What word is used in india for tea

• From Armenian to Afrikaans, from Finnish to French and from Swedish to Sudanese, it is called te, te´, the´, tee, thee or simply tea.

• From Chinese to Cebuano, from Korean to Kannada and from Portuguese to Punjabi, it is called ch’a, chā, ça, tsá, sa or just cha.

• From Bosnian to Bulgarian, from Czech to Chechen and from Georgian to Greek, it is called čaj, çaj, çay, çay tsái or chai.

How did the original Chinese Ch’a become Indian Chai and English Tea?

The etymology of tea is as interesting as its origin and history, and as intriguing complex as its character and flavor. Read on as we trace how tea traveled from China to the world, and how the route it took changed its pronunciation from cha to chai to tea!

Prior to the 8th century, there was no dedicated word or character for tea. Because it was part tea was part of a larger group of herbs and plants that were consumed largely for medicinal purposes. This group was collectively known as tu 荼 —  bitter plant.

It was only during the time of the Tang Dynasty in the late 8th century that Tao Lu Yu wrote the crowning work on tea called the Cha Ching or The Tea Classic. In this, he gave tea its own character — 茶. This character evolved from the earlier version of tu 荼, but did away with one horizontal stroke.

 As drinking of tea gained popularity all over China, the use of the character 茶 became more widespread. Being the large country that it is, China has diverse dialects that are specific to regions and provinces. As a result, even though茶was written in the same way, it was pronounced differently in different Chinese dialects.  For example, in the Guangdong Province, it was pronounced cha, in Shantou it was pronounced te, while in the Fujian Province it was pronounced as ta. In the Northern part of China along the banks of the river Yangtze, it was as  zhou as well as cha.

In the major Cantonese dialect as well as the Mandarin dialect, 茶 is pronounced as ch’a. Ch’a is also used to describe the first flush harvest of tea. In the Amoy Min Nan dialect spoken in and around the port of Xiamen (Amoy), 茶is pronounced as tê and is believed to have originated from the older name tu.

From China to the World…                              Different Routes, Different Pronunciations

As tea traveled from China to different parts of the world, the form of its name and pronunciation entered each language depending on the route it traveled by. In Russia, India, Japan and the Arab countries, because tea traveled via the land routes, the Mandarin word ch’a was used. When tea traveled to Europe, it was mainly traded by the Dutch through the port of Amoy where the Amoy word te was pronounced as tay. The Dutch changed it to thee which became known as tea or tee in English, the in French, thee in German and te in Italian, Spanish, Hungarian!

How Te became Tee, Thee and Tea

How Ch’a became Tsa, Sa and Cha

Another fascinating version of tea is chai. It is thought that chai evolved from the Persian chay. As tea reached from Northern China to Persia via Central Asia via the Silk Route, the suffix yi was added to cha. When tea traveled from Persia and Central Asia to Russia, Arabia and Turkey, it went as chai. In India, tea is called chai in Hindi due to the strong influence of the Persian language.

How Ch’a became Chay, Shai and Chai

Today, in more than 56 languages and many more local dialects all over the world, tea or thee, cha or chai and its many, many derivatives mean only one thing: the cup that cheers!

(Full Source of the Map used : Östen Dahl. 2013. Tea. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://wals.info/chapter/138, Accessed on 2020-06-26) 

About the Author :

Ketan Desai | Chief Educator |  ketan@vahdamteas.com

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

«Tea maker» redirects here. For equipment used in making tea, see Teaware.

A chaiwala (also transliterated as chaiwalah or chaiwallah; Urdu: چائےوالا, Hindi: चायवाला) is a tea-seller in the Indian subcontinent.^[1] They are an integral part of subcontinent culture. Chai is the Hindi and Urdu word for «tea», as in masala chai, and wala indicates the person performing the task, so chaiwala is a street vendor of tea.

Chaiwalas, as an entrepreneurial group, tend to move from different regions of India to run their small business in major cities. They boil a mixture of water and milk, often with a spice mixture called chai masala, add tea leaves and sugar, and then strain the drink into containers or a tea kettle. They usually serve tea in a small glasses or unglazed clay teacups (kulhar) but have started to use plastic cups. Traditionally, tea was made in brass vessels.

In popular culture[edit]

In the 1955 film Shri 420, the hero (Raj Kapoor) brings the heroine (Nargis) to a road-side tea stall. The chaiwala insists on receiving a payment of two annas (anna is 1/16th of a rupee) for the two cups.^[2] The scene serves as a prelude for the famous song «Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua», during which the chaiwala is shown sipping the tea from a saucer (which was common among the unsophisticated people).

