Guide

What is chai?

Chai means tea. That is the whole translation — so “chai tea” literally says “tea tea”. What English speakers usually mean by chai is masala chai: tea with spices.

The word travelled a long way to get here. It descends from the Chinese chá, moved west along the overland trade routes, and turns up as chay, shai and chai across Central Asia, Russia, Turkey and the Middle East before settling into Hindi and Urdu. Tea that travelled by sea instead — via the Min Nan te — became “tea”, “thé” and “Tee”. Same leaf, two routes, two words.

What makes it masala chai

Four things, simmered together rather than steeped:

• Strong black tea, almost always Assam
• Milk, cooked with the tea rather than poured in after
• Whole spices — cardamom, ginger, pepper, cinnamon, clove in varying combinations
• Sugar, usually more than a Western palate expects

That simmering is the real difference. Western tea-making steeps leaf in hot water and adds milk at the end. Chai boils everything together, which extracts far more from both the leaf and the spices, and produces a thicker, sweeter, more concentrated drink.

Not a fixed recipe

There is no authoritative masala chai. The proportions change by household, and the leading spice changes by region — lemongrass in Maharashtra, cardamom in the north, ginger through the centre, and the full spice box in Gujarat. Anyone claiming a single correct recipe is selling something.

What does stay constant is the role it plays: chai is not a ceremony or a connoisseur's drink. It is what gets poured a dozen times a day, at home, at work, at the roadside, for whoever happens to be standing there.

Ready to make it? The brewing guide covers ratios and method.