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One of the interesting facts I read about was the invention of chai tea (spiced tea) for the Indian market. Which was invented by the British as a way to convin

One of the interesting facts I read about was the invention of chai tea (spiced tea) for the Indian market. Which was invented by the British as a way to convince the Indians to drink tea. Traditionally Indians had drunk spiced coffee, not tea and it took a long time to force them off of it!

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> the invention of chai tea (spiced tea) For the record, "chai" is just the word for tea; spices are not implied. It does not seem to have been introduced by the British, who knew it as "cha" very early and "tea" for most of their tea-relevant history; the "chai" form comes from Persia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea#Etymology But the British did give it a promotional campaign, during which they fought against the native tendency to add spices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala_chai#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala_chai#History
- GordonS 7y ago
  Indians can refer to spiced tea as "masala chai", but I almost always just heard "chai" - I guess that's the way it's so often prepared that the spices are implied?
  - devdas 7y ago
    Nope. Chai is just tea. Spices may be added for regional defaults, but you can also get normal milky tea.
  - z3phyr 7y ago
    A normal "Chai" in my home is just 1:1 Milk and Water with a teaspoon of tea, a little sugar and maybe some cardomom. A "Masala Chai" is milk, water, green tea leaves, tea, cardomom, cloves, grated ginger, a leaf of tulsi and a bunch of other stuff according to taste.
  - twic 7y ago
    A bit like how Britons say "tea" not "black tea", even though it's a kind of tea that a Chinese tea-drinker might find a bit unusual.
    - Reason077 7y ago
      There's nothing unusual about black tea in China. Putting milk in it would be, though!
      - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
        That was the OP's point.
      - heed 7y ago
        Putting milk in black tea (milk tea / boba) is very popular in China. Maybe it hasn't been historically though.
  - bakul 7y ago
    Normal cha (what we call it in Gujarat) has no extra spices except perhaps some fresh ginger. Masala cha is made by boiling it with a spice mix of dry ginger, cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, all ground to a powder. I use a proportion of 4:2:2:1:1. You can vary the proportion to your liking or add a bit of nutmeg or mace or fresh mint leaves or Indian basil (tulsi). I often add fresh grated ginger as well. At Indian grocery stores in the US you can find Wagh-bakri brand instant masala chai. Just add about 4 fl.oz of near boiling hot water to a tea pack and you get some amazingly good masala tea!
    - kpremote 7y ago
      this is very interesting, never thought that black pepper can be mixed in tea! I am very tempted to try that at home. Do you add milk/sugar in masala tea?
      - vram22 7y ago
        Not GP, but yes, people in India mostly add both milk and sugar to masala tea, i.e. it is not had with just tea and the masalas - IME, at least. Can't say specifically what is common in Gujarat, though, since I haven't been there except in early childhood a few times (with parents), and didn't drink tea then.
        kpremote 7y ago
        thanks for info, cann't wait to try it.
        vram22 7y ago
        Welcome.
      - bakul 7y ago
        Sugar as per taste but milk is a must! I use 1:2 water:milk but you can vary it. About 1 tsp of masala per cup or mug. Typically you’d heat the whole concoction till the milky water rises once or twice. I don’t put in the tea (loose or tea bag) from the start as it tends to become bitter but it must still boil with the rest for a minute or two.
- devoply 7y ago
  Chai or its variant Cha is an incredibly common word for tea throughout all of Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea
- NotPaidToPost 7y ago
  > the "chai" form comes from Persia. Well this all comes from the Chinese pronunciation. Persia had old links with China through the silk road. That's how tea, silk etc. got there while Islam reached China very early.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    Sure, all pronunciations ultimately derive from China. But "chai" pronunciations do not derive directly from China, where there is no such form. And so the use of "chai" can tell us something about how tea got into a particular culture.
    - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
      It might have arrived to India through Persia but it derives directly from (Northern) Chinese. 'Tea' also derives directly from Chinese but through another Chinese dialect (Southern).
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        You're using "directly" to mean something mysterious. Tea brought to India by non-Chinese traders speaking non-Chinese languages was referred to by a non-Chinese name. That is not an example of direct contact with China. And as you'll see if you read the links posted variously through this subthread, the word for tea which English derived directly from contact with China (in very southerly Guangzhou) was "cha". That word was quickly replaced by "tea", derived from Dutch. The Dutch word was derived directly from China, but, as you note, from the language spoken in a different region.
- eternalban 7y ago
