Ginger Almond Milk Tea

Welcome to our weekly Foodie Friday link up! I’m linking up with Montana from Pretty Lil Mudder, Annmarie from the Fit Foodie Mama, Emily from Whatever Floats Your Oats, Esther from Chocolate Runner Girl, and Cassandra from Powered By Bling, to create awesome healthy recipes each week! Today’s theme = Healthified Hot Drinks! Make sure you hop around to check out all the amazing recipes in this link up and feel free to add your recipes as well!

One of the things I’m sorely lacking over here in a fairly homogenous small-ish town is the food diversity. I can’t complain that much though because there’s still actually a sushi restaurant here, as well as a pretty amazing Mexican restaurant that’s actually comparable to socal food.

I was very much spoiled by the food diversity in the Bay Area, so living out here has taught me to branch out and learn to make the things that I miss. (Of course, this isn’t always entirely possible because certain ingredients are required for some, and there isn’t anywhere around here that actually sells it.) One of the radiologists I was working with told me about this awesome international market over in Cincinnati called Jungle Jim’s, and I really, really want to make a trip out there at some point! <3

Since it’s super-fun and cold out these days, I’ve been living it up with my hot soups and chilis, as well as with my relatively impressive tea collection. Throughout high school and on, my friends and I would often congregate at milk tea shops, which are fairly extremely prevalent in the Bay Area. A lot of them are open late, and they serve teas in pretty much any flavor you could imagine (including some you’ve probably never heard of), and all kinds of Taiwanese-style or (rarely) HK-style snacks.

A regular milk tea!

Our favorites were the places where you could customize how much sugar you wanted in them (because then I can ask for none!). :O I’m less inclined to crave the cold ones at this time of year, so I decided to combine two of my favorite hot tea drinks from said tea shops! <3

Ginger Almond Milk Tea

• 2 cups water
• 3 tbsp freshly grated ginger
• 2 bags strong black tea
• 1/2 cup almond milk*
• 1 tbsp almond powder or 1 tsp almond extract
  (Ginger Syrup)
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3/4 cup organic coconut palm sugar*
• 1 cup fresh ginger, roughly chopped

*Just for the record, this is highly adaptable. I tend to like my milk teas less sweet, with more tea flavor, so if you want to titrate it down with more milk or water, go for it! If you have a hot water boiler, you can just stick the tea bag straight in the cup to steep!

Instructions:

1. (Ginger Syrup) Bring the water, sugar and ginger to a boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar, then reduce heat and let simmer at low for ~45 minutes. Strain into a jar for easy storage!
2. (Tea) In a small pot, bring water to a boil, then add tea bags and lower heat. Simmer for ~3-5 minutes.
3. Add 1 tbsp almond powder or 1 tsp almond extract and stir in 1 tbsp ginger syrup (or adjust to desired taste). Add milk and serve!
4. *Alternatively, you can just bring the water and ~2 tbsp grated ginger to a boil, then add the tea bags and stir in a little honey (to desired taste). Top off with milk and then serve!

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Interested in getting to know more about any of your super-awesome co-hosts? :]

• Farrah | blog | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Montana | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Annmarie | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Emily | blog | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Esther | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’
• Cassandra | blog | facebook | instagram | pinterest | twitter | bloglovin’

Join us next week for Holiday Baking Traditions! :]