Chai origins
Legend has it that the origin of chai dates back more than 5,000 years, when a king in what is now India ordered a healing spiced beverage be created for use in Ayurveda, a traditional medicinal practice in which herbs and spices are used for healing. The heat from ginger and black pepper was believed to stimulate digestion; the antiseptic properties in cloves were thought to help relieve pain; cardamom was used as a mood elevator; cinnamon supported circulation and respiratory function; and star anise was known to freshen the breath.
As the healing beverage spread across India a wide variety of spices were used to prepare the drink, depending on the region of the continent or even the neighborhood where the beverage was being made.
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Believe it or not, original versions of “masala chai”, or “spiced tea”, contained no actual Camellia sinensis tea leaves. Milk and sugar were also later additions to the famous drink. The addition of black tea leaves, milk and sugar were popularized thousands of years later (in the mid-1800s) when the Camellia sinensis assamica tea plant variety was discovered in India and cultivated by the British, who ruled continent at the time and had an insatiable desire for strong black tea with milk and sugar.
Components of chai
Since traditional chai beverages can vary from town-to-town and family-to-family, there is no one recipe that defines chai. But the beverage typically consists of these ingredient categories:
Tasting chai
Caffeine content in chai
Teatulia Chai Tea contains black tea and so is similar in caffeine content to Teatulia Black Tea, which contains about half the caffeine than a cup of coffee. Ultimately, though, the caffeine content in any chai will vary depending on the amount of Camellia sinensis tea leaves the blend contains, where that tea plant was cultivated and how it was processed, and the way the chai was ultimately brewed for your cup.
Preparing chai
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Since chai blends may contain different tea bases and different teas can have varying ideal brewing temperatures and steeping times, always ask your tea vendor for specific brewing instructions for the chai you purchased. Here are some general chai brewing tips to keep in mind:
- If your chai contains black tea, it can be brewed a bit longer and in slightly hotter water temperatures than chai that contains green tea. Generally, this is somewhere between 200 and 212 degrees for 3 to 5 minutes. If your chai has a green tea base, it should be steeped at a lower temperature, somewhere around 170 to 190 degrees for 3 to 5 minutes. (If you don’t have an electric kettle with temperature control, just remember that at sea level water simmers at 190 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. The boiling temperature drops about a degree for every 1,000 feet in altitude increase.)
Buying and storing chai
A chai blend, just like any other tea blend, won’t really go “bad”, but it can get stale. To ensure you’re getting the freshest chai, buy it from a reputable company that can tell you when and how the chai was processed and packaged. Chai tea blends can stay fresh for up to a year with these storage tips in mind:
- Always store tea in a cool, dark place.
- Keep your tea away from heat, light, oxygen and moisture, and never store tea in the refrigerator.
- Tea will last longer if stored in an opaque, airtight container.
- Don’t let tea share the pantry with items like coffee and spices that can leach their flavor into the tea leaves.
For more information about how to best care for your tea, visit our How to Store Tea page. Learn more about how tea is made. Learn more about our single garden direct organic tea.
Source: https://t-tees.com
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