Indian Chai-Wallahs and the art of making masala tea

Indian Chai-Wallahs and the art of making masala tea

December 2015

When people ask, ‘what do you like most about India?’, my immediate response is two-fold: women in colourful saris (of course), and… chai!  Chai is the super sweet, spicy, milky black tea ubiquitous throughout India.  It might be considered the ‘national drink’.  It’s served up everywhere, from upscale restaurants to train-stations and street stalls.  In the old days (when Doug was first here in 1979) it was served in little clay cups, but now it comes in a plastic or paper cup – or, in the case of the chai-wallahs we favour – in small, clear, durable glasses.  

During our three months in India in the winter of 2015-16 we found a favourite chai-wallah in every city and town we visited.  They became our favourites for five main reasons.  First, they made good chai – according to their own recipe, which we found varied considerably not only from region to region and town to town, but also from one chai-wallah to another.  Second, they took pride in their vocation, and made an art out of the making and serving of chai, on a par, in terms of performance art, with barmen making fancy cocktails, or barristas making special coffees.  Third, they kept their stalls – whether shop,  hole-in-the-wall or street cart – their cooking pots and utensils, and their chai glasses, clean.  Fourth, they were interesting or colourful characters, who welcomed us warmly and gave the impression (whether sincere or not), of being pleased to serve us.  And fifth, they were in a good location – for people watching, catching a little sun, or enjoying a quiet moment – or just close to our hotel, or the bus stand, or some tourist attraction.

We found our ‘number one’ most treasured chai-wallah quite by accident.  We were in Mandawa, a small town in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan, just north of Jaipur.  We spent a couple of weeks there, enjoying the friendly and colourful town, the fabulous frescoed havelis (old family mansions) in both Mandawa itself and in several nearby villages, the quiet countryside where we walked for hours, and the wonderful bird life.  We had a habit of going for a chai after lunch, just before our countryside rambles. The chai fortified and revitalized us after a strenuous morning of reading and lazing about.  

We’d found a  chai-wallah who worked in a space between two walls, no more than three feet across, near the main gate in Mandawa.  He made good chai, served it in clean glasses, and had a beautiful smile.  There was also a sunny cement bench nearby where we could watch the always entertaining street-life – women in colourful saris doing their shopping, heavily laden camel and donkey carts, plodding along, shops selling everything from colourful shawls and blankets to pop and snacks to hardware.  But one day he wasn’t there, so we carried on up the road to look for another chai-wallah.  We’d seen one a little further along the road, up to the top where, at a T-junction, the long-distance buses stopped to disgorge and engorge their impossibly large crowd of passengers.  But when we got there, the chai-shop was tight shuttered. 

Our second most favourite chai walla in Mandawa

We’d pretty much given up our hopes of having a chai before our walk when we saw our soon-to-be-favourite chair-wallah's cart, about two blocks away.  His old wooden cart on wheels was ‘parked’ (permanently?) on a quiet part of the dirt road, just in front of a community drinking water supply.  So he’d been smart in his choice of locations: had a constant source of good water.  There were two older men sitting on a sunny, wide cement ledge behind his cart sipping their chai from glasses – for us another two points in his favour.  As he saw us approaching the chai-wallah, an impossibly thin and very dark old fellow in clean pants and long-sleeved shirt, smiled and brought his hands together in a ‘namasteh’.  We asked for two chais and were about to sit down when he motioned for us to wait.  He then spirited a woven blanket out from under his cart, gave it a little shake, and then spread it carefully on the ledge, like he was rolling out the red carpet for royalty.  ‘Madam, please sit.  Sir, please sit.’  Then he turned his back to us and began preparing our chai.

His first action was to wash the glasses, which he then dried with what looked like a fairly clean rag hanging from a corner ‘roof’ pole of his cart.  We could see, from the gleaming surfaces of his pots and the various stainless steel containers he had for tea, sugar and spices, that our chai-wallah was the fastidious sort.  He then cleaned his chai pot, his stirring spoon, and the sieve through which he pours the boiled chai to remove the milk scum.  And finally he wiped the surfaces of the cart.  Now he was ready to start making chai.

Chai preparation involves cooking fresh milk in a pot with black tea leaves, sugar, and whatever spices the chai-wallah favours.  In our chai-wallah’s case, it was a generous amount of fresh ginger, crushed with a metal mortar and pestle.  The chai is boiled over a propane burner, first at high heat, then lower, and constantly stirred.  The chai-wallah checks his brew by putting a drop of it on the palm of his hand, and giving it the always-reliable taste test.  (All chai-wallahs we’ve seen have been male, possibly partly because, in much of rural India, women do not work outside the home.)  We watched him go through the steps, carefully, thoughtfully, and with an economy and grace of motion that made it a pleasure to watch.  We sat in the sun and smiled.

