Metal tea pot clunking around in the morning at 5 am. Huge pot of chai boiling.  Sometimes the aroma traveled through the kitchen into the outdoors.  Chai simmering with fresh ginger, cloves, cardamom, and at times, all of the above and a ton of fennel seeds. Chai was never made exactly the same.  Grandpa always took chai in his silver metal tea kettle to the sugar cane fields. They started harvesting around 5 am or even earlier.  He always told me “Chai will always taste better if you are sharing it with lots of people.

When I taught my first cooking class, I decided to take ownership of my grandpa’s tea kettle from my mom.  I served my students chai from that same kettle.  As I stirred,  in my heart were so many memories.  Memories of sharing chai and stories that were told about chai and even better were stories of their childhood while drinking chai.  The whole world would come to a standstill around 3 pm.  It was chai time.  Grandpa would sit on his straw woven bed.  Dad would strut in from his garage.  At times the bread truck would just be passing our home since it was on the way to Tavua Town.  All of us would rush to flag it down. Hot bread, homemade butter and a bowl full of chai made with fresh milk from the morning.  Really, it was a little piece of heaven right there in Asi Asi, Tavua,  Fiji Islands.

Over the years my clients and students ask the same question over and over again. Why does my chai taste different from when you make it??  They tell me how they follow the recipe to the exact tsp.  My Chai Spice Blend is a recipe created by my Dadi ( grandma) which I took over with the hopes to enable everyone with the tools to make a perfect cup of chai.  Time and time again I am told thier chai does not taste the same as when we drink it in class, or at  a dinner party and better yet, at the market.

I follow the same recipe and I was always puzzled why people had difficulty duplicating the flavors.I have finally concluded that there is a whole lot of truth to what grandpa used to say.  Chai always tastes the best when we share it with as many people as we can.