Seen on a menu at an Indian fastfood joint. One of the items is the “cutting chai” which got me thinking.
What exactly is cutting Chai?
Is it Chai that’s made by slicing tea leaves off with a machete instead of delicately plucking them? Does the added violence add some vigor to the tea? Or perhaps that’s the stimulating effect the tea has in your mouth? Or maybe it makes you sarcastic?
Only one way to find out.
I’m not sure about the Cutting part, but Chai just means tea. You go into a tea shop or café in India and ask for Chai they will give you a black tea. What we call Chai here is actually Masala Chai. The hipsters shortened it to Chai when they should have just stopped being hipsters. You hear me hipsters, just top. It’s getting old. And everyone knows that when something you do gets old, you die.
Cutting chai is effectively a smaller serving of chai: tea that is cut or split. Mostly popular in Mumbai.
Other places like Bangalore support fractional serves too: ‘by-two coffee’ is popular, indicating that your group of two would like to split a coffee. More complex fractions are supported too: five coffees from three, etc., wouldn’t faze your average barista 🙂