Not Your Mom’s Masala Chai
It’s your Dad’s. Well, mine. Let me explain.
Chai is a time machine in a cup. The ultimate means of transport on the freeway of memory. It is simply not the same for you and me.
When you take a sip of chai, it’s at Starbucks — okay, I’ll give you a bit more credit, it’s at a third wave coffee shop like La Colombe, Stumptown, Intelligentsia, Blue Bottle, Blue Stone Lane (am I close?), and other such venues using the color blue to make you forget you’re drinking something brown. And that’s just it. If you are brown (South Asian Diaspora), and you live abroad or away, chai takes you home. A cup of chai, then, is more than just a cup of chai. We don’t deal in microfoam, and oat/almond/pistachio milks. There is no heart waiting on the surface of my chai latte. Do not mention syrups or vanilla or maple additives, please. This is not your chai. It is ours. Just some sugar, honey, or gur will do.
It’s our Ma hawking over the stove at the midnight hour. She cannot help us with our Calculus 2 exam, but she can provide the fuel to get us through the night. No, it’s our Nani with an off-white shawl embroidered with miniature roses draped over her shoulders, huddled over what she remembers as a furnace flame, stirring like the conductor of an orchestra, the blueprint deep within her muscle memory. No, it’s our brothers and sisters making a kettleful for the whole family for the first time. They want to try their hand at the art. No, it’s our chachas and chachis and mamoos and maamis and all the other variations of aunties and uncles showing they, too, can prove their worth in deciphering the liquid mystery that draws our oohs and ahhs and comforts everyone into a slump. So they can continue healthy gossip, questioning their children about everything from relationship status to career goals to recalling weird little awards from childhood, planning the next family reunion, talking shop about Khairunisha Aunty’s Sunday morning dosas / Nasreen Aunty’s nehari / Laila Aunty’s biryani / and Gita Aunty’s daal. It is the story of all of these memories and food and people. It is the story of us.
The conversations start early in the morning or go late into the night. There is always a midday chai affair. Sometimes they happen spontaneously before dinner, a time when we should be saving our appetites.
Chai time is when anyone deems it so. It isn’t on schedule. But when requested, without fail, someone activates like clockwork. It is rarely drunk alone because chai is teamwork. Everyone involved takes at least a sip. Unless it’s your Dadi. She does whatever she wants.
Finally, it is your Dad on a Saturday morning taking over the stovetop from Ma, her eyes rolling, as if to say, “Not this again.” He’s feeling particularly brave today. Like a stumbling Merlin, he uses your Ma’s ground masala powder, but adds a touch extra elaichi (cardamom) and maybe an extra clove or two. The pot boiling over multiple times, the stovetop a field of malai stains, chai patti flung across the countertops, Ma screams at the top of her lungs to get out of her kitchen. All this and then your Dad produces a cup of chai that blows the back of your brains out. The perfect balance of savory and sweet, memory and heart. And this is why there is no formula. No scrawled secret books handed down. The recipe comes from within. The urge bubbles to the surface as malai shifts like magma.
So, you see, our chais are different. Our chai is anything but a twelve-ounce paper cup of froth. Chai is a railway home. It is the answer to almost any quandary. It is a moment of lightness in a day of despair. It is what wakes us up and keeps us awake. But it is also what puts us to sleep. Chai is a magic rising to whatever occasion it is called for. Most of all, it is family. Nuclear, extended, blood, adopted, chosen, friends, forged—and to them and you, we offer a cup of chai.
Chaser:
Get your hands on some high quality saffron from your local Indian market for a flourish of color and fragrance atop your cup of chai. Grocery stores will carry it as well, but to get an authentic Persian/Iranian or Afghani tin of saffron threads, you’ll have to look past Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s and find your local Desi grocer.