In the 2009 film Slumdog Millionaire, the lead character, Jamal Malik (played by Dev Patel), is a chaiwala in an indian call center.

In literature[edit]

The 2021 children’s book Chaiwala!^[3] by Priti Birla Maheshwari «Sweetly captures a slice of Indian life.»^[4] while telling the story of a little girl’s experience getting chai with her mother at a train station in India. The book is published in Canada by OwlKids Books and illustrated by Ashley Barron.

Notable examples[edit]

The press has noted several successful chaiwalas:^[5][6] They include:

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi started off by his father’s side as a chaiwala
• Former Chief Minister of Bihar and Rashtriya Janata Dal Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav stated that he was once a chaiwala.^[7]
• Laxman Rao of Delhi, author of 24 books^[8]

A high school dropout started the brand THE CHAI WALAH is empowering aspiring Indian youth entrepreneurs to get in entrepreneurship.^[9][10]

See also[edit]

• Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2012
• Tea lady, a similar occupation in Britain

References[edit]

In India, guests are known as “emissaries of god,” they drop by any time they want without warning. When they come, you serve. You almost always serve them Chai. Whenever guests would come over to our house, my mom would immediately ask me to make a pot of chai. “Chai” is the Hindi word for “tea” but it usually means the well-known sweetened spiced milk-tea of India.

Chai is ubiquitous in India. It is the perfect drink for India’s hot weather because the hot tea triggers the body’s natural cooling reflexes and actually helps bring your body temperature down. Most Indians drink Chai at least twice a day, once with breakfast and again for an afternoon tea, just like the British. As it turns out, the British foisted tea on Indians not only as a way to sell tea, but also sugar.

Not surprisingly, the tea industry was brought to India by the British. Some of the best tea in the world grows in Darjeeling using tea and techniques for growing that the British East India Company stole from China in the 19th century.

Chai – the drink India can’t live without

It is an accident of history that at the time the British stole tea from China in a great act of industrial espionage, they also had a glut of sugar which they wanted to push as well, leading to Chai.

Chai is served on every street corner and on crowded train stations at all times of the day or night. In Bombay, chai is made so strong that the standard serving is “cutting chai,” a half glass of chai made strong enough that a half serving is plenty. If you want a full glass of chai, ask for a “double cutting chai”.

It is quite a sight to watch a street side vendor pour a cutting chai. They take one full glass of chai and one empty one. The chai is poured back and forth from one glass to another a few times from about 3 feet up and split equally between the two glasses. And amazingly not a single drop is spilled. This also helps to bring the chai down to drinking temperature.

Tea is India’s most popular drink – the country consumes 837,000 tonnes of it every year. The ritual of drinking chai transcends all boundaries, and roadsides are dotted with chai wallahs who serve it boiled up with spices, sugar and milk.

In many regions of the world, the word ‘Chai’ is the word used for tea. In India, however, ‘Chai’ or ‘Masala Chai’ describes a hot beverage which is prepared using specially selected spices and black tea. Before being served, milk or frothed milk is added. Going to India, you will find this delicious drink anywhere – in trains, at bus stations or on markets. Today, Chai is increasingly gaining popularity all over the world and it is a delicious alternative to coffee.

Indian Chai

Indians typically serve tea in their homes several times a day. India is the world’s second largest producer of tea and 70% of it is consumed within India. By April this year, chai will be officially declared the national drink of India.

Chai, a creamy, soothing South Asian beverage, combines black tea, spices, sugar and milk. Masala is a generic term for “a mixture of spices,” and chai is a generic term for “tea.” (Yes, “chai tea” is redundant—the phrase drives me bonkers!).  Chai is ubiquitous on the Indian subcontinent and in homes across the diaspora. An offering of tea is a sign of welcome and generosity. Every person who visited my childhood home was greeted with a cup of warm, milky, spicy tea.

Many American coffee bars list chai on their menus, but their concoctions tend to be overpriced and under-spiced. And the tea bags, pre-ground spice mixtures, and concentrates found on supermarket shelves are woefully bland. A proper masala chai made is made with loose tea and whole spices, resulting in a pungent and rich brew.

The spices that make up a traditional masala chai usually include some combination of cardamom, ginger, clove, black pepper and cinnamon. However, a cup of masala chai can be made to suit personal taste and preferences. My mother, for example, prefers cloves; my father would rather have fennel seeds. I’ve even known home cooks to empty their entire spice cabinet into their masala chai: coriander seeds, cumin seeds, threads of saffron, bay leaves, white peppercorns, even salt!

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.

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

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.
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