How to make a chai latte at home: 3 easy ways

Wondering how to make a chai latte without a café’s syrup pump or steam wand? You’ve got three easy options: brew spiced tea bags and top them with frothed milk, stir an instant powder into hot milk, or make a strong concentrate on the hob. Each one takes about 10 minutes at most, and none needs an espresso machine. We haven’t tested this in person.

Below, we explain each method with quantities, then show how to froth milk with kit you may already own. The quantities come from the brands’ own directions and recipes, and every price was checked on 3 October 2026.

How to make a chai latte: the three methods compared

Method	What you need	Time	Best for
Tea bags	Chai tea bags, milk, a frother	About 5 minutes	A less sweet drink you can adjust
Powder	Instant chai latte powder, milk	About 2 minutes	Speed and a café-style sweetness
Concentrate	Tea bags or sticky chai, whole spices, a saucepan	About 10 minutes	The strongest spice flavour

Method 1: chai latte with tea bags

This is the most flexible method because you decide how sweet it is. Twinings publishes a recipe for a spicy masala chai latte that serves two. It uses 2 Spicy Chai tea bags brewed in 200ml of boiling water for two to three minutes, plus 300ml of milk (Twinings used oat milk) and honey to sweeten.

For one mug, halve it:

Brew 1 chai tea bag in 100ml of freshly boiled water for two to three minutes, the time Twinings suggests in its recipe. Squeeze the bag lightly and take it out.
Warm 100ml of milk in a pan or the microwave and stir it into the tea.
Froth another 50ml of milk (see the frothing section below) and spoon it on top.
Sweeten to taste. Twinings uses honey; sugar or syrup work too.
Finish with a pinch of ground cinnamon.

For a spicier cup, Twinings also simmers its chai with crushed cardamom pods, fennel seeds, cloves and fresh ginger. That brings it close to Method 3.

Tea bags to try:

Twinings Spicy Chai, £3.00 for 40 bags at Morrisons, checked 3 Oct 2026.
Twinings Classic Chai, £3.29 for 20 envelopes at Twinings, checked 3 Oct 2026. Twinings says it’s flavoured with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves.
Twinings Vanilla Chai, £3.29 for 20 envelopes at Twinings, checked 3 Oct 2026.
Pukka Organic Vanilla Chai, £5.00 for 20 bags at Morrisons, checked 3 Oct 2026. It’s sold as a herbal tea, so check the box if you want to know what’s in it.

Method 2: chai latte with powder

Instant chai latte powders already contain milk powder, sugar, tea and spices, so this is the quickest method. It’s also the sweetest, and you can’t make it less sweet without using less powder.

Drink Me Chai’s directions for its Spiced Chai Latte are:

Add 4 teaspoons of powder to a mug.
Pour in 200ml of hot milk (dairy or plant-based) or hot water, and stir.

The brand says a serving is 15g. Hot milk gives a creamier drink than water. For an iced version, Drink Me Chai suggests whisking the powder with cold milk and pouring it over ice. If you have a frother, use it to mix the powder in so there are no lumps.

Powders to try:

Drink Me Chai Spiced Chai Latte 250g, £3.80 at Morrisons, checked 3 Oct 2026, or £4.00 at Drink Me Chai, checked 3 Oct 2026.
Drink Me Chai Vanilla Chai Latte 250g, £4.00 at Drink Me Chai, checked 3 Oct 2026.
Drink Me Chai Spiced Chai Latte 1kg, £11.99 at Drink Me Chai, checked 3 Oct 2026, if you drink it most days.

Method 3: chai latte with a homemade concentrate

We couldn’t find a ready-made chai concentrate in the Morrisons online range today, but it’s easy to make your own on the hob. The idea is to brew the tea much stronger than usual, so it still tastes of tea and spice once the milk goes in.

A strong base for two mugs, based on the Twinings method:

Brew 2 chai tea bags in 200ml of boiling water for two to three minutes, then take them out.
Crush 6 cardamom pods, 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds, 4 cloves and a 2cm piece of fresh ginger. These are the quantities Twinings uses.
Put the spices, the tea and 200ml of milk in a saucepan and heat gently until the milk is warm, stirring as it heats. Don’t let it boil over.
Pour it through a sieve into two mugs. Sweeten to taste and top with 100ml of frothed milk, split between the two.

Sticky chai is the shortcut. Bird & Blend’s Original Sticky Chai is loose Assam tea mixed with ground spices and wildflower honey. The brand suggests infusing it on the hob in oat milk. It’s £15.00 for 150g at Bird & Blend, checked 3 Oct 2026, and Bird & Blend says that’s 15 servings.

How to froth milk without a steam wand

You don’t need an espresso machine to get the foamy top.

Handheld frother: this is the cheapest dedicated tool. Warm the milk first, then hold the whisk just under the surface until it foams. See our guide to the best handheld milk frothers.
Electric frother jug: heats and froths in one go, so it’s the easiest option if you make milky drinks most days. Compare models in our best milk frother guide or, on a budget, our pick of the best milk frothers under £50.
Cafetière: pour warm milk into a clean cafetière (no more than a third full) and pump the plunger up and down until the milk thickens.
Whisk: a balloon whisk in a small pan of warm milk works if you whisk hard. You’ll get bubbles rather than fine foam.

Plant milks don’t all froth the same way. Our guide to the best oat milk for coffee covers the barista-style versions that are made to foam, and those work for chai too.

Tips for a better chai latte

Sweeten it before you add the foam. Honey and sugar dissolve more easily in the hot tea than in the foam.
Taste the powder version before you add sugar. Instant powders are already sweetened.
Strain anything with whole spices. Twinings’ recipe sieves the milky tea before serving.
Want it iced? Make the powder version with cold milk and ice, as Drink Me Chai suggests.

More tea ideas, from everyday bags to matcha, are on our tea hub.

FAQs

Can you make a chai latte with a normal tea bag?

You can, but you’ll need to add the spice yourself. Brew a strong black tea bag, then simmer it with milk and crushed spices like cardamom, cloves and ginger, as in Method 3. A chai tea bag saves that step.

What milk is best for a chai latte?

Any milk works. Whole dairy milk and barista-style oat milks froth the most easily. Twinings’ own recipe uses oat milk.

Is a chai latte the same as chai tea?

Not quite. Chai tea usually means the spiced tea itself, and a chai latte is that tea made with plenty of steamed or frothed milk, café-style.

How do you make chai latte with a tea bag and no frother?

Follow Method 1, but warm all the milk and stir it in. For a bit of foam without a frother, use the cafetière or whisk method above.