Update on the Chai recipe

Okay, I finally made some chai from the getcrafty chai recipe. Here's the verdict:

I followed the GetCrafty recipe closely, and was somewhat cautious with the sugar and spices measurements. Very different from the commercial chai experience. Much less sweet (I'd add more sugar next time), the spices were not as intense as I thought they were going to be (I'd add more spice mix next time), much more of the tea flavor comes through. It reminded me a tiny bit of Thai iced tea, which is a good thing, but miles away from the super-sweet, intensely flavored commercial chai I've had.

All and all, it was like the difference between a pre-packaged "coffee drink" and making a cup of coffee at home. Both of these are good, but bear little resemblance to one another. I do think if I was making the mix in the future, I'd look around a bit more and try to find a fresher source for spices.A pinch of salt while making the chai might be a good thing too, I think I'll try that.

In other news, I finally tacked the horrid decaying wall above the tub and shower. Where the drywall meets the tub and shower had pulled away just a little bit, and was starting to peel and crumble from moisture. It sounds small, but fixing it was surprisingly time-intensive, especially since I didn't really know what I was doing. I hacked away the decaying bits with a screwdriver, sanded to get rid of peeling paint, pulled down the peeling joint tape, and put up this sticker fiberglass mesh tape in its place. (I had new joint tape, but couldn't seem to make it work, the fiberglass mess stuff was much more effective.) Then I spackled the whole thing.

Keeping in mind that we are talking about a very narrow strip of wall, the whole thing including clean-up took me approximately four hours. (I watched three episodes of Trading Spaces and two episodes of Daria during the process.) The wall will have to be sanded and probably re-spackled, that's going to be another time suck and very dusty. However, I am starting to visualize what the wall will eventually look like. It's rougher now than I would like, but that's going to get worked out in the sanding and re-spackling. I still need to work on the peeling paint and spackling in other parts of the bathroom, but the section above the tub was the really horrible part, so I'm feeling pretty good.