Notes from the Season: The Selvedge Team – Ashna Patel, Events Lead

Chai as Ritual, Offering and Gift

As the days shorten and the air grows sharp in the northern hemisphere, I find myself drawn to the small, steady acts that bring warmth. For me, this takes the form of chai: milk heating slowly on the stove, spices crushed under the weight of a pestle, steam rising and filling the kitchen. The ritual of making chai asks for time, attention, and a willingness to pause.

Street Vendor Making Traditional Indian Chai, Varanasi, UP, India. Stock photo.

In India, where chai is woven into the rhythm of daily life, it is found everywhere and made endlessly differently. In Delhi, roadside chaiwalas pour tea between vessels, aerating the liquid to deepen its flavour. In Kutch, nomadic pastoralists drink boiled buffalo, sheep and goat milk chai from shallow saucers as the sun rises over arid landscapes. Further up in the Himalayas, chai is enriched with ghee to nourish and protect the body against the cold. Ingredients shift according to region, season and preference: water or full milk, ginger, cardamom, clove, cinnamon, black pepper, sugar or jaggery. Some drink it in quick, repeated cups throughout the day; others linger over a single serving. There is no fixed recipe, only practice.

Himalayan women's organisation, working to revive native wool. Credit: Ashna Patel.

During my travels through India while visiting heritage craft clusters, I spent extended time with a women’s organisation in the Himalayan foothills working to revive the region’s native wool ecosystem. I stayed at a local homestay, shadowing my host as she moved through her day. She taught me many things including how to prepare local dishes, how to honour regional traditions, how to host generously—but it was her way of making chai that left a lasting impression, and has since become part of my own daily rhythm.

Sharing Chai. Credit: Ashna Patel.

Chai was made in pauses, between preparing meals, between visitors arriving and leaving, between stretches of work. When the women from the wool collective gathered, chai appeared as naturally as conversation. A stack of steel cups would clatter as they were passed from hand to hand, filled with richly spiced, sweet chai poured gently from a large thermos. Cups were held briefly warming hands and stomachs, then set down so work could continue.

Over time, I came to understand chai as a reason to gather, to sit, to listen. In much the same way as handcraft, it was repetitive, attentive and generous — an everyday ritual that quietly held people together.

This is the method that was taught to me, offered here not as instruction, but as a gesture of sharing:

Chai Tea. Photo credit: Stock photo by Charlotte May.

Chai for one cup

• ¾ cup water
• ½ cup milk of your choice
• 1 teaspoon loose black tea
• 1 clove
• 3 cardamom pods
• 1 inch cinnamon stick (or a pinch of ground cinnamon)
• A pinch of black pepper
• Half a thumb of fresh ginger, grated
• Sweetener of choice (I tend to use jaggery or demerara sugar)

Gently crush the spices using a pestle and mortar. Add water, tea, spices and ginger to a pan and simmer for 3–5 minutes. Add milk and bring to a boil, allowing the chai to rise and fall two or three times. Strain into a cup, sweeten, and drink slowly.

Chai can also be gifted. A simple spice mix, stored in a glass jar, to be brewed, baked with, or stirred into oats.

Chai spice mix

• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground cardamom
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger

Like chai itself, the proportions are flexible, shaped by taste and by whatever vessel you choose to fill. Adjust them, share them, pass them on.

Ashna Patel, Events Lead

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Image Credits:

Lead Image: Ashna Patel. Photo: Alun Callender

All further images as credited in photo captions.