Holiday Gift from the Kitchen {Kenyan Chai Tea}

Thanks to Mariano's and Collective Bias for this sponsored post allowing me to prepare a delicious gift from my kitchen in time for the holidays.

Last year, I started making holiday gifts and I will be continuing that tradition this year by making gifts from my kitchen. One of my most popular gifts was the Kenyan chai tea mix I made for my husband. He is a 2 cups (or more) a day hardcore tea drinker and he likes it prepared in the style of his home country Kenya -- black tea mixed with spices and lots of milk! It's very similar to the chai tea lattes we have here and chai is actually the swahili word for tea.

Buy Ingredients

Chai tea is very simple to make and a perfect themed gift basket for a special tea drinker in your life or your favorite co-workers. I found all of the spices I needed at Mariano's. It can be difficult to find whole spices in some stores. Luckily, there's a large selection available here. You can even purchase in teaspoon increments at some of the stores. 

In addition to tea, you can customize by adding cookies, gift card, reusable tea ball or strainer to the gift. All can be found at Mariano's.  It's the perfect way to accumulate more points on your rewards card. 

There are lots of chai tea recipes out there. I based my ingredient list on spices that were consistent for most of the recipes I researched. Feel free to make adjustments and mix according to personal tastes. E loves ginger in his tea so I adjusted the measurements allowing for more ginger.

Prepare Mix

Ingredients

1 tsp cardamon pods

4 tbsp peppercorns

3 tsp ground ginger

4 cinnamon sticks

tin of loose leaf black tea

What to do

Grind the spices together.

Mix 5 tsp with a tin of loose leaf tea. (Note: you will have leftover spices to make additional batches)

Making a Kenya Chai Tea

Add 1 tsp of chai tea mix per 6oz of water.

Boil in a tea pot. Strain.

Serve with milk and/or sugar.

Pack it Up

Creating a label was really easy to do using Picmonkey photo editing website. I designed it, printed it, and laminated it with packing tape. A simple handwritten note works too!

For packaging, use an airtight container for the tea and attach label with ribbon so the container can be recycled or reused for other things.

Complete the specially made gift with a mug, serving tray, and/or basket.

Visit the Mariano's community or Marinao's on Facebook and Twitter for more gift giving ideas and holiday meal inspiration.

Will you be giving gifts from the kitchen this holiday season?

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for #cbias and their client, #MyMarianos.

FACEBOOK - TWITTER - BLOGLOVIN - INSTAGRAM - PINTEREST