  Yes, it comes from Persian language speakers. The name of the country that some insist on calling "Persia" is and has always been Iran. Earliest written records are from the Sasanid Empire. "Persia" (meaning Fars) is merely a province of Iran. Iran means "the nation of the Aryans" http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/eran-eransah http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/eran-eransah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ahrest%C4%81n%C4%ABh%C4%81_%C4%AB_%C4%92r%C4%81n%C5%A1ahr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ahrest%C4%81n%C4%ABh%C4%... [updated links]
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > Earliest written records are from the Sasanid Empire. I assume you mean the earliest records that document the name "Iran"? Written records of that region go back multiple thousands of years before the Sasanids. I did find on Wikipedia at various points the claims that... - The name "Persia" is just a misunderstanding of the provincial name Fars or Pars; the country has never thought of itself that way. - The name Iran dates to the 3rd century AD. Those two claims, both of which you seem to be repeating here, conflict in a pretty obvious way. The classical Greeks fought against and eventually conquered an empire they knew as "Persia", the Achaemenids, several hundred years before the Sasanids were established. Cultural contact between Greece and Persia was quite extensive, with many Greeks serving as mercenaries in Persian armies. Wikipedia saw a big fight over the endonym of Achaemenid Persia -- the page went from noting it as "Parsa", rendered in Old Persian cuneiform, to claiming it was known by the modern Arabic name, rendered in modern Arabic -- a development at least a thousand years too late to be plausible -- to now recording "ch'shassa" ("the Empire"), again in Old Persian cuneiform. The name Iran easily could go back long before the Sasanids, in that it represents a piece of culture shared with India and therefore presumably dating to before the Indo/Iranian split. But are you aware of any evidence that the country referred to itself that way during the classical period? Judging by what you can find on Wikipedia, this question is one of major political concern to some groups, and is mostly fought on the basis of assertion rather than evidence.
    - eternalban 7y ago
- sampo 7y ago
  "Tea" if by sea, "cha" if by land. https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land-and-sea-to-conquer-the-world/ https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land...
  - keiferski 7y ago
    No mention of Polish in that article. The word for tea in Polish is “herbata” which is unique, apparently.
    - taejo 7y ago
      The "ta" in "herbata" has the same origin as "tea".
  - gdhbcc 7y ago
    Portugal got Cha by sea (through macau)
  - amolo 7y ago
    Disclosure: Im from Kenya. And chai is just Swahili for the word tea.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    That rule might have a hard time with Japan.
- amolo 7y ago
  Very true. Disclosure: Im from Kenya. And chai is just Swahili for the word tea.
- decebalus1 7y ago
  > For the record, "chai" is just the word for tea How interesting. 'Ceai' is the word for tea in Romanian (https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceai https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceai) and it's pronounced almost the same.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    Romanian probably got that form from Slavic.
vinay427 7y ago
Well, it didn't work closer to the places where coffee is grown in India. ;) Coffee is still the default choice in those parts in most cases, though it's a rather different form usually made with Robusta beans (as well as Arabica) and chicory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_filter_coffee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_filter_coffee
accurrent 7y ago
Depending on which part of India you are from tea preparation can vary. For instance in Bengal, Darjeeling Tea and its variants are not spiced. One thing this video does is give a two sided view of tea history talking about China and England as the two main countries of interest. Tea itself would have been known in the middle east much earlier than when the British brought it over. Although the cultivation outside China probably was a largely British push.
vram22 7y ago
As others have said here, the name of regular tea (without spices, etc.) in India is not "chai tea" but just "chai" (in Hindi). "Chai tea" would be like saying "tea tea" (although in two different languages (Hindi and English) in the same two-word phrase), so is redundant. I've had American friends and colleagues who made the same mistake. From Google Translate (and listen to the sounds via the speaker button - when available): Hindi: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=hi&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... Marathi: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=mr&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... Tamil (but I've never heard anyone call it that, may be the formal name, I've always heard it called "tea" (as in English) in Tamil: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=ta&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... Gujarati: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=gu&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... Malayalam: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=ml&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... and so on ...

