Chai Time

Somewhere during the course of the last few years, I have become somewhat of a coffee/tea person. It was purely an accident. With the arrival of one of the first Starbucks in the country in my town, it had become quite fashionable by late high school and then college to be constantly sipping on something completely unnecessary. I drank tea here and there at home with my grandma, who dips Ritz Crackers into her tea bag tea with milk and sugar. In college, it felt cool to drink several calorie-laden specialty drinks a few times a day, especially when determining who was the most wired/stressed/depressed/hopeless/screwed/exhausted.

After several vacations in India during those four years, I started to prefer hot, sweet, milky chai over everything else and needed to sip something hot at least once a day. Since then, and after returning from another year in India where chai was my sustenance, I have been semi "brewing" my own milky concoctions at home. Most teabags such, however, and I have little patience for fresh leaves. Then this past winter, I discovered Tetley's flavored chai teabags at a local Indian grocery store. It comes in 3 flavors - Masala, Ginger, and Elaichi (cardamom). I am nearly obsessed with the elaichi one. My family is now sold on it too. The tea itself is genuinely good and strong, and the elaichi flavor is just perfect. I throw in a teabag every morning with 3/4 water, 1/4 milk. Elaichi chai begs for some sugar, so don't skip or use a substitute - a little will go a long way in enhancing the elaichi flavor. It's also a great tea to entertain with because it always tastes more like freshly brewed leaves.

My mom loves how I found this thing, and it has further convinced everyone that I should get married in oh, about 2.5 hours. Silly. Trix are for kids, and this tea is for cool quarterlifers like me. $9.00 for 72 teabags @ select Indian grocers (or online).