Kashmiri Pink Tea recipe.
A delicate taste, a faint pink blush, and the aroma of cardamoms and cinnamon, pairs well with saltier snacks. It's best to make a big batch and refrigerate than to try to make one from scratch every cup or so.
Also called Qaimaq tea in Afghanistan, served with a teaspoon of clotted cream (the Qaimaq in question) on top.
Note: this makes about a litre or so of kehwa, which is basically the brewed tea absent milk. This recipe is a slightly modified version of the Samovar Tea from Kashmiri Cooking—the main differences are that I add star anise, add the baking soda at the start, and hold off on the milk, salt, and sugar until it's time to serve.
Cooking time: Minimum 1 hour 10 minutes.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups room temperature water
- 2 cups ice water
- 4 green cardamom pods, split open
- 1/2 inch stick of cinnamon
- 1–2 star anise pods
- 2 teaspoons of loose leaf green tea
- A pinch of baking soda, roughly a bit more than maybe 1/4 teaspoon?
Steps:
Throw everything except the ice water together in a pot on low heat and let it cook for at least an hour. Make sure the heat is low and you're starting with a cold pot and lukewarm water at most. You're not boiling the tea, you're steeping it. I'll usually stick it on the back burner on a moderate heat. The longer you can keep steeping it, the better—some places will even steep the tea overnight. That's a bit too extreme though, so I'll usually call it quits when half the water's boiled off. By this point, your tea should be a deep red color. If it looks more greenish-black than red, add a tiny bit more baking soda and cook for a few more minutes.
Once half the water's boiled off, throw in the ice water, then use a ladle to aerate the tea by pulling a ladle out and pouring it back into the pot from a height. Wear an apron or an old shirt, this'll probably splash a lot. The aeration has he added bonus of also adding air to the tea, slightly deepening the color. The ice water is to shock the tea—otherwise, the tea will quickly degrade to a ruddy brown color. Bottle and store in the fridge, it'll last up to a week or so.
To serve:
For a cup of tea, add about a quarter of a cup of milk to almost a cup of the kehwa, two tablespoons of sugar, a pinch of salt, and simmer in a pot until the milk climbs halfway up the pot, or five minutes pass, whichever comes first. Afterwards, you can adjust the salt, sugar, and milk to your taste, even omitting the sugar entirely and adding some more salt. I'd advise to keep the amount of milk low, no more than 1 part milk to 2 parts kehwa (or 1/3 cup milk for every 2/3 cup kehwa), this is a very delicate tea with a very mild flavor and a very light color. You're aiming for a pink tea, though it's unlikely you'll manage a hot pink one like the ones you'll find on the streets of Lucknow, but I'm pretty sure most of them are adding food color so you're already better off than them.
