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Nothing beats the tea!
We grew up on tea.
I hate tea 🤥😖
Chai tea in India is entrenched in the culture; it’s also a legacy of the British. Only once the British arrive did India begin the cultivation of tea through tea plantations now covering massive swaths of Assam, Darjeeling, and other areas of India—this took off in the 1830s with the arrival of the British East India Company. Before that point, the vast majority of the world’s tea was grown and exported from China and Britain was importing a lot of Chinese tea. Colonization had ramped up around the world by this point, and the newfound easy access to sugar made tea a hot commodity for people at every level of society, not just the wealthy.
That doesn’t mean Indians weren’t drinking tea before the British arrived—herbal teas have long been a part of Ayurvedic medicine and spices and herbs have been used for centuries across India. It’s the commercial production and refinement of tea (not an easy process!), however, that really changed the way Indians consumed tea. Today, tea is a massive export for India, and those two tea regions? Assam and Darjeeling are not only regions of India covered in tea plantations, they are two famous types of tea only grown in India.
Why Drink Tea When It’s Hot Outside?
Even once the British left India, the tea-drinking culture of did not. Tea is the most popular drink across the subcontinent, not only because of the culture, but it’s affordable to even the poorest.
And what’s more, Indians drink chai because of the heat, not in spite of it. Drinking a piping hot chai—or any hot drink—triggers cooling mechanisms inside of your body. Receptors in your mouth tell your body that you’re hot and your body responds by upping the number of cool mechanisms—sweat among them—and it exceeds the effect of adding a hot liquid into your system.
Plus, a billion people can’t be wrong; Indians clearly are on to something here.
And so, drinking masala chai is a part of the Indian culture at every level.
What are your thoughts on this? Leave a note down below! :)
Source - alittleadrift.com (content)
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