Chai is an historical drink; it’s considered as much as 5,000 years outdated, and originates from the Indian subcontinent, the place it’s nonetheless loved to at the present time each socially and to help digestion. In response to the Ayurvedic custom of drugs, the spices have numerous well being advantages, together with anti-inflammatory qualities and probably decreasing hypertension (through How Stuff Works). Though you could effectively have come throughout this beforehand as “chai tea”, the phrase “chai” is just the Hindi phrase for tea, subsequently whenever you name the drink “chai tea”, you might be merely referring to it as “tea tea.” That stated, tautologous names are extra widespread than we could understand. For instance, Mount Fuji, River Avon, and queso cheese are all names the place each phrases imply the identical factor, simply in several languages!
Though the title Chai means tea, making Chai did not initially contain the usage of tea leaves in any respect. It really referred to a particular mixture of spices, normally cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, and generally black pepper, that have been drunk as an elixir. It wasn’t till a lot later, throughout the colonial rule of India, that chai grew to become the drink we all know it as at the moment; a scrumptious combination of tea leaves, spices, milk, and sugar.
