Chai Pilgrimage

As we traveled throughout India researching chai, one question we asked people as we sat around the chai stalls was, “What is the origin of masala chai?” The response we heard, more than any other, was that it is “grandmothers’ tea.”  Grandmother, the traditional caretaker of the household, would brew a blend of plant roots, bark and seeds if a family member became ill, or as a tonic to keep them healthy through the changing seasons. Some of the ingredients now found in a classic cup of masala chai are useful for cold, flu, stomach ailments, digestion, lungs and other common maladies.  These family recipes were handed down from mother to daughter to granddaughters over generations spanning hundreds or even thousands of years.

Then came the Brits. Back in Britain, folks had developed quite an expensive habit for Chinese tea, their most popular beverage.  To make a long story of greed, slavery, drug smuggling, war, deforestation and imperialism short, Britain’s East Indian Company, who wanted independence from the high cost of China tea, took over areas in northeast India to establish their own tea plantations.  This turned India into a big, profitable tea party and opened the floodgates, unleashing an ocean of tea on the subcontinent.

One popular belief, or chai conspiracy story, we heard many times during our travels, is that the British first dispensed tea at no cost to the Indian population, knowing its addictive nature and seeing an enormous new local market.  The marketing plan worked, as even now, India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of tea.  Eventually tea, with its energy giving medicine, made its way into grandma’s spice decoctions.  Add some milk and sugar, coming from both traditional Indian Ayurvedic and British tea-time traditions, and masala chai was born.  There is, of course, no way to verify this chai creation theory, but it seems plausible.

Later, the British tradition of tea sipping seeped into Indian culture.  People (generally men) would gather outside there home on the streets to drink chai and socialize.  Chai stalls became the new meeting place.  At the dhabas, or Indian 24 hour truckstops, Punjabi truck drivers demanded a strong cup of masala chai as a restorative drink to get them through the long hours of driving.  And in homes, chai became the symbol of hospitality.

The inception of masala chai seems to have its roots in a crossroads of cultures, beginning with the Indian grandmothers, coming together in the subcontinent.  It has only recently become hugely popular in the West, particularly in the U.S.  This is an historic ironical twist, considering America was founded on dumping tea into the ocean as an act of civil disobedience, with the Boston Tea Party becoming a symbol of tax resistance and revolution.

Chai is such an integral part of Indian culture, I think they must look at us and wonder “What is such the big deal with chai?”  As a foolish American chai lover, I offer my humble thank you to the long line of grandmothers on the other side of the world, who gave us the gift of masala chai.

Hamro Nepali hajuramma (our Nepali grandmother in Darjeeling, India)