Chai, Tea or Chai Tea?

The popular tale of how Camellia Sinensis (tea leaf) fell into a Chinese monk's pot of boiling water tells us how tea was discovered when he drank the concoction. According to a Chinese legend that's how tea was born.

Thanks to the discovery that was made five thousand years ago, as that's something that refreshes me, whatever hour of the day it maybe. The caffeine in it relives me of stress and tiredness when I am back from work. Apparently, tea has got more caffeine than coffee. Though it depends, what tea we are talking about as there is a vast variety of tea available these days. Most of them, I had never heard before. Types of tea such as Green tea, Chinese tea, Black Currant tea, Herbal tea, Chocolate tea, Masala tea, Ginger tea, Russian Caravan tea, English Breakfast tea, Irish Breakfast tea, Lemon tea and many more have captured most of the tea market today.

Tea reminds me of those slopy tea gardens in India. The famous ones that I know of are in Assam, Darjeeling, Ooty and in some other parts of north India. Today, India is one of the largest tea producers in the world. There are some places in India after which popular tea brands are named such as Darjeeling or the famous tea of Ooty. I had a chance of visiting the tea gardens of Ooty and Darjeeling both. On my recent trip to Ooty, we visited the tea gardens there. The place had ample tea gardens all around us, wherever we could see and till our sights could reach. But, the most amazing experience was to have tea right outside those gardens in a small stall where they were making freshly brewed tea plucked from those gardens. And the loose tea sold there was had a completely different aroma and taste compared to the ones we get in the shops. The stall there had a number of options to choose from like Masala tea, ginger tea, chocolate tea or simply plain tea, which was all made fresh in front of us. We bought so much tea from there, it can still last us for another two years.

It's not only excuse to call over friends at home, but these days they even have 'tea parties' in top notch social circles.

It has been two years since I live in Australia. For lots of people here it's a new concept of 'Chai tea' but the phrase always sounds funny to my ears. The word chai comes from India and is originally a Hindi word. It literally means tea in India. So when you say 'chai tea', it sounds 'tea tea' to me. I spoke to a few local people about this and they say that when they ask for chai tea, they expect tea with milk (that's how tea is in India, with 3/4th of milk and herbs). So they basically mean tea in Indian style. So it can be simply called called Indian tea. But it's not. Any cafe you go to, on the menu they have chai tea. Also there is a ready made mix available that says 'chai tea' which is added to the chai tea that you order in cafes. I am not quite sure if people know about this or not, but from the sample of people that I picked up to know about this, they had no clue that chai actually means tea.

At the end, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet is what I believe!