Chai Pilgrimage

Thanks to Dhvani Solani who interviewed us recently for a feature in the Mumbai-based newspaper Mid Day. Click the image below to read the article.

Hi friends! Patrick agreed to me recording him making masala chai and sharing all the juicy information he knows about the medicinal value of the spices and his sweet tips. It is a bit long but full to the max. I only wish you could taste Patrick’s chai. It’s divine! I hope you enjoy it, and share with your friends who might like it, too! Jenny

Our “House Chai” Recipe Ingredient List (since it scrolls fast in the video):

6 cups water
2 cups organice whole milk
1/3 cup sucanat (raw sugar)
1/3 cup grated ginger
20 cardamon pods (or 1 tsp decorticated)
1tsp fennel seeds
5 allspice berries
1 clove
a few saffron strands
2 Tbls loose Assam tea (or 4 black tea bags)

CHAI • SHAI \ CHI-SHI\

1. Chai (tea) & all the paraphenelia attached to a tea service. In Pakistan and India, this includes street food, such as samosas & pakoras.

2. Also used to describe a social gathering place, a time for interesting conversation & even better food!

The first time I bit into one of Chai Shai’s fresh veggie samosas I felt like I was home, though I’m not from Pakistan, nor have I ever even been there.  But the hot, crispy potato and peas samosa, served up with some homemade mint-cilantro chutney and washed down with a steaming cup of masala chai, instantly transported me back simultaneously to all the many rapturous gastronomic travel moments experienced on a railway platform, or a nameless street, somewhere in the middle of Northern India – a non-specific dreamy place of comfort that always dwells in my heart and stomach.  Whoa man!  I’m not in Kansas anymore.  But, actually I was.  Well, in Kansas City, Missouri anyway, of all places, sitting at a corner chai shop in a tree-lined, residential neighborhood eating Pakistani street food.  Brilliant.

When I met the Tufail brothers, Abdul and Kashif, they were chilling out at the end of a long, busy day about a month after their shop had opened.  Chai lover that I am, I sat, still in a state of blissful shock, having discovered that there was now a chai shop only three blocks away from the place I stay when I’m working in KC.  Talk about creating your own reality.  As we chatted, Abdul reminisced about waking in Lahore, lighting up a cigarette, and strolling down to the local chai shop and just sitting around and visiting with friends for hours sharing conversation and drinking chai.  I could not help but recall parallel memories of sitting on the steps at the edge of the Ganga in Banaras with Indian friends, sipping chai (without the cigarette), people watching and talking about this and that.  Yes, this is it.  These guys have brought that place here, transplanting the seed of chai culture to the middle of America, and the experience that naturally goes with it.

Kashif and his mother, Aasma

Now every time I’m in KC, I visit Chai Shai for a bit of home cookin’ and Eastern hospitality.  Since that first visit, Kashif, the café solid rock and front man, has always stopped what he is doing to greet me and take time out of his bustling day for a bit of conversation.  He sincerely welcomes me as a friend and even, perhaps unknowingly, makes me feel like family.  Just like the book Three Cups of Tea illustrates, after you have sat and had chai with someone a few times, and converse from a place of heart, you are family.

Chai Shai was conceived when the Tufails found a commercial kitchen space with the intention of making wholesale samosas for local Indian and Pakistani shops around KC – an expansion of their well-established, home-based cottage industry.  After securing their space, which in its previous incarnation was a restaurant, neighbors started peeking in to see the new business and encouraged them to sell their samosas on site to eat.  So they thought they would expand to sell some Pakistani street food – pakoras, chaat, samosas, and some chai to go with it – the basics.  After sustained prodding from their growing customer base, they have now blossomed into a full-on restaurant and mini grocery, with a broadened menu offering lunch and dinners.  There is a metal-shelved wall of imported dry goods:  basmati, dhal, ghee, spices, tea, parle-g’s, condiments, you name it — all the staples the local Pakistani and Indian students from the nearby UMKC campus, as well as us Indo-food enthusiasts, would need.

