Chai's romance with the subcontinent goes way back. The English may have invented tea time, but the desis of the world embraced it with such warmth, that the beverage is now synonymous with the subcontinental lifestyle.

Many a match made in heaven are solidified over a cup of chai; best friends are made over a cup of chai; office breaks (like the ones we enjoyed at the Haroon House of the '90s) have led to lasting friendships over cups.

Truth is, the only thing that can capture all the history and essence of chai's relationship with the people is ... a strong cup of chai itself.

It may surprise you to know that at the dawn of the 20th century, the people of the subcontinent were mostly unaware of the art of tea-making.

According to British historian, Lizzie Collingham:

"The conversion of the subcontinental population to tea-drinking was a result of what must have been the first major marketing campaign in the time of 20th century India. The British-owned Indian Tea Association, set itself the task for first creating a new habit among the population, and then spreading it across the entire subcontinent."

History tells us that during the 1800s, the people of the subcontinent considered tea as a medicine. It belonged in the medicine cabinet of that time, much like the initial tea drinkers in fourth century China, who used it as herbal remedy for headaches, joint pain, and in aiding meditation.

In the early 1700s, tea became a herbal concoction for the British elite of Britain, soon to become a fashionable beverage for all. The uppity ladies preferred to sip tea with cakes and biscuits in the English afternoons, rather than the sugary wine they were used to earlier. Tea drinking also gave them an opportunity to show off their fine tea chinaware. Hence, teatime was invented.

"Since now tea suited the middle class lifestyle perfectly well; served with bread, butter and cake, it tidied middle-class ladies over until dinner, which was now eaten much later. And with the addition of sugar, it made an energising drink," Collingham quotes in the book Curry.

However, tea was imported from China and was proving to be a great expense to the British government.

"In the February of 1834 the Governor General William Bentinck appointed a tea committee to look into the idea that India might be a good place to set up the company’s own tea production. Initial attempts to cultivate tea in India were something of a shamble. The committee decided that Assam would be suitable for an experiment in tea cultivation, and although Europeans had been eagerly buying tea from the Chinese for more than two centuries, they were still uncertain of the precise production method," according to Collingham, and thus sought the Chinese for help.

"The Chinese guarded the secret jealously."

Despite all obstacles, the Assamese, in the year 1838, managed to produce some dozen trunks of tea. These were auctioned in England to almost ignorance and it was not until the 1870s that the tea industry in India somewhat stabilised and finally began producing good quality tea for a reasonable profit.

Collingham goes on to say:

"In Britain and Australia, the working classes’ passion for strong black Indian tea was encouraged by inventive whole sailors who found ways of selling Indian tea at cheaper rates than Chinese teas. It was Thomas Lipton who innovatively purchased his tea leaves in bulk directly from India."

By 1909, tea was associated in British minds with the subcontinent to such an extent that it was worth Lipton’s while to employ an Indian to stand in front of one of his Lipton cafes as an advertisement. Although tea was strongly associated with the Indian subcontinent in British and Australian minds, the locals in the subcontinent still did not drink it themselves.

In some of the large cities in India, a few elite Indian gentleman would frequently drink this delightful beverage called tea. But Mahatama Gandhi acknowledged that a few westernised Indians now drank a cup of tea or two for breakfast. He continued, 'The drinking of tea and coffee by the so-called educated Indians, chiefly due to British rule may be passed over with the briefest notice.'"

George Watt mentioned in A Dictionary of The Economic Products Of India, "though the sub-continent had beaten China during the past 30 year of tea production, it had made no progress in introducing the locals to tea drinking."

In a chapter titled 'Chai', the Cambridge-trained historian Lizzie Collingham writes:

"Hence in 1901, the Indian Tea Association woke up to the fact that the largest market was sitting right on their doorstep, and they extended their marketing campaign to the subcontinent. Nevertheless, marketing tea in India was a dispiriting project. And it was not until World War I that the Tea Campaign began to gain momentum. Tea stalls had been set up at factories, coal mines, and cotton mills where thirsty labourers provided a captive market. In 1919, the tea canteen was firmly established as an important element in an industrial concern.

"Railways were another example of where the Tea Association transformed them into vehicles for global capitalism. They equipped small contractors with kettles and cups and packets of tea and set them to work at major railway stations in the Punjab, the Northwest Provinces and Bengal. The cry of, “Chai! Garam, garam Chai!” (Tea! Hot hot tea!) became the cry of railway stations. Although European instructors took great care to guide the tea vendors the correct way of making chai, the vendors often ignored their advice and made tea their own way, with plenty of milk and lots of sugar."

In Punjab, buttermilk was often mixed together with masala and kheer (a sweetened milk and rice desert), hence a variation of the famous doodh pati came to be.

Another interesting branch of the Tea Campaign was to set up little tea shops/stalls in large towns, cities and ports of the subcontinent. These tea stalls were threatened by street tea-hawkers and street tea vendors who started to flavour the tea with spice, namely, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, cloves and chillie; and it was in the Cawnpore mill locale that this so-called spiced tea was found, known today as the famous masala chai or spice tea, much loved in the Americas and Europe.

In the book titled, A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors, Collingham says:

"Teashops only reached a certain type of clientele. A series of campaigns were set about taking tea directly into the sub-continental home, particularly to women who were not visiting tea shops. An army of tea demonstrators was employed to march to large towns and cities. An area of each town was chosen and for four months, the tea campaigners visited every home, street by street, every day at the same time except for Sundays."

The tea-making campaign was embraced by both Hindus and Muslims. Everybody curiously invited the tea campaigners to demonstrate inside their homes. The making of tea at the same time every day gave birth to tea time in the subcontinent.

Despite the money and effort channeled into the tea marketing campaign, some corners of the country were still untouched. To address this, the Packing Factory Scheme was started in 1931. By the end of 1936, the subcontinental villagers had become so accustomed to tea that in one year, demonstrators were able to give away 26 million cups with ease.

During the second World War, the city and village tea campaign was shut down temporarily, and the Indian Tea Association now concentrated their efforts on the Indian Army. The Indian sepoys were now definitely tea conscious. And in the post-war India the tea-drinking habit was carried to villages throughout the subcontinent. By 1945, the homeless living on the streets of Calcutta and Lahore were drinking tea. That's how tea became a normal part of every day life in the subcontinent.

Fast forward many years and now, teatime is a most sacred institution of the subcontinent. While preparing to write this blog, I decided to host a lavish tea party for my wonderful friends. Of course, a tea party menu can include any number of snack items as there are stars in the sky, so enjoy being creative on the occasion.

My own menu included warm pound cake and warm brownies served with a side of ice cream, ground meat patties, roast beef sandwiches, chicken salad, pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and chicken, focaccia and chana.

However, the queen of the trolley was of course, black chai with a hint of cardamom and a side of milk and sugar.

—Photos by Fawad Ahmed

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