Chai is native to India. No historical account exists to vouch for this but given how (now) over six generations have grown up drinking chai in one form or the other, it wouldn’t be an incorrect claim. Sometime in the first half of the 20th century, the Tea Board of India, in an effort to boost consumption of tea within the country, decided to run a slew of advertising campaigns that built tea into people’s routines. What they were promoting was, in fact, a lower grade tea, most likely fannings and dust, which is a residual-class of tea obtained after the leaves have been processed for their better part. The flavors of this tea were so strong and dark that a generous splash of milk and a wad of sugar was essential to counter its potency.
Much later in the 60s, when the CTC machines were invented, better quality leaves could be fed into this industrial-looking contraption that churned out, on a very large scale at that, even nuggets of black tea.
The vast majority took to it quite agreeably. Loose-leaf teas were so expensive that they could never take off commercially within the country, but CTC granules of lower grade leaf were far more susceptible to go mass. And it did. The addition of milk and sugar remained.
With time, consumption of chai went from being a social ritual to a functional one, built intrinsically into the daily life of the common man.
It may have had humble beginnings but chai is conditioned into my system now. And much the same way it has grown into the very ebbs of Indian sociability and that’s just how it will be. It will never be an alternative to loose-leaf tea, nor should it. It may not match the aesthetic values of terroir, seasonality or make, but it reflects a highly enthusiastic side of tea you won’t come across in any other kind.
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