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> the invention of chai tea (spiced tea) For the record, "chai" is just the word for tea; spices are not implied. It does not seem to have been introduced by the British, who knew it as "cha" very early and "tea" for most of their tea-relevant history; the "chai" form comes from Persia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea#Etymology But the British did give it a promotional campaign, during which they fought against the native tendency to add spices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala_chai#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala_chai#History

GordonS 7y ago
Indians can refer to spiced tea as "masala chai", but I almost always just heard "chai" - I guess that's the way it's so often prepared that the spices are implied?
- devdas 7y ago
  Nope. Chai is just tea. Spices may be added for regional defaults, but you can also get normal milky tea.
- z3phyr 7y ago
  A normal "Chai" in my home is just 1:1 Milk and Water with a teaspoon of tea, a little sugar and maybe some cardomom. A "Masala Chai" is milk, water, green tea leaves, tea, cardomom, cloves, grated ginger, a leaf of tulsi and a bunch of other stuff according to taste.
- twic 7y ago
  A bit like how Britons say "tea" not "black tea", even though it's a kind of tea that a Chinese tea-drinker might find a bit unusual.
  - Reason077 7y ago
    There's nothing unusual about black tea in China. Putting milk in it would be, though!
    - hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
      That was the OP's point.
    - heed 7y ago
      Putting milk in black tea (milk tea / boba) is very popular in China. Maybe it hasn't been historically though.
- bakul 7y ago
  Normal cha (what we call it in Gujarat) has no extra spices except perhaps some fresh ginger. Masala cha is made by boiling it with a spice mix of dry ginger, cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, all ground to a powder. I use a proportion of 4:2:2:1:1. You can vary the proportion to your liking or add a bit of nutmeg or mace or fresh mint leaves or Indian basil (tulsi). I often add fresh grated ginger as well. At Indian grocery stores in the US you can find Wagh-bakri brand instant masala chai. Just add about 4 fl.oz of near boiling hot water to a tea pack and you get some amazingly good masala tea!
  - kpremote 7y ago
    this is very interesting, never thought that black pepper can be mixed in tea! I am very tempted to try that at home. Do you add milk/sugar in masala tea?
    - vram22 7y ago
      Not GP, but yes, people in India mostly add both milk and sugar to masala tea, i.e. it is not had with just tea and the masalas - IME, at least. Can't say specifically what is common in Gujarat, though, since I haven't been there except in early childhood a few times (with parents), and didn't drink tea then.
      - kpremote 7y ago
        thanks for info, cann't wait to try it.
        vram22 7y ago
        Welcome.
    - bakul 7y ago
      Sugar as per taste but milk is a must! I use 1:2 water:milk but you can vary it. About 1 tsp of masala per cup or mug. Typically you’d heat the whole concoction till the milky water rises once or twice. I don’t put in the tea (loose or tea bag) from the start as it tends to become bitter but it must still boil with the rest for a minute or two.
devoply 7y ago
Chai or its variant Cha is an incredibly common word for tea throughout all of Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea
NotPaidToPost 7y ago
> the "chai" form comes from Persia. Well this all comes from the Chinese pronunciation. Persia had old links with China through the silk road. That's how tea, silk etc. got there while Islam reached China very early.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Sure, all pronunciations ultimately derive from China. But "chai" pronunciations do not derive directly from China, where there is no such form. And so the use of "chai" can tell us something about how tea got into a particular culture.
  - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
    It might have arrived to India through Persia but it derives directly from (Northern) Chinese. 'Tea' also derives directly from Chinese but through another Chinese dialect (Southern).
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      You're using "directly" to mean something mysterious. Tea brought to India by non-Chinese traders speaking non-Chinese languages was referred to by a non-Chinese name. That is not an example of direct contact with China. And as you'll see if you read the links posted variously through this subthread, the word for tea which English derived directly from contact with China (in very southerly Guangzhou) was "cha". That word was quickly replaced by "tea", derived from Dutch. The Dutch word was derived directly from China, but, as you note, from the language spoken in a different region.
eternalban 7y ago
Yes, it comes from Persian language speakers. The name of the country that some insist on calling "Persia" is and has always been Iran. Earliest written records are from the Sasanid Empire. "Persia" (meaning Fars) is merely a province of Iran. Iran means "the nation of the Aryans" http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/eran-eransah http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/eran-eransah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ahrest%C4%81n%C4%ABh%C4%81_%C4%AB_%C4%92r%C4%81n%C5%A1ahr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ahrest%C4%81n%C4%ABh%C4%... [updated links]