Aasma Tufail

The last time I visited KC, the café had been established for a year and a half, and I was finally blessed with the opportunity to sit and have lunch with Aasma, the Tufail matriarch and mother of all who feast on her authentic Pakistani cuisine.  She spoke of living in Pakistan as a school teacher, bringing her children to America for a better life, making samosas at home with her children when they were just toddlers, and the joy of having her two sons and daughter all living and working close together as a family.  What more could a mother want?  And her service to the local community extends beyond providing exotic comfort food.  Aasma and her family offer a rare place on the planet where people from all walks can gather and share some chai and savory snacks or a meal together and simply talk.  Like it says at the top of their chalk menu board: “Salaam means Peace!”

Ayurveda is the ancient science of India that teaches we are all a part of Nature.  As Nature, we are in a living relationship with everything around us.  Each moment, we are being affected by everything in our environment.  By recognizing environmental influences and adjusting our lifestyle accordingly, we can create a healthy balance within our being.

Nature remains in balance through opposites.  Light roots take hold in the heavy Earth.  An active day must be followed by deep sleep.  Ayurveda teaches that there are 20 universal qualities composed of pairs of opposites: heavy-light, dull-sharp, cold-hot, oily-dry, smooth-rough, liquid-dense, soft-hard, stable-active, subtle-gross and clear-cloudy.

As Nature, we are subject to the same universal laws that like qualities increase like and opposite qualities balance. In the midday heat of a summer day, for example, the hot quality of the blazing sun increases our own temperature – like increases like.  If we are frantically running around town doing errands, eating a drive-by burrito in the car will not calm our anxiety like a quiet, sit-down meal at home – opposites balance.

FALL SEASON AND VATA

Fall season, especially in the New Mexico mountains where we live, is the perfect expression of what is called Vata in Ayurveda.  Vata is the energy of movement composed of the air and space elements.  It expresses the qualities dry, light, cold, rough, subtle, active and clear.  These qualities are apparent in the Fall as the temperature start to drop, the earth and air become drier, plants freeze and dry up, the winds blow and animals either migrate or move underground.   Nature begins Her inhalation of life from summer into winter.

These environmental changes can affect our physical and mental bodies.  As the wind blows, we may experience anxiety and disturbed sleep.  Our skin may become as dry and rough as the cracked earth.  We can get cold hands and feet as the cold enters our circulation.  Fall is a time when many Vata aggravations occur such as cracking joints, sciatica, spasms, anxiety, arthritic pain, constipation and insomnia. The current state of our health is usually an accurate indication of how balanced we are with Nature.

WHAT TO DO?

By following Natural law, we can maintain balance within ourselves by applying opposite qualities to those present at this time.  Keeping a regular routine is the best way to stabilize Vata’s constant mobility.  Fall is the time to slow down with warm tea, meditation, gentle yoga, hot baths and plenty of sleep.  It is important to stay warm and protect oneself from the wind.  Like Mother said, dress warm, cover your ears and neck and do not go out in the cold with a wet head.  According to Ayurveda, warm sesame oil is the perfect remedy for Vata.  Self-oil-massage before a hot bath or shower can balance out the dry and cold qualities and shield us from the elements.

Drinking a large amount of warm water upon waking in the morning will re-hydrate the body and get the bowels moving.  Ginger tea is a great beverage choice to stay warm and to keep the blood circulating all the way down to the toes.  Hot milk before bed can help calm the nerves and overcome insomnia.  Incorporating a good dose of healthy oils into the diet helps lubricate dryness from the inside.  Warm, mushy, well-cooked foods will balance the cold, dry, rough qualities of the season.  Lightness in the body and mind can be balanced with eating heavier foods like organic dairy products, grounding root vegetables, nut butters, heavy grains and fresh-harvested winter squash.  To encourage proper digestion and warmth, cook with spices like ginger, garlic, pepper, fennel, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon and salt.

And chai?  Well, the change of season, upcoming holidays and cold winds are likely to take their toll on the nervous system, so cutting down on excessive caffeine intake can help promote calm.  But sitting down and slowly sipping an extra-warming cup of milky, gingery masala chai with some cardamom and cinnamon (and a little less tea) can be the best medicine to keep our internal fires burning warm and bright through the cold seasons.  By practicing awareness of the external influences in our life, we can attune our diet and lifestyle to reflect a balance with the One.

OK, well not exactly 100% homegrown chai, but fennel is a good start. One small step to fulfilling an ongoing daydream of walking outside and harvesting tea leaves, cinnamon bark, cardamon pods, ginger root, clove, pepper, tulsi, saffron and fennel seed.

