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Chai is so prevalent in
India and Sri Lanka that it
could be called the
‘National drink’. It is very
common to see the ‘tea wadis’
serving their chai to the
walk-by street traffic. In
North America we have the
coffee carts; in the sub
continent and Sri Lanka you
have the ‘wadis’. Paint the
following picture in your
mind: the tea wadis cart has
that ‘well used’ look (read
- bashed, dented), quite
often with a charcoal fire
going keeping the water
boiling so steam and smoke
are rising, an old
evaporated milk can full of
sugar, another bashed and
dented can with the masala
chai spices, an eclectic
collection of semi -clean
mugs and glasses and a
wizened chai expert deftly
pouring back and forth from
great heights, tea with
spices and milk, combining
the two ingredients. Once
combined it is normal to add
a fantastic amount of sugar
for that real chai
experience.
Chai is brewed with milk and
a mixture of spices. Each
recipe can be different
depending upon the spices
used. Indian spiced chai is
often referred to as Masala
Chai. The word ‘chai’
literally means tea
(different languages use
various forms of this word -
for example Portuguese call
it ‘cha’, Hindus call it
chai, and in Chinese the
sound of the symbol for tea
sounds very much like cha.)
and ‘masala’ is the word for
the mixture of the various
spices - hence Masala Chai.
At Hina’s we have our own
special blend of “Chai
Masala” The recipe handed
down by my late father and
still in use today by all my
customers.
Often a lower quality tea is used to make ‘chai’ as it is thought the spices will cover-up any deficiencies in the tea. We do not believe this and prefer to make our dry tea chai mix from real Indian spices and high-grown Ceylon tea. The quality of the tea elevates this chai to a new level.
For further details just click on the name of tea.
India
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