Iced Vanilla Chai Latte

Name: Iced Vanilla Chai Latte
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Ingredients: 250 ml boiling hot water; 1 bag black tea (I used english breakfast tea); 2 pieces star anise; ½ tsp ground cinnamon; ½ tsp ground cardamom; 200 ml plant milk (such as soya, almond, coconut milk - chilled); 2 tsp vanilla extract; 2 tbsp agave syrup (or other sweetener); ice cubes

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This healthy take on iced vanilla chai latte is easy and fail-proof. A refreshing drink that can easily be customised and adjusted to taste.

Milk being poured into a glass to make chai latte.

Why Choose This Recipe

Chai is a type of black tea that originates from India. Find out why you should try out my version of chai latte below:

A healthy take on a standard vanilla latte
Vegan and low in sugar
Super easy, anyone can make it
Easy to customise
Can be prepared in advance

The Ingredients

To make your iced vanilla chai latte you’ll need the ingredients pictured in the photo below.

All ingredients needed to make an iced chai latte.

Sweetener: I used agave nectar (often called agave syrup). This is an option that works super well for this particular recipe. However, feel free to substitute for a sweetener of your choice.

Plant milk: I’ve used soy milk here, but feel free to use any milk you’d like. Coconut milk works great! I recommend choosing your absolute favourite milk as this will make up a large portion of the drink.

Vanilla extract: I used liquid vanilla extract that you can easily find in the baking staples section of every supermarket. You can also use vanilla paste.

Step-by-step Photos

Let’s have a look at our visual guide through this recipe. Find all the measurements in the recipe card below.

A collage of six images showing six stpes in making a vanilla chai latte.

Boil your water and make your black tea. Add spices to your tea, let steep and cool.
Once your tea has cooled down, prepare your milk mixture by mixing plant milk, vanilla extract and sweetener (agave syrup in my case).
Fill a glass with ice cubes.
Strain your tea, then pour it over ice cubes.
Finally, pour your milk mixture on top.
Stir well before enjoying!

Expert Tips

Milk being poured into a glass containing black tea.

You won’t want to miss out on these tips.

1. Strain your spices

When making this recipe, you’ll need to combine black tea and spices: cinnamon, cardamom and star anise.

After leaving to steep and cool down, you’ll need to strain the tea as well as the spices. Make sure that the spices don’t end up in your final drink.

If you don’t strain, your latte will become powdery as cinnamon and cardamom don’t dissolve.

2. Use plenty of ice cubes

This is absolutely crucial.

Your iced latte needs to be ice cold (shocking, right?). Make sure you use plenty of ice cubes for each serving. I tend to go for about 7 ice cubes per serving.

If the drink is just cold, rather than ice cold, it will be considerably less satisfying. Make sure you're also using plant milk straight out of the fridge.

3. Experiment with plant milk

I recommend using your absolute favourite milk. Lots of plant milk now comes in a barista version which tends to work best. Barista types of milk are often slightly thicker, making your latte creamier.

If you can’t find barista milk, I also recommend using coconut milk. Just make sure you choose the drinking version of coconut milk (the one that comes in carton packaging), rather than the type that comes in a metal tin.

FAQ

An overhead view of a mug filled with black tea.

Does chai latte contain caffeine?

Yes. Even though chai latte doesn’t contain coffee, it still contains caffeine. The caffeine comes from black tea.

What’s the difference between a chai latte and a chai tea?

First and foremost, chai tea is a bit of an unfortunate expression. In many languages, chai actually means tea. This means that by using the expression chai tea, you’re actually saying ‘tea tea’.

Awkward expression aside, the main difference is that chai latte includes an element of milk. In our case, that’s plant milk. Furthermore, the latte variation is often much sweeter than chai itself.

How to store your iced vanilla chai latte?

While I do recommend drinking your chai latte as soon as you’ve made it, you can, of course, store it for later. Simply pop it in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 1 day.

In case you’re storing your drink for later, make sure to skip the ice cubes part of the recipe. If you add ice cubes and then store for later, the ice cubes will defrost and adding them again later will make your drink too watery.

Flavour variations

As mentioned above, you can use various different types of plant milk. However, you can also adjust the spices according to your taste.

Instead of using cinnamon, cardamom and star anise, you can use other traditional chai spices.

These include cloves, peppercorns, ginger, and nutmeg.

Find out more about chai tea and spices here.

If you’ve enjoyed my iced vanilla chai latte, you might want to try out my other vegan drinks. Why not give my delicious oat milk hot chocolate a go, or try out this crowd-pleasing vegan milkshake or health-boosting lemon ginger tea.

🍴Recipe