Searching for Chai

I began my search for chai online not knowing what to expect.  I know chai is popular, but sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who drinks it.  I wondered if I would find anyone else out there who felt the same way about chai as I did.  I wondered if there were many people trying to make their own chai at home.

As you can see in the slide show below, my search led me to some interesting sites.  What is Chai? looks promising.  It has recipes, information about chai, a message board and more.  I also found an interesting site called I Love Chai Tea  where contributors share stories and experiences about chai.  This site definitely made me feel that I was discovering a larger community of people who have similar feelings about chai that I have.  I am looking forward to finding out more and interacting with some of these online communities.  In addition to these sites, there were many sites with videos and recipes for making chai tea.  The difficulty will be in narrowing down my choices and choosing the recipe that is right for me.  I imagine I will have to try several over the coming weeks.

Not all of my search results were fruitful.  I tried looking for chai tea on Pinterest and Twitter but found mostly unrelated or limited results.  Many posts or tweets were pictures or just a comment about relaxing and drinking chai.  So far, these sites don’t seem to have much to offer, but I may need to dig a little deeper before writing them off.

So far I have learned several things about chai:

• It is typically made with black tea, milk, sweetener and spices such as cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves and pepper.
• Many Indians drink chai daily.
• There are many different types of chai, depending on the spices used.
• Chai is becoming popular in many recipes for cookies, cakes, mints and even lip balm.