Similar to how drinking coffee is a cornerstone of American culture, chai is served in India as a morning caffeine boost, an afternoon pick-me-up and even a cozy drink to cap off the day. And much like you can find coffee shops and carts in America, in India, ambitious young chai wallahs sell piping hot glasses of chai in the most crowded of places helping millions of people — both locals and tourists — get through their day.
In American coffee shops, “chai” has basically come to mean a flavor of tea with spices, but in India, as well as Pakistan and other parts of the subcontinent, chai is not a flavor — it’s just the generic word for tea in Hindi. So when you say “chai tea,” you’re actually saying “tea tea.”…