Black tea leaves contain a wallop of antioxidants, called flavonoids, that help protect the body against Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and heart disease. Research has shown that tea—whether black, green, white, or oolong—is teeming with flavonoids to rival those found in fruits and vegetables. And chai—a strong brew of black tea blended with a mixture of spices, milk, and sugar—may be even more nutritious than traditional black tea: the spices provide different kinds of disease-fighting antioxidants that work in harmony with the tea flavonoids.

What’s more, the milk that gives chai its creamy flavor provides calcium and vitamin D, which are important for bones. If you needed another reason to make chai at home, one study found that people who drank black tea had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and were able to “de-stress" faster than those who drank a tea substitute.