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chai


Chai is a populair drink in India. It's made mostly of water, milk and tea, with some spices added. Chai is sold on many places of the world and its becoming more populair. There is no fixed recipe for chai and many families and chaiwallai (chai tea sellers) have their own versions of the tea.
All chai has the following four basic components:
Black tea, like Assam or Darjeeling.
milk , cow milk or buffalo milk
spices, like cinnamon, gember and cardamon.
sugar.



Chai is poored in by let it fallen. this way it is cooled down enough to drink it directly from the glass. Chai is prepared by decoction, this preparation usually includes straining tea from the solids.



Selling chai in Radjastan, India. The temperatures are soaring and the people try to find respite from the heat. They sit under a neem tree and drink a cup of chai. There is a loud noise produced by the cicades in the tree. The chaiwallah (chai tea seller) often sells coco's cookies as well. The chaiwallah is often illiteric, and selling chai makes it possibly to avoid the deepest poverty. They all have there secret mixture of spices to give the chai its own flavour. Childern like the addition of cinnamon. The combination of nutmeg and clove and cinnamon produces a chai with pleasant taste. But the most strong taste is that of the used black tea such as Assam, in that way that the spices and sweeteners do not overpower it.


The base tea is a strong black tea such as Assam, so that the spices and sweeteners do not overpower it. However, a wide variety of teas are used to make chai. Most chai in India is brewed with strong black tea, but Kashmiri chai is brewed with gunpowder tea.
Chai preparation: Water is boiled together with Assam tea and spices.
1 , jaggery or sugar is added and cooked with milk, crushed car seeds and ginger powder.
2 , dit wordt samen met melk gekookt. klaar.
3 The milk comes from a (holy) cow and contains more fat.
4 the water is also used to wash the glasses.


Chai as cheap as possible

As the chaiwallah is very poor, there is little money for the ingredients of his chai. Cardamon is expensiv, for this reason it is often added in the end, just before drinking. The sugar can be jaggery, honey, but often brown sugar. The milk is mostly buffalo
 The tea that is used is called "mamri" that is the cheapest assam tea chrushed into powder. In that way there is not a real need to removed the leaves.

chai recipe

Take one cup of water and boil it together with the spices (gember powder and cardomon crushed seeds). boiling takes about a minute. Then add a spoon of sugar and a cup of milk , boil it and take it directly of the fire. Ready.

Noon

Noon is the Kashmir tea , it is pink of color and takes a long time to prepare. It is made by boiling Noon tea leaves for an hour, adding salt (so no sugr) and the color will change into pink . Then a lot of milk is added (and spices). Noon is populair during the winter and on weddings.