Chai Latte
A chai latte is the cafe-style, milky form of masala chai: spiced black tea blended with steamed or hot milk and sweetened. In most Western cafes it is built from a concentrate, syrup, or powder rather than a fresh decoction, which makes it faster but often sweeter and less sharply spiced than a traditionally simmered chai. The spice blend usually leans on cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper.
The biggest quality signal is the base: a chai latte made from actual brewed and simmered spiced tea, or a good unsweetened concentrate, beats one built from a pre-sweetened syrup or vending powder. Real versions show distinct spices (you can pick out cardamom and ginger and pepper) and let the black tea show through, rather than a uniform cinnamon-sugar sweetness. Check whether you can control sweetness, since syrup-based lattes are often very sweet by default and hide the tea. A genuine masala-chai base uses a strong CTC black tea that stands up to milk, so a watery, tea-less result usually means a weak or artificial base. A 'dirty chai' adds a shot of espresso if you want more backbone and caffeine.
The chai latte descends from masala chai, the spiced milky tea brewed across India and South Asia, where strong black tea is simmered with milk, sugar, and a household blend of spices. The 'latte' framing is a Western cafe adaptation that borrowed espresso-bar language and method, steaming milk into a tea base, and popularized the drink far from its origin. Worth noting that in Hindi and many languages 'chai' simply means tea, so the cafe term 'chai tea' is redundant to anyone from the region.
Traditionally, simmer CTC black tea with water, milk, sugar, and crushed spices (cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, pepper) for several minutes, then strain into the cup. The cafe latte method instead steams or heats milk and combines it with a strong spiced-tea concentrate or, less ideally, a flavored syrup or powder, in roughly a one-to-one or two-to-one milk-to-concentrate ratio. Sweeten to taste, keeping in mind many pre-made bases are already sweet. For a dirty chai, pull a shot of espresso into the finished drink.
A chai latte at a cafe typically costs €3.50-5.50 (about $4-6) per cup, similar to other espresso-bar milk drinks. Made at home from loose spices and tea, the per-cup cost is small (a fraction of a euro), and a homemade concentrate keeps in the fridge for several servings. The cafe price is mostly convenience, since the ingredients themselves are cheap.
Prices reviewed June 2026
Masala Chai
The traditional simmered original; the chai latte is its cafe adaptation, usually built from concentrate or syrup and steamed milk rather than a fresh stovetop decoction.
Assam CTC
The strong CTC black base a proper chai is built on, brisk and malty enough to carry both milk and a heavy hand of spice.
Milk Tea
Chai latte is essentially a spiced member of the milk-tea family, distinguished by its cardamom-ginger-led spice blend rather than the milk-and-sugar formula alone.
Because 'chai' already means 'tea' in Hindi, Urdu, and many other languages, 'chai tea' literally translates to 'tea tea,' a quirk that tea people enjoy pointing out.