Chai from a clay cup – that raw, slightly bitter, textured taste of earth, mixed with gingery-sweet milk tea – is the taste of India. An Indian adventure would be incomplete without the experience of sipping chai at an open-air chai stall, and the gratifying, childlike pleasure that comes with tossing your cup and hearing the “pop!” as you watch it hit the ground and break into bits.

All over India, potters spin these small cups out of river clay, which are then sun-dried, half-baked in an open fire and delivered to local chai stalls. Before pouring your chai, chai wallahs customarily tap the unglazed cup to dislodge any loose dirt particles. Even so, you inevitably ingest a small bit of melted clay. We find the gritty taste enhances the character of the chai. One could even argue that the minerals in the dirt provide the added benefit of a daily multi-mineral supplement. (I have been tempted to add a little dirt to my chai at home.)

After use, your chai cup dissolves back into the earth.

In addition to being environmentally sustainable, the clay cup is a sanitary alternative to drinking chai from a glass. Generally, chai glasses in India get only a hand rinsing in a bucket of cold water instead of being sterilized with soap and hot water. When drinking a glass of chai, you are touching lips with the many chai lovers who have sipped chai before you. This, of course, presents the risk of being exposed to a myriad of communicable diseases. The water itself is also cause for concern. Unlike the chlorinated water in American cities, the water here is alive, and may be host to an array of bacteria, viruses, amoebas and parasites. Although chai is boiled thoroughly and poses no threat, the glasses are often reused while still dripping wet. Even a few drops of this water in your chai can cause upset stomach, diarrhea or worse. It is best to avoid this unpleasant experience by patronizing chai stalls that use the one-use clay cups.

The size and shape of the cups vary throughout different regions of India. The average clay cup holds about three or four ounces, but can vary from the size of a shot glass in Gujarat to the uncommon, American-sized, 10-ounce chai we found across from the Hare Krishna temple in Vrindavan. On several occasions we enjoyed a small, 2-ounce cup of chai for only 1 rupee (about 2 1/2 cents). The meager portion conditioned us to sip slowly and savor our chai, as well as giving us the opportunity to socialize at more chai shops throughout the day.

In Benares clay cups are called puruas, in West Bengal, bhaar, and across much of India they are referred to as kullarhs. At train stations, the cups are jokingly nicknamed pi ke put, pi ke meaning “to drink” and put referring to the sound it makes when it hits the tracks: “drink and chuck.”

With the introduction of plastic cups came the plastic pile-up from patrons accustomed to tossing their cups out the window. The Minister of the Indian Railway System has banned train chai wallahs from using plastic, but unfortunately this new rule is not always enforced.

Although technology in India has advanced at a rapid pace, ancient, yet timeless, traditions like the clay cup are preserved because of their modern applications. Considering the resources saved and the potential litter that would otherwise be created by millions upon millions of chai drinkers, biodegradable clay cups are a sustainable solutuion to our diposable dilema.

Our favorite way to drink chai in India is in tiny, one-use clay cups. If there are 3 chai wallahs next to each other, we always choose the one with clay cups. It’s authentic, tactile and fun. And the cups themselves are beautiful, in the most simple way. Many travelers attempt to carry one home to remember India by, taking the utmost care to preserve the delicate vessel by swaddling it with meters of fabric. I know—I’ve tried.

In Benares, we followed every man carrying a basket of clay cups on his head in search of “the potter behind the wheel”. Eventually, we found him. We met Mata Prasad, a clay pot wallah, in the courtyard of his family’s compound near Assi Ghat. It was the morning of Shivaratri, and although he was not working, he welcomed us to sit with him. Hundreds of clay pots laid out to dry on the roof covering his workspace—a simple open-air room with a dirt floor, a wooden bed, hooks for his clothes and a potter’s wheel.

Mata Prasad’s six grandchildren swarmed around him, and as their shyness wore off, they revealed a common twinkle in their eyes, a trait they obviously inherited from their grandfather. His name means “Gift of the Divine Mother.” His voice is aged and raspy but high-pitched and playful. He speaks Hindi with long, drawn-out syllables, and if you could only hear him and not see him, you would hear his smile.

We share a mutual friend, Hement Ji, who translated for us. “This is my small factory,” he told us. “Making these pots has been a tradition in my family for many generations.” We asked when he first learned his craft, and he exhaled a heavy chuckle. His eyes opened wide as he looked back in time. One of his first memories was playing with the water buffalo and cows when he was 13 or 14 years old—back when the British were still here. “Maybe, I was 15 or 16 when I started working,” he said. “This time I am not remembering, but I am guessing I am 60 or 70 years old.” If you do the math, he’s been spinning pots for a long time.

We returned the following day to observe Mata Prasad in action. He was wearing the same faded red t-shirt, white lungi, and kid-like smile. He squatted in front of his wheel, nearly an inch from the earth, picked up a large wooden pole and pushed the stone wheel in a counter-clockwise direction until it twirled out of its awkward wobble into a mesmerizing whirl. He had an economy of movement, gently touching the mound of clay and patiently waiting for it to form him a pot. Each one appeared like magic from behind his hands, and he effortlessly freed it at the base with a string he wore around his left wrist. After the pots sit in the sun to dry for one day, he makes a fire in a small mud room and bakes the pots for 12 hours until morning.

Mata Prasad spins about 500 pots in a day. The three shapes and sizes are used for yogurt, milk sweets and chai. When Patrick asks if he drinks chai, he laughs. “Huh, Huh,” (yes, yes) as he moves his head from side to side in the affirmative ‘Indian head waggle.’ “Two times in house, and wherever I will go, my customers, who purchase my pots, they offer me chai, chai, chai.” These half-baked, biodegradable cups, called puruas in Benares, are used once and then returned to the earth.

Nothing quite compares to drinking chai from one of these clay cups. Its primitive shape cradled in your hand and its warm dry rim on your lips accompanied by an earthy smell and taste strikes a tribal cord deep in your bones. When I tell Mata Prasad I prefer drinking chai in puruas, he quickly agrees, “Huh, Huh, because this is holy Ganga Ma’s clay. ” He uses clay that forms on the holy river’s banks after the monsoons, so like his name, Mata Prasad’s clay pots are also gifts of the Divine Mother.

As we say Namaste and thank him, he replies, “You are most welcome to come back again.”

And just so you can be amazed too, we have it all on video below!