The One Ingredient This MD Adds To Her Chai For Extra Antioxidants

A standard chai tea latte is a delightful beverage year-round, and it's particularly craveable in cooler seasons. While the taste is enough to make chai part of your daily routine, the spice mix also boasts a range of health benefits.

Just when we thought the drink couldn't get any better, integrative medicine doctor Bindiya Gandhi, M.D., spilled her go-to swap. 

Matcha is full of potent free-radical-fighting antioxidants, which help to combat oxidative stress. "Matcha also has a lot of catechins, like epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), which is a supermolecule that helps promote a healthy heart and brain," Gandhi says.

It also contains L-theanine, which provides the energy boost of caffeine without the dreaded crash, she adds. 

The recipe itself is pretty flexible. You can opt for a premade chai masala blend (generally a mix of different spices, such as ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and black pepper), or make your own.