delicious any time of the year! All the caffeinated goodness we love and delicious aromas of coffee paired with spiced chai are a combination that anyone can get behind. This is why we decided to look into creating a chai cold brew version that still keeps the potency of coffee but had the flavor profile of spiced chai. This delicious recipe is perfect with a chai cold foam topping, milk, and even served hot with cream.

We first tried Chai when we were kids, and a quick note, Chai is actually just the word tea in Hindi, but everyone is so used to saying Chai to describe the version of spiced tea we all recognized. Well, cover more of that later in this post ☺️.

This post is all about creating the perfect chai cold brew! We created this recipe with the goal of having a recipe we could just throw together and toss in the fridge, then be able to pull it out and be able to serve and wallah spiced perfection that will wake anyone up on a groggy morning.

Commonly asked questions for chai cold brew

What is chai tea cold brew?

This drink is essentially a combination of chai tea and cold brew to create a chai-infused cold brew. This drink is not to be confused with a tea cold brew made out of chai tea. This recipe for chai cold brew actually uses coffee cold brew whereas a chai tea cold brew is just chai tea that has been steeped in cold water. It’s easy to mix the two up but this is a chai-flavored coffee cold brew just like pumpkin spice cold brew for example.

How do you make chai tea cold brew?

You can make chai tea cold brew a few ways by making a normal cold brew and then finding some way to flavor your cold brew with chai and letting it sit for about 16 hours but anywhere from 12-18 hours work as well. With that said, the three most popular ways to flavor your cold brew are to use chai tea bags, chai-flavored syrup, or make a homemade chai tea spice mixture. You’ll add the syrup or chai-flavored tea to the cold brew and let it sit just the way you would any normal cold brew. Eventually, you’ll have a nicely flavored chai cold brew.

Can you add chai to cold brew?

Yes, you can add almost anything to a cold brew so long as it’s a flavoring that you enjoy and that will boost the flavor of your drink. Chai tea is a naturally spicy tea so adding this to your cold brew really brings out flavors you never knew existed. Between the smooth spicy profile of chai tea and the rich sweet chocolatey profile of cold brew, you’ll find they complement each other perfectly.

Can you add flavor to cold brew?

Yes, you can add pretty much any flavor you want to cold brew. The flavoring you choose to use should compliment the cold brew’s rich chocolatey profile rather than overpower it. People add flavors such as pumpkin spice, chocolate, and vanilla to name a few.

Is chai good with cold brew?

Yes, chai is absolutely amazing with any type of coffee, cold brew, etc. Chai with its spicy profile along with a rich chocolatey cold brew creates the perfect balance between sweet and spicy.

What you’ll love

• This recipe is amazing for spicing up your cold brew (literally). Some people, probably most people hate drinking the same thing over and over again so no matter how amazing a regular cold brew tastes at one point you’ll need something just a little different. That’s where this recipe comes in!

• This drink is essentially a combination of cold brew and chai tea to create a wonderful chai cold brew. Some may have heard of pumpkin spice cold brew, sweet cream cold brew, chocolate cream cold brew and more but not many have really given chai cold brew a try to see just how amazing it can be.
• Vegan and dairy-free recipe
• Natural and homemade
• An easy recipe that almost anyone can follow

Chai Cold Brew Ingredients and Equipment

Cold Brew:

• Pitcher
• Coarsely ground coffee
• Coffee grinder (if using whole beans)
• Water
• Measuring cups, measuring spoons

Chai Tea Flavoring:

• Option 1= Chai tea bag- store-bought
• Option 2= Chai spices- cardamom, cinnamon sticks, clover, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, peppercorns, star anise, black tea bags or loose black tea leaves, vanilla extract
• Option 3= Chai syrup (homemade or store-bought)

Chai cold brew recipe

Chai tea bag

These are the absolute best chai tea bags you can use for chai tea and a quick and easy way for flavoring your cold brew.

Chai tea spice mixture

If you don’t have chai tea bags or you just love to make things from scratch this is the spice mixture you’ll use to spice up your cold brew… literally.

• 1-star anise
• 4 whole cloves
• 4 cardamom pods crushed
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 3 black tea bags
• 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• .5 inch piece of ginger
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Recipe Notes

• This recipe calls for 1/2 tsp black peppercorns, if you would like your chai to be either more or less spicy you can always reduce or increase the number of peppercorns.
• If you like a strong cinnamon flavor you can add extra cinnamon sticks or even cinnamon powder as well.
• This recipe adds vanilla extract but you can add in any other flavorings and extracts you desire such as almond extract or even pumpkin pie spice.

Chai syrup- store bought recommendations

If you like using flavor syrups these are the best chai syrups to use to spice up your cold brew! Torani is a normal syrup used for flavoring drinks and Jordan’s chai skinny syrup is a sugar-free version to use!

Chai syrup homemade

Click here for our Delicious Homemade Chai Syrup that is perfect in this recipe!

You can always use store-bought chai syrup but if you’re very health conscious or just love a challenge you can create your own chai syrup! This chai syrup recipe is an easy all-natural recipe that has a shelf life of about 1 month as long as it’s kept in an airtight container and it can be frozen for up to 3 months. Homemade syrups are so nice to make as you can adjust any flavor and sweetness levels to your liking all while knowing exactly what you’re putting into your body.

How To Make Chai Cold Brew

1. Prepare your cold brew ingredients.
2. Coarsely grind 1 cup of whole coffee beans
3. Measure out 4 cups of water
4. Combine 4 cups of water and coarsely ground coffee in a large pitcher, glass carafe, or another big container to steep cold brew in.
5. Prepare chai flavoring- spice mixture, chai syrup, or chai tea bags.
6. Combine chai flavoring with cold brew.
7. Steep cold brew and chai flavoring for roughly 16 hours.

Top with our delicious Cold Foam Recipes such as Pumpkin Cream Cold Foam or Creamy Vanilla Cold Foam

Recipe notes:

• While this recipe calls for brewing cold brew for roughly 16 hours you can really brew for anywhere from 12-18 hours. But do note that the brewing time will change the flavor slightly bringing out different flavor profiles such as a more bitter taste the longer it brews. So, play around with the cold brew and figure out whether you like it brewed for a shorter or longer amount of time.
• You can reduce the water to bean ratio so less water and more beans. This will give you more of a cold brew concentrate which will further have to be diluted due to the strong bitter profile and potent caffeine content.
• This recipe calls for coarsely ground coffee, this is very important for the filtration process that occurs after your cold brew is done brewing. Coarsely ground coffee is a lot easier to filter out than finely ground coffee to give you a smooth brew rather than having leftover grinds in your cold brew.

That wraps up this post for creating a perfect chai cold brew that is delicious in the summer and winter ☺️, if you loved this recipe dont forget to pin and save this recipe for later!