Through an illustrated talk, academician Philip lutgendorf described how chai evolved from being a high society drink to the milky and sugary solution of the common man. By Christy Varghese
We all are used to sipping on a cup of modestly priced tea at our beloved chai wallahs, indulging in some much needed friendly gossip. But who amongst us would know that the humble chai was actually a foreign crop with considerably benign originsIJ We should actually give due credit to the British colonisation of India for relishing the drink, which is a standard now.
Most people today are well informed (thanks to the Internet) enough to know that tea originated in China. But though its consumption is rampant all across India, people barely have any idea as to how it developed into the daily habit it is for us today.
We were listening to an animated discourse by Philip lutgendorf at the University of Chicago Centre. lutgendorf is an American Indologist who also happens to be professor of Hindi and Modern Indian studies at the University of Iowa. He sought to enlighten attendees of his illustrated lecture with his vast research material, on the subject of his fascination — tea. “Mujhe chai bahut pasand hai,” he said, breaking into a smattering of Hindi every now and then.
“Commercial production of tea in India began after the conquest of large areas by the British East India Company. large tracts of land were converted for mass tea production soon after,” lutgendorf said. At that time, tea was considered to be a foreign drink for the cream of the society, mostly anglicised Parsis. One needed to put a lot of stress on the elaborateness of the tea drinking ritual and required to have all the necessary tools before procuring tea
lutgendorf had a lot of aces up his sleeve, constantly referring to pictures of advertisements from the vernacular press of the early 20th century, amongst other sources, from his vast research material on the topic. According to him, it was the Great Depression of 1929 which changed the tea scenario by causing the international tea market to fall apart.
He said, “There were no buyers at that time, for this relatively expensive drink. By 1933, there was an amount of Indian tea in excess of 100 million pounds, though previously famed and highly sought after by buyers, now lying idle, with no market abroad.” This conundrum was attempted at being rectified by exploring the scope offered by a domestic market which had to be cultivated, in order to cover losses.
The ‘tea propaganda’, as termed by lutgendorf, from 1936 onwards oversaw a massive advertisement campaign for putting forward tea as the national drink and introducing it as a part of the middle class modern practice. Its publicity strategy included putting up posters in railway stations and handing out pamphlets displaying characters in highly stereotypical fashion, swearing by the ‘benefits’ of drinking tea, along with its addictive properties apart from giving out free samples of tea leaves as well as the drink. This propaganda was furthered by introduction of tea breaks in offices along western lines to also aid the claim of chai being a worker’s drink.
“But all this while, tea was still considered to be a foreign product,” pointed out the academician. The period around 1947 was depicted by him as a transition period for tea from a foreign product to a swadeshi product with the call of “chai for all” embedded deeply in the national integration movement. “This was the time when small, family owned corner shops selling tea and Irani tea cafes’ situated in Mumbai, for that matter, came up. It was as if, without anything being said, the chai culture actually demanded social spaces,” he added.
The chai culture has come a long way from those seemingly bleak times, the signs are obvious to us all. But one cannot overlook various reforms which have aided the cause of chai in India, outlined lutgendorf. A tea leaf processing method by the name of crush, tear and curl, more commonly known as CTC, has allowed the tea industry to move forward in leaps and bounds. In 1961, 35 per cent of the Indian tea-makers employed CTC and now 90 per cent of tea manufacturers employ the method. Among the various interesting revelations made by lutgendorf, what seemed of utmost importance was him mentioning that America makes the worst tea. In relation to this, he disclosed that in India, the chaffs of tea leaves, which are blown out of the machines during the CTC process, are shipped to the West, mostly America, which sell the same in powdered form under the tag of ‘instant tea’. “The tea-makers here are street-smart, you have to hand it to them. They obviously know that it can’t be sold to Indians, who do not like anyone messing with their tea, so the idea of sending it overseas and making a profit is quite applaudable,” lutgendorf laughed. So, count yourself lucky that now you know at least one thing to avoid on your next visit to the States.
In today’s time there is a lot of relevance attached to the tea culture and its connection to our collective desi identity. All over the world, Indians’ penchant for drinking tea is well known, and lutgendorf highlighted this by displaying images of foreign cafes advertising their ‘exotic Indian chai enriched with spices’. But he maintains that such exotic chais are, at best, described as spiced milk and cannot qualify as a variant of the Indian tea. At the most it is just a sour gimmick.
lutgendorf also gave voice to his commonplace observation, which people seemed to have overlooked for a long time. Tea is such an integral part of our lives that it is quite tough to imagine important occasions without the presence of a cup of tea. “Among various examples, I’d like to mention that chai serves as the lubricant in business deals, and it is also the perfect glue in marriage proposals and negotiations,” he added with a grin. Beyond such glittery occasions, for many Indians, tea is not just a drink, it is a very important part of their diet. Chai’s hunger deadening effect along with its supply of sugar and carbohydrates gives it a high popularity rate among rickshaw-wallahs.
When we approached him after the interactive talk, lutgendorf did not abstain from answering our somewhat personal questions. He told us that in around the 1970’s he had heard of this mysterious, weird concoction called chai from fellow travellers. But the very moment he tasted it, he was hooked for life. He terms his relationship with chai as an addiction or a habit. A tea-aficionado since the time he had his first cup of tea in 1971, at New Delhi railway station, he has experienced time and again that the tea served by five star hotels almost anywhere in the world is equivalent to “flavoured dishwater.” He is all in for a cup of ‘aam aadmi ki chai’ any time of the day, but the best tea he has ever consumed was in Banares, he told us.
He also attributed his impeccable Hindi to the American Institute of Hindi Studies. It was quite typical of him, we must say, when he ended his dialogue with us in a query, “Kya aap mere saath chai peeyengeIJ” Needless to say, it was our pleasure to indulge this witty, learned man.