Chai Pilgrimage

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!

Amidst the traffic of rickshaws, motor scooters, market goers and a small herd of water buffalo being led down the road, we discover the popular Pappu Chai Shop. Early in the day, it is a gathering place for elder intellectual types who read the newspaper, debate political issues and get their morning dose. After hours, it becomes a hang out for bhang (edible marijuana) users. We were told this chai stand has been here for 80 or 100 years.

We sit down outside on a low concrete wall next to Ashu, a regular customer and owner of Shiva Rooftop Restaurant down the street. Over the noise of honking cars and bicycle bells, we ask him what makes Pappu chai so special. “Because it is hygienic,” he tells us. “They clean the gilaas [hindi for glass] every time by the hot water. It is unique way. You will never see like this one.” It is true. In all our time in India we have never witnessed soap or hot water being used to clean glasses or any chai-making implement. We observe as a young boy first rinses the glasses in cold water like other chai stalls, then gives them a thorough cleansing with hot water that has been boiled on an open fire. The health of chai drinkers across India would surely benefit from this trademark disinfecting method.

Manoj operates his chai stall with precision, speed and dexterity. A third generation chai wallah, he employs an unconventional chai making technique handed down from his grandfather. Instead of making a pot of chai, each glass is prepared individually in an assembly line fashion. First, he carefully calculates the number of glasses by a count of seated customers, expected regulars and estimated drop-ins. The glasses are then grouped together into three parallel rows and a spoonful of sugar is put in the bottom of each glass. Hot milk is then ladled on top of the sugar. Manoj measures the tea by hand into a tea “sock,” with tea carefully being added or taken out to suit the amount of glasses being made. Boiling water is then slowly poured over the tea until it is fully saturated and the tea water starts to come through. When the flowing tea has a dark, rich color, it is quickly passed over the glasses with one hand while hot water is poured from a kettle in the other hand. He first moves the filtered tea long-ways over the line of glasses, then back and forth. A little more tea is added, then again across the glasses. The chai is made from “new tea every time — not boiling again and again.”

We learn that Manoj makes around 700-800 glasses of chai per day from 5am until 10pm. We ask Ashu, “how much per glass?” He answers, “2 rupees,” and before I could do the dollar conversion of take off the zero and divide by 4, the chai wallah starts laughing and talking to us. Ashu translates, “There are many customers that come every day and they are friends and take chai free. Many one is coming here and many crowd and he’ll give you chai and [snaps fingers] “challo” (meaning let’s go) — not paying the money. But they’re not caring about these things because they’re very much very good fellows.”

Finally, Manoj stirs each glass vigorously, with the rhythm and calm fervor of a classical Indian drummer. The ‘clink-clanking’ of the metal spoon against glass is like a dinner bell to the customers. In the madness of anxious hands grabbing for their glasses, Manoj hands us our chai. It is dark, bold and on the edge of being too bitter. I like it. Even though the tea is not boiled like most, it bears a distinctive strong tea flavor that provides quite a wake up call. We attempt to give Manoj 4 rupees for our chais but he just shakes his head and smiles.