The Chai Process

Five months at home proved to be enough time to master the art of making chai. Or have I really mastered it? Only a novice would say so. I have mastered the art of making chai that my mom likes, and consistently making it that way. It is essential now to mention the criteria for judging the goodness of a cup of chai. How else can I make the judgment that I have mastered this art?

Chai is not merely a drink to enjoy the taste of. Many elements together decide its perfection. Its colour, its taste, its smell, and its texture are only some of them. While making a cup of chai for my mother, I make sure to keep all of these in mind. 

To keep the perfect texture, just the right amount of milk is needed. Too much and it can get too creamy, too less and the cup of chai approaches a glass of water. Of course, this factor is heavily influenced by your personal preference of ideal creaminess. This is the one point where coffee drinkers may relate. Personally, I prefer triple the amount of water than milk. For my mom, the ideal ratio is closer to seven to one.

The rest of the variables change depending on the amount of milk that went into making the chai. That would determine how many tea leaves you add, so that the chai comes out at a perfect level of colour and bitterness and aroma. The approach I follow is to add a small of amount of tea leaves at first, and check what colour of chai results. Slowly add more and boil until the perfect colour has been reached. A surge of excitement leading to adding too much tea leaves can result in dark, bitter chai and overwhelming regret. On the other hand, boiling it too much can lead to the same results.

If you grew up in a chai-drinking household, you just know the perfect colour of chai. It is a colour imprinted on your mind. Slight perturbations from that colour are detectable. My mind feels a certain kind of satisfaction when chai reaches this perfect colour - like a ball perfectly balanced on the top of a hill. The colour is the mark of perfection, a mark of perfect alignment. 

The colour is why intuition is the most important ingredient while you make chai. Can you tell how bitter the chai would get as a function of how much you boil it? Can you tell whether the chai would reach its ideal colour after five minutes of resting it, in case it is not the ideal colour at this point in time? Can you estimate the infinitesimal amount of tea leaves that are needed to get the chai to its perfect balanced state? If so, I guarantee that you will make good chai.