Don’t tell me you’re putting that in the chai!

A few years ago, when I was a penniless student in “Merrie England”, I shared an overpriced London flat with a couple of chaps from Pakistan. One morning, I walked into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and found one of my Pakistani friends fixing his morning brew. “Chai peeyega?”, he asked. No Mumbaikar would refuse an offer like that. Biding my time, I waited and watched, salivating as he poured a generous measure of the elixir into my mug.

Done with pouring, as if it was the most normal thing to do, he picked up the pepper shaker and held it over one of the mugs. “Don’t tell me you’re putting that in the chai!” I exclaimed, shocked. “Arre comrade”, he said (being of leftist persuasion), “don’t knock it till you’ve tried it”. Not wanting to seem unadventurous, I raised the mug of peppered tea to my lips, wishing I’d made it myself. With the first sip of the stuff, I was converted! It was sharp and refreshing, delivering a smart nip as it went down. The perfect way to wake up. Wow!

Who would have thought, eh? Well, it emerged from subsequent research that pepper is the least of unlikely things that goes into tea. My own prim and proper mom was once an aficionado of a brew that ought to have been illegal. A chaiwalla near her college added poppy seeds to his brew, making it mildly narcotic and highly addictive! Another friend revealed, after much persuasion, the secret ingredient in his “world-famous” chai to be bay leaf. A rich Rajasthani buddy sheepishly admitted to enjoying the saffron-enriched tea that those in his community with cash to spare served at weddings. Some friends from Tajikistan once (after my mind was opened to ‘different’ teas) served me their beloved sheer-choi. A rich, creamy liquid, it is brewed with very little tea, a lot of butter and a hint of salt. While it wouldn’t hack it as a caffeine fix, it was quite an interesting thing in its own right. In some of the northernmost parts of India and Pakistan, a similar salty, buttery brew is served, sometimes fortified with crushed walnuts!

What triggered these memories? The other day, a Caucasian friend observed me making myself a cuppa at work. “Why would you put ginger in your tea?!?!?!”, the gora asked. Ha. To think that I thought putting pepper in tea was weird. As if ginger is normal. Whatever ‘normal’ is!

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