Toast To Chai!
Have you wondered what kick-starts the morning for many?
If coffee was your first choice, I’ll throw in the towel right now because it’s mine!
However, ‘chai’ turned up the heat over the last few years and has graduated from ‘tea’ to a fashionable beverage world-wide. Do you know that chai has been brimming countless Indian (Desi) people’s lives with spice and happiness since 1839? You’ll find the beverage piping away in a variety of glasses and containers in all shapes and sizes depending on the vibe.
Yes, chai has a vibe. Its own vibe.
Are you at a train station in India? You’ll find chai-wallahs (chai guys) prepping the drink at tea stands and vendors running around with steel kettles and baked earthenware cups, stacked along the length of their arm, to serve the next thirsty customer. The cups are small enough to fit through the steel rails of the windows and chai in a baked clay cup takes on a whole divine earthy flavor. Perhaps you’re at a commercial district in Mumbai or Delhi, India? Or at a college campus? You’ll find chai served in small glasses, about the size of your finger, known as a ‘cutting’. One glass split in two. A cut. Make sense? Visit any desi family’s home and you’re bound to receive an offer for a cup of chai—where Indian hospitality begins and then flows. And overflows.
In UK, there’s the excitement of high tea. And what an experience that was during my visit to London in 2019. Menus of tea in all variety, flavors and splashes of décor. And how can you forget the center piece tiers of cakes, pastries and finger-size sandwiches that give teatime a whole new high? And a food coma!
Fly across to Japan and tea has its own ceremony. The Japanese Tea Ceremony, sado or chado, translates to the ‘way of tea’. The ritual is an elegant way of preparing and drinking green tea in a traditional tearoom with tatami flooring. It’s a way for hosts to extend their hospitality and offer respite from everyday life.
Then of course China has its own history. In fact, that’s where the history of tea began in 2737 BC after which tea was knighted ‘tcha’ in the Tang Dynasty, 618-906 AD. From China, tea traveled to Japan via Buddhist monks and became a vital part of Japanese culture. Tea then traveled to the UK via the Dutch who heralded the first commercial import of the product to Europe. Since 1600 the British East India Company held monopoly on the import of goods outside Europe and tea went to UK as gifts. The first advertised sale of ‘tcha’ in a London newspaper was at a coffee house in Sweeting’s Rents in the city! The desire to capitalize and capture this drink in the eighteenth century led to high taxes on the product. Small time illegal trade morphed into the adulteration of tea and organized crime networks. The end of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade with China led to the growth of tea in India—in Assam.
Whew! What a whirlwind trip! Exhausted? Would you like to have a seat and some chai? Real chai… not the store sprinkled or insta-mix sugar-packed version. I’m talking the real deal.
Let’s head over to my kitchen…
Masala Chai
Ingredients:
¾ cup water
¼ cup or more milk (depending on your taste buds)
½ piece peeled and grated ginger (or slivered)
Sprinkle of black pepper
2 cloves (optional to kick up the heat)
1 – 1.5 level tsp Taj Mahal / Brooke Bond or any other Indian tea loose tea leaves
Sugar – according to taste
Method:
Heat the water in a pan.
Add all the spices and allow them to boil in the water on a medium flame.
Add the tea leaves and allow the color to blossom to a dark brown coffee color.
Add the sugar and milk. The color will soften to a latte-like shade. With continued heat the color will bounce back to a light or dark brown (depending on how much milk you add).
Turn down the heat and strain through a sieve into a cup.
Kesar (Saffron) Chai:
Same as above but substitute the spices with 2 cloves and 2 cardamom pods ground in a pestle and mortar.
After your pour the chai in your cup, sprinkle a few strands of kesar on top.
And voila!
The perfect cuppa happiness!
Making desi chai is an art perfected by craft and everything can be tweaked to get that perfect cuppa.
Depends on what you define as perfect. After all, art is subjective.
Well… what are you waiting for? Get brimming with a toast to chai!
… now where’s that loaf and butter knife again?
