“I grew up in a family and a culture that lives off of chai. My mom and sisters wake up [with] chai and drink it before sleeping,” says Maryam Ghaznavi, chef-owner of Charleston’s Malika Canteen, the first Pakistani restaurant in South Carolina. Ghaznavi, who hails from Lahore, Pakistan, makes her masala chai with black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, fennel, ginger, mint, and, crucially, evaporated milk. “It’s denser than fresh milk, and the viscosity yields a creamier chai,” she explains. “It’s important to cook down the milk, then aerate it. Go as high as you can with your ladle and drop the liquid back into the pot to create bubbles.” The end result is a light, airy chai that’s equally good hot as it is iced. While Ghaznavi usually eyeballs the ingredients—“I don’t think I’ve ever measured it. It’s the ‘way of the hands,’ which is called andaza in Urdu.”—she was kind enough to share the exact amounts for this recipe at the Charleston Wine + Food Festival.
2026-02-21