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > Earliest written records are from the Sasanid Empire. I assume you mean the earliest records that document the name "Iran"? Written records of that region go back multiple thousands of years before the Sasanids. I did find on Wikipedia at various points the claims that... - The name "Persia" is just a misunderstanding of the provincial name Fars or Pars; the country has never thought of itself that way. - The name Iran dates to the 3rd century AD. Those two claims, both of which you seem to be repeating here, conflict in a pretty obvious way. The classical Greeks fought against and eventually conquered an empire they knew as "Persia", the Achaemenids, several hundred years before the Sasanids were established. Cultural contact between Greece and Persia was quite extensive, with many Greeks serving as mercenaries in Persian armies. Wikipedia saw a big fight over the endonym of Achaemenid Persia -- the page went from noting it as "Parsa", rendered in Old Persian cuneiform, to claiming it was known by the modern Arabic name, rendered in modern Arabic -- a development at least a thousand years too late to be plausible -- to now recording "ch'shassa" ("the Empire"), again in Old Persian cuneiform. The name Iran easily could go back long before the Sasanids, in that it represents a piece of culture shared with India and therefore presumably dating to before the Indo/Iranian split. But are you aware of any evidence that the country referred to itself that way during the classical period? Judging by what you can find on Wikipedia, this question is one of major political concern to some groups, and is mostly fought on the basis of assertion rather than evidence.
  - eternalban 7y ago
sampo 7y ago
"Tea" if by sea, "cha" if by land. https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land-and-sea-to-conquer-the-world/ https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land...
- keiferski 7y ago
  No mention of Polish in that article. The word for tea in Polish is “herbata” which is unique, apparently.
  - taejo 7y ago
    The "ta" in "herbata" has the same origin as "tea".
- gdhbcc 7y ago
  Portugal got Cha by sea (through macau)
- amolo 7y ago
  Disclosure: Im from Kenya. And chai is just Swahili for the word tea.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  That rule might have a hard time with Japan.
amolo 7y ago
Very true. Disclosure: Im from Kenya. And chai is just Swahili for the word tea.
decebalus1 7y ago
> For the record, "chai" is just the word for tea How interesting. 'Ceai' is the word for tea in Romanian (https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceai https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceai) and it's pronounced almost the same.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Romanian probably got that form from Slavic.

vinay427 7y ago

Well, it didn't work closer to the places where coffee is grown in India. ;) Coffee is still the default choice in those parts in most cases, though it's a rather different form usually made with Robusta beans (as well as Arabica) and chicory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_filter_coffee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_filter_coffee

accurrent 7y ago

Depending on which part of India you are from tea preparation can vary. For instance in Bengal, Darjeeling Tea and its variants are not spiced. One thing this video does is give a two sided view of tea history talking about China and England as the two main countries of interest. Tea itself would have been known in the middle east much earlier than when the British brought it over. Although the cultivation outside China probably was a largely British push.

vram22 7y ago

As others have said here, the name of regular tea (without spices, etc.) in India is not "chai tea" but just "chai" (in Hindi). "Chai tea" would be like saying "tea tea" (although in two different languages (Hindi and English) in the same two-word phrase), so is redundant. I've had American friends and colleagues who made the same mistake. From Google Translate (and listen to the sounds via the speaker button - when available): Hindi: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=hi&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... Marathi: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=mr&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... Tamil (but I've never heard anyone call it that, may be the formal name, I've always heard it called "tea" (as in English) in Tamil: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=ta&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... Gujarati: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=gu&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... Malayalam: https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=ml&text=tea https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t... and so on ...