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Chai Ritual as Yoga for Relaxation

Written by: Sandy Kingsley

Article Overview: Giving your complete attention to making a glass of chai tea in the morning creates a very grounding, ceremony-like state of consciousness. Maybe we should call it chai zen. Or the yoga of tea: Chai Asana! Establish a morning ritual for yourself and feel how relaxed and mindful you will start your day. Read on for a great masala chai recipe!

Chai Ritual as Yoga for Relaxation

I have to share with you a fixation I've picked up over the past couple of years. While it has not turned into a full blown obsession, I do feel its absence and crave it when I've gone a few days with out it----masala chai, or chai tea as it is most commonly called. I don't like the kind you get at coffee shops, or the grocery store, so I make my own. And recently, the bag of chai spices that I bought in India ran out.

After a few days of panic, and emailing friends who are traveling around the world for the next year and a half to please buy me another bag on their stop in India, I got a grip, settled down and realized I had to come up with something more immediate. Getting resourceful, I began experimenting with creating my own spice mix. Using dried spices (as opposed to fresh whole cardamom and ginger which would add more time to my ritual that already takes about 15-20 minutes), I think I've found the right mix of ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon, and I boil that with loose black tea in milk. It's become a fixation that is more than about the drink itself; it's about the ritual of making chai to start out my day.

Going back a few years when I was visiting India, I arrived a straight coffee drinker. I did drink tea on occasion, but honestly the thought of adding milk to black tea was not at all appealing. Well, within my first week there, that changed. I was trekking in the outer Himalaya (the foothills of the range) with a friend. We had guides with us, and for every 4 kilometers we trekked, we stopped, the guides set up the stove, and prepared chai. Every morning, we'd wake up and begin our yoga asana practice as one of the guides made chai. When it was ready, he'd yell out to us, "Girls, time for Chai-asana!" (Put to a singing Indian accent.) One day our afternoon chai was made with milk straight from a goat, as we relaxed with the goat herders!

After the trek and back in the city, I had my first masala chai from a chai-walla-the guy on the street selling chai. Like the pretzel vendors in NYC, except chai wallas brew up a fresh batch as you wait, serving it in small glass or metal cups about the size of a shot glass.

I call it my masala chai immersion program, and now I have my own ritual of "chai asana", not quite every morning, and with much less sugar, but just as comforting, just as warm and spicy. The ritual of making it is really just as satisfying and calming as drinking it. Since you have to stand over the stove as it brews, it is much different than turning the coffee pot on and walking away to take care of other things. Being present for each step of its preparation, giving it your complete attention, all the way through to straining it into your mug, creates a very grounding, ceremony-like state of consciousness. Maybe we should call it chai zen.

The ritual and the tea together are a lovely way to start off the day. You don't need to take the immersion program like I did, but you can make it yourself and see if you enjoy it instead of a cup of the morning java once in a while.

Want a more specific recipe? Visit my website in the bio section, and go to the News tab at the top!

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Article Tags: masala chai, morning ritual, relaxation, state of consciousness, tea, yoga, zen



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