Chai It, It's Indian

Tea is India’s best loved beverage, and for most Indians, it is mankind’s greatest discovery. (There are some who would disagree and say that fire may be microscopically more important as discoveries go, and they may be right — because how is one to boil water for chai otherwise?) After all, consider these facts — India is the world’s second largest producer of tea and most of its production is geared to meet domestic demand. Per capita consumption of tea has been growing steadily for the past fifty years and, today Indians consume a whopping 837,000 tonnes of the stuff.

Given how ubiquitous a cup of chai is across India, and how chai drinking transcends all boundaries, it may come as a surprise to learn that it is a fairly recent national addiction. This is in stark contrast to China which has a long unbroken history of tea production and consumption. So, early in the 20th century, when tea drinking in India was still very nascent, Mahatma Gandhi, (who no one could ever accuse of being a connoisseur of fine dining or drink) argued that “tea is an intoxicant and … has not only nothing to recommend it, but is actually harmful….” After such a ringing endorsement from the father of the nation, it was only natural that ordinary Indians, who embrace Gandhian principles in day to day life, began to slurp vast quantities of the stuff noisily.

Today, because of Gandhiji's intervention, chai is not just tea made Indian style — it literally IS India in a teacup. (Or to get literal, it is India in a glass or a mug or an earthenware kulhad. Because everyone has their own rules for the container that makes tea taste best.)

Firstly, tea is India’s great leveller. Everyone drinks tea — the labourer, the office peon, the grandmother, the teacher, the student, the domestic worker, the prime minister and the pseudo secularist. And, whether it’s cutting chai in an Irani café, or first flush Darjeeling in a porcelain cup lifted delicately with a raised pinky or increasingly — green tea drunk by those whose bank balance and credulity are both generously proportioned — it is essentially the same experience being consumed. Across the Indian socio-economic-educational spectrum, chai is a momentary stop in the business of the day, a punctuation mark, a time of reflection, refreshment and respite and often — a time for conversation and conviviality.

Secondly, even though the English, the Turks and the Moroccans are equally tea crazy, it’s only in India that this national obsession has as many variations as it has adherents. So though all chai would entail having boiling water in contact with tea leaves and the optional addition of milk, sugar and spices to taste, there are a billion possible ways in which this combination can be effected. These billion ways are all currently in use in India as we speak, and zealous devotees of each of these combinations have achieved six sigma processes for their own special brew. So from “Dove chai" (with the consistency of 1/4 moisturising cream) to a “Glenlivet tea" (a purists delight — a pale golden light tasting brew) and all the combinations in between, chai is a showcase for our national diversity as well.

Thirdly, chai is Indian hospitality at its best — every single visitor to an Indian home (including domestic workers and visitors' drivers) is offered a cup. Of course, true to our culture, a subtle caste system exists in the kitchen where extra sugar, extra milk, different tea leaves and separate cups or glasses are on offer for those that don’t rate the Good Earth teacups; however the hospitality extended is sincere and accepted as such.

The fact that chai is now not just a beverage, but woven into the fabric of this nation is hard to dispute. So jalebi sweet milky dhaba tea, mercilessly boiled and re boiled and served in glasses the size of engagement rings, is as much a staple of Indian road journeys as certifiably insane truck drivers and the lack of clean loos. Staccato offers from cheeky waiters to get the three main varieties of tea — "teacosy" chai, "readymade" chai or "dipdip" chai are the main course in cafes and small restaurants across the nation. If it weren't for a quaking tray with tea and snacks served by nubile women of a certain age, an entire generation of Indians would never have been married. "Chai-chai-garam" has woken up several billion more Indians on Indian Railways than "coffee-nescoffee" ever could. And an offer of "chai pani" means that Arvind Kejriwal is going to be piously cross in all of the 22 scheduled languages of the Indian constitution.

So the next time you reach sleepily for your morning cup, or receive an invitation to share a version of the brew with your colleague or your cleaner or your sari wallah, or even stock up on the biscuits you most like to dunk in your preferred poison, remember it isn't just chai you are consuming — it is history, solidarity, democracy, diversity and popular culture all amalgamated into one cup. Try competing with THAT Starbucks.