Masala Chai anyone?
I am british and I love tea. Its been part of life always. My dad had a pint mug for his tea and I seem to have his tendencies. As a teenager I tried to become a cool kid and drink coffee but never liked it so gave up very quickly. When I was nine an Indian girl moved in with my family and we became firm friends straight away, we still are all these years later. She was older than me and taught me many things about Indian food. One resounding memory is making masala chai. We kids couldn’t get enough of the sweet spiced milky drink, I quickly learned how to make it for myself.
So when I finally got to India that was top of my list to sample as much as possible. It is really interesting to work out what spices are used and understand that different people have different individual preferences and add more of one thing than another. The best chai I had was in Bundi made by Krishna in the pictures below. His mix was very heavy on black pepper so it had a real spicy kick.
The best view while drinking chai was in Udaipur at a roof top cafe looking down on the hustle and bustle of the streets below…
…and the best accompaniment to a cup of chai was this barfi from a fantastic sweet shop in Jaipur.