This summer was the second year for our modest but thriving fennel forest. Tulsi and I harvested enough seed to fill a few pint-size mason jars. I’m totally giddy, but I keep thinking, I could have saved 3 times as much. I learned that timing is essential or the seeds will drop (another reason why gardeners advise to plant fennel OUTside of the garden or it will grow into a true forest).

I don’t even know if fennel spiced chai was very common in our household before our daughter was born, or if we even tried it in our masala. But when Tulsi was born, Patrick started tossing in a handful of sweet fennel seeds to every batch. Why fennel? Just ask our now chai-seasoned, ayurvedic, still-mama-matte-lovin’ (as in Mother’s milk) 2-year-old, and she will say with a LOT of enthusiasm, “Fennel helps make more matte!” And she’s right of course. Fennel is one of the spices in many “Mother’s Milk Teas” that “helps promote healthy lactation”.  Tulsi also knows if she chews on some seed, it will help settle a tummy ache.

But it’s more than fennel’s medicinal properties — it’s YUMMY.

It’s my goal next year to grow, and save, enough fennel seed for a whole year’s supply — a few pounds would do. As for the rest of my chai fantasy, we would be in heaven if we could grow ginger in our 4-season, geodesic dome greenhouse. Even at 8000 ft in the  mountains, I think it’s possible…just need to research and find the right variety!

Anyone have experience growing ginger in a greenhouse, or blessed with your favorite masala chai spices growing in YOUR backyard?

Jenny created this Taj mostly from memory — Security only allowed a pencil and held her markers, pens and paints at the gate.

The Taj Mahal is an opulent architectural eulogy expressing the Emperor Shah Jahan’s love for the most beloved of his wives.  The untimely death of Mumtaz Mahal occurred while giving birth to her 14^th child.  Undoubtedly, that feat alone justified employing 20,000 workers over 22 years to construct this 17^th century world wonder.

Millions of visitors come to marvel the marble masterpiece each year, which is why on previous visits to India, we avoided it.  But admittedly, in the presence of such profound man-made beauty, we found that all we could do was spend hours staring at it and taking photos like everyone else.  We sat in wonderment, surrounded by the elaborate, well-groomed gardens hemmed in by reflective pools with fountains.  We were utterly hypnotized by its mere enormity and meticulously detailed Mughal architecture, with its smooth, pure-white marble curves, ornate floral design inlays of semiprecious gemstones and the exterior black marble calligraphy quoting verses from the Holy Qur’an.

Although we were able to have chai delivered to us while waiting in line at 5:30 in the morning, we were shocked that there was none available inside.  And as all good things must end, my body’s call for its afternoon tea necessitated our departure.

The Central Government of India pumps hoards of money into Sikkim’s roadway infrastructure because its border with China compels them to keep a formidable military presence.  Most of the main roads are paved and well maintained so that armed vehicles can move freely throughout the state.  This, however, does not exactly make it safe to drive in Sikkim.

The lower Himalaya topography is “hilly” (their hills are like our mountains), thus the roads must conform to curvaceous canyon slopes.  The superior quality of the roads makes it easier to drive fast, unlike the dilapidated mountain “roads” throughout the rest of Northern India.  More than once, we found ourselves racing through the Himalayas around tight curves in overloaded jeeps driven by wanna-be stunt drivers.

Traveling by road there can make the most iron stomach carsick while at the same time inspire one to contemplate their mortality.  But, if one is surrendered to the belief that their moment of death is already predetermined, they can enthusiastically look out the window and take visual pleasure in the magnificent vertical drop-offs just inches from the jeep’s tires into the sheer faced ravines.  There are no distracting guardrails to block the line of site!

To make sure that drivers are aware of their responsibility to preserve the lives of their passengers, there are lyrical road safety signs on the side of the road.  They apparently go unnoticed or are completely ignored by the drivers, but provide ironic entertainment value to passengers with a dark sense of humor like myself.

Road is hilly, don’t be silly

No race, no rally, enjoy the beauty of the valley

This is a highway, not a runway

Be soft on my curves

If married, divorce speed

Faster will see disaster

Slow drive, long life

Fast won’t last

No need for over speed

Speed thrills but kills

Hurry makes worry

Arrive home in peace not in pieces