Evenings turn chilly with rain and the first snowfall in the hills — an easy recipe for authentic Kashmiri pink chai at home

The season is turning, and you can feel it after sunset. Snow has fallen in the upper Hazara valleys, rain has soaked the plains, and the tea stalls are doing brisk business again. This is pink chai weather.

Kashmiri chai — noon chai — is the drink people reach for first: slow-brewed, scented with cardamom, finished with crushed pistachio and almond, and that unmistakable rose-pink colour. There is no food colouring behind it. The colour comes from a pinch of baking soda, green tea, and patience.

What you need

For four cups: three cups of water, two tablespoons of green tea leaves, a pinch of baking soda (never more than a quarter teaspoon), four to five lightly crushed green cardamom pods, one star anise if you like it, two cups of milk, sugar — or salt, in the traditional salted version — and a tablespoon of crushed pistachio and almond to finish.

The method

Bring the water to a boil with the tea leaves, cardamom and star anise. The moment it boils, add the soda and keep stirring. The brew turns a deep red first — that is the step everything depends on. Now pour in a cup of cold water from a height and whisk or ladle the tea up and down so it takes in air; this is what builds both the colour and the froth. Add the milk and let it simmer gently for five to seven minutes until the pink comes through. Sweeten it, or salt it the old way, pour, and scatter the nuts on top.

One warning from experience: too much soda makes the tea bitter and the colour strange, so stop at a pinch. And if the pink is pale the first time, do not panic. Next time, give the red brew two extra minutes of whisking. Kashmiri chai rewards the patient.