When it was ready, our chai-wallah poured the steaming chai through the clean sieve into first one glass, then the other, making sure that there was precisely the same amount in both glasses.  Before handing them to us, he wiped the bottom of the glasses with his rag, then picked up one and presented it to me with his right hand, touching his right upper arm with his left hand in the traditional Eastern fashion to demonstrate respect.  ‘For you, madam’ he said, serving me first, which in this part of the world, where men go first, and women hardly at all, is unusual.  I wondered where he had learned his ‘Western’ ways… .  He repeated the process for Doug, ‘for you, sir’, and smiled broadly, clearly very pleased with his performance, and his product.

We took a sip.  And savoured the flavour – sweet, but not too sweet, almost ‘hot’ with ginger, and creamy rich with a strong tea flavour.  Wonderful!   We sat, resting our backs against the warm stone, and watched as our chai-wallah cleaned everything up again – his pot, his spoon, his sieve – and waited, in elegant repose, for his next customers.  But it was a quiet day, and so he took a moment to share his knowledge of English with us: ‘Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.  Would you like breakfast, lunch, dinner?’  Apparently he served the British who lived here during the Raj, and like many Indians, he may still be wistful of that time, not only for the pomp and ceremony, the manners and style, but equally, and perhaps more importantly, for all of the things that actually got done and worked.

For the next several days we visited our chai-wallah in the early afternoon, and every day he welcomed us with a big smile, a formal ‘namasteh’, a clean blanket carefully laid out on our ledge, and a great glass of chai.  There were seldom other customers – he was in a quiet area, and that may have suited him well, who knows.  On our last day in Mandawa we again made our way up the main street to our chai-wallah’s corner.  He welcomed us in the usual fashion, and made us his usual great gingery chai.  And I guess in appreciation of our continuing business, he made it with particular flair, pouring the chai back and forth between pot and metal pouring tin, holding the pouring container high enough above the receiving container to cause the chai to froth as it cascaded from one to the other.  We expressed our admiration by oohing and ahhing – ‘very nice!’  We’d seen this dramatic tea-pouring done with great panache in Jodhpur nine years ago, when a chai-wallah with a great steaming kettle of chai poured it from a great height into our tiny glasses, without spilling a drop.  But we hadn’t seen such a performance since: unfortunately, it may be a dying art.

This 'chai walla' is actually a Moroccan waiter, but he's got the high pour down

On our last day especially, one glass of chai just wasn’t enough, so we asked for seconds.  By way of explanation, not that any was needed, we told our chai-wallah that we were leaving the next day: ‘bus to Jaipur tomorrow, train to Mumbai, flying to Myanmar - Burma’.  ‘Jaipur, tomorrow’ he repeated, and I thought I saw, for a minute, a wistful look in his eyes.  Rising to the occasion, our chai-wallah put on a wonderful show as he made our last Mandawa chais.  First, he cleaned our glasses once again, then pot, spoon and sieve.  Then he measured the milk and started it on the boil, spooning in three spoons of tea, two of sugar, and one of crushed ginger.  Once it came to boiling he reached for a small stainless steel canister, pulled out a small yellow foil packet, and emptied a tiny amount of its contents into his palm, and with a little smile of satisfaction – or perhaps delight – put just two pinches into the pot.  This was his special, celebratory ‘secret ingredient’.  Once the brew was ready he repeated his high altitude back-and-forth pouring again, with even more elan.  He was clearly enjoying himself.  And then he poured the frothy liquid into our glasses and presented them to us with a formality recalling the days of the British Raj.  ‘Sir, madam!’ 

I tasted it right away – a hint of coffee!   And I asked him to show us the yellow packet.  Sure enough it was instant Nescafe.  And then I remembered, a few days back, when a couple of German or Swiss tourists had come up to the chai-wallah and requested Nescafes.  Rather than tell them he didn’t make Nescafe, he sent a friend off to a store to buy him a packet so he could cater to this set of foreigners’ wishes.  And now it was his ‘secret ingredient’!

We paid for our chais and gave our chai-wallah a handsome tip.  He took the notes gladly, and held them out to the gods, swirling them in the air as he gave thanks not only to us, but to them.  He opened his rusty (but clean) red metal money box and touched the notes to several spots inside the lid, and then to the various compartments in the box, before laying the notes carefully, almost reverently, in their intended compartment.  All this for the equivalent of around one dollar.

As we walked away we reminisced about all of the chai-wallahs we’ve had the pleasure, and fun, of meeting, and all the great chai we’ve drunk here in India.  Our hats are off to them, and we hope they will go on making and serving chai in the grand tradition of chai-wallahs all over India for many years to come.

A below ground, hole-in-the-wall chai walla in Jaipur