Masala chai

• 1. Introduction

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  Masala chai, the spiced milk tea of the Indian subcontinent, comes in a size that surprises first-time visitors to Mumbai. Roadside tea stalls there sell small, inexpensive cups called cutting chai. The name comes from a simple idea. A full-size, full-price cup of tea has been cut in half. The drink in that little cup carries a recipe that changes from family to family and a past that begins with a worried trading company. How did a plant that Indians once treated as herbal medicine become the drink sold through the night on every road? And how did a tea shaped by street vendors end up on coffee shop menus on the other side of the world?

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• 2. Breaking the Monopoly

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  In the 1830s, the British East India Company grew uneasy about how much of its trade depended on Chinese tea. China held a monopoly, and Britain's appetite was enormous, at around 1 lb of tea per person per year. Meanwhile, tea plants had grown wild in the Assam region since antiquity. Indians, however, regarded them as herbal medicine rather than as a drink for pleasure.

  British colonists had recently noticed the Assamese plants, and they began to cultivate tea plantations locally. The change took decades. In 1870, over 90% of the tea consumed in Great Britain was still of Chinese origin. By 1900 that share had dropped to 10%. Tea grown in India supplied 50% of the market, and Ceylon supplied 33%.

  The vocabulary holds a small irony. Most Indian languages use the word chai for tea, borrowed from the Chinese word cha, even though the wider habit of drinking it arrived with the British. Yet plantations alone did not create drinkers inside India, because consumption of black tea there stayed low until the early 20th century.

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• 3. Tea Breaks and Spices

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  Early in the 20th century, the Indian Tea Association launched a promotional campaign to bring black tea to Indian workers. It encouraged factories, mines and textile mills to provide tea breaks. It also backed independent tea sellers working throughout the growing railway system.

  The association promoted tea in the Indian style, with only small amounts of milk and sugar. Independent vendors had other ideas. They added spices and greatly increased the proportions of milk and sugar. That stretched each batch of leaves further, so a given volume of liquid used less tea, and the association initially disapproved because less tea meant fewer purchases.

  The vendors' version, though, firmly established itself as a popular beverage. What those vendors were adding, and in what proportions, still varies from one household to the next.

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• 4. Milk, Tea, Masala

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  Three major components make up masala chai: the masala, the chai or tea, and the milk. One way to prepare it starts by simmering spices in a pot of water. Tea is added and brewed to preference. The mixture is then strained, and milk or cream goes in.

  A common Maharashtrian method for one cup begins with one-half cup of water and one-half cup of milk heated together in a pot. Sugar can go in at this point or later. Ginger is grated in, followed by tea masala, typically crushed ginger, crushed cardamom, lemongrass, cloves and cinnamon. Once the mixture boils, one teaspoon of loose black tea is added.

  Black tea is the usual base. Assam is the most common type, though blends are used. Assam, Darjeeling and Nilgiri are the three varieties most often chosen in India.

  Traditionally in India, the milk comes from water buffaloes. Whole milk is the usual choice, but some people prefer soy milk or skimmed milk. Sweeteners range from white, brown and demerara sugar to honey and jaggery.

  The spices most often include cardamom, grated ginger and cinnamon. Cloves, star anise, black peppercorns, mint and lemongrass also appear. In western India, masala chai often leaves out cloves and black peppercorns. Around Bhopal, a small amount of salt is often added.

  The Kashmiri version breaks the pattern most. It is brewed with green tea rather than black, with a subtler blend of spices and a pinch of salt. That makes it a little savoury. Its pink colour comes from the addition of baking soda.

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• 5. Streets and Stalls

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  Beside every highway, road and alley in the Indian subcontinent stand small vendors known as chaiwalla in Hindi and cha-ola in Bengali. They are often the only establishments open through the night. Most also sell tobacco and snacks.

  Some vendors will deliver tea to people's places of business. They carry the cups in a chaidaan, a wooden or metal frame made for the job. Some are known for aeration techniques, which the source says only masters, called tevanas, perform.

  In Pakistan, masala chai is usually brewed with milk and finished with spices such as nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. The cup itself can vary too, since chai is sometimes served in a kulhar.

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• 6. Chai Abroad

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  In East Africa and the Caribbean, masala chai has a following of its own. The Gulf Arab region knows it as Chai Karak, written شاي كرك in Arabic. South Asian expatriate communities in the Gulf popularized the drink there.

  In English, the spiced tea is commonly called chai tea, or simply chai. Since Starbucks introduced its chai tea latte in 1998, chai beverages have become popular at coffee shops across the United States. They are often made from a syrup or concentrate.

  Many of these shops use the terms chai latte or chai tea latte to signal steamed milk, as in a coffee latte. Where a barista would pour espresso, the chai version uses a spiced tea concentrate